Practical Homeschool Projects

Practical Homeschooling Projects

By Valerie Mcclintick Nature Crafts 0 Comments

Many people think that homeschoolers just lock themselves in their homes and never see another soul. However, homeschooling is full of opportunities to get out, stay busy, and make new friends. That was until recently. Recent shutdowns have affected the homeschooling community just as much as everyone else. However, you want to keep your kids engaged and learning even when you can’t go to co-op, clubs, field trips, and more. So, here are some practical homeschool projects to keep your young learners learning and growing right at home.

4-H and Small Scale Farming Projects for Homeschoolers

It’s rewarding and challenging to work with animals. Even if you just have a small amount of space, your children participate in a rabbit or chicken project with 4-H. If you have a larger property, you could consider sheep, goats, pigs, or even cows. These will teach children responsibility, organization, and along with endless lessons in biology. However, if raising an animal outside is completely out of the question, you could consider fostering a cat or dog. This will give a waiting animal a loving home until he can be adopted. Also, your child will get the experience of raising animals without long-term commitment or farm animals. To join 4-H contact your state extension office (which is usually at a state university). However, to foster cats and dogs, you will need to find a shelter or charity that arranges that.

The Benefits of Children Learning to Garden

Garden are ripe with learning opportunities. Aside from personal responsibility and understanding botany, gardens provide bushels of hands-on learning fun that is practical and highly educational. So, set up some raised beds or places a few containers on your porch, and get gardening. Here are some skills that can be learned from any sized garden.

Planning/plotting the garden
Companion gardening
Cultivation
Harvesting
Record keeping
Propagating new plants
Pressing flowers
Canning food
Pest control (especially organic pest control)
Effects of weather and climate
Beneficial organisms
Selling surplus
Discovering new recipes for bumper crops

Why You Should Add Sewing and Handiwork to Your Homeschool

The domestic arts are becoming lost skills. Although sewing and handiwork are not considered academics, they are chock full of learning potential. In fact, sewing, knitting, needlepoint, crochet, etc are mini math lessons in disguise. So pull out some yarn and craft the perfect project for your homeschool. Here are some other ideas:

Knitting
Sewing
Quilting
Interior decorating
Small crafts
Crafts or sewing projects for charity:
- Quilts for NICU babies
- Knit hats for babies in need
- Crochet hats for cancer patients
Learn to repair home goods and clothing
Tailoring
Scrapbooking
Floral arranging

Survival Skills for Homeschooling

Learning survival skills can be fun and challenging. Best of all, you don’t have to travel far to practice your new skills. Your backyard, a state park, or the local walking/biking path all offer opportunities to practice surviving in the wild. Also, these skills are incredibly practical. Here are some skills to tackle:

Tree identification
Orienteering
Foraging and plant identification
Emergency preparedness
Fire building
First Aid
Tracking and identifiying animals
Knot tying
Swimming
Building emergency shelter
Fishing
Map reading