Homeschool Classmates

A lot of my resources come from Preschool and Kindergarten activity books from the library, and often those books are written for a classroom setting. There are just too many games and activities that I like, so I had to come up with extra "classmates" for my boys so that we could still play some of the games.

So we use stuffed animals and beany babies.

We line them up, put them in our circles, whatever the games call for.

One of our favorites is "Ten Little Monkeys". And yes, I let my kids jump on the couch for this game. (I know, I'm a cool Mom!)

These cuddly animals work great for other things in our schooling as well.

We use them for role playing in our character studies. For instance, I give a scenario where they pretend bad manners between their animals, then they do-over the right way. Or their animals will have pretend disobedience to the other "parent" animal, and then we do-over to show the proper obedience. It's a great way to point out behavioral issues that I have observed in my kids without actually having to point my finger at them. They learn so much from having to "instruct" their own little animal.

What other things could we use stuffed animals in our schooling? Hmm . . . I need ideas!