Recently, I started an opportunity to write some articles for another company. I do love to write, it isn’t great pay for my writing skills (no I’m not bigheaded, but I am frequently told that I have a gift with words and someone who cannot accept that they have a talent has very low self-esteem) but it got my foot in the door for freelancing my writing skills.
Due to this I have obviously had to pick up on my research (as if going to college wasn’t enough am I right? Haha, just kidding I love research) and recently I had to do an article about children who get bored and what to do. During this I came across an amazing idea that someone had shared, so I tried it!
The Jar Idea
It’s called a boredom jar, I put on it: The “I’m Bored Jar”. I put in a bunch of pieces of paper each with a different activity on it for the kids to be able to do something not screen related. Well, except for the taking pictures one. Activities to engage their creativeness, and to learn new things.
Some examples of activities I used are:
Ø Make a brochure
Ø Create your own movie poster
Ø Create a new animal
Ø Research and make a presentation for a different country
Ø Research and make a presentation about an animal
Ø Make finger puppets
Guys, my kids absolutely love this jar. It gives them a chance to learn new things, and to have fun. In a pinch when they get bored, instead of coming to disrupt my work they just grab something out of this jar. And after they read what they are supposed to do, they simply put the piece of paper back in the jar and get started.
This also helped me with some of their homeschooling, our printer has been acting weird, working one day and then not working the next. So, on a day that I couldn’t print out their worksheets this week I had them do a science project and made them all do some research on an animal of their choosing. And for math I had them all play Yahtzee together. (Both of these are in our "I'm Bored Jar".)
The last time I couldn’t use the printer before this jar I had written out their assignments, it took forever, and I was just incredibly frustrated. To top it off, I get ahead of myself sometimes and my letters connect so I had ended up making my 8-year-old daughter spell like four words totally wrong on her spelling list. I was so frustrated with myself for being the reason she couldn't do her work properly.
Being Patient
Patience is something I have to work with every day, I mean we all do. And now, being their teacher on top of it all, I have had to really take a step back to figure out how to help them learn best.
It feels like a never-ending practice, but getting ahead of myself and not being patient just causes more issues.
When kids get frustrated, or anyone really, they just don’t learn as well, they don’t absorb all of the information.
My 6-year-old had a shadow assignment the other day, and we talked about how the source of light behind a figure is what makes it. Well, after talking about it, she had drawn a shadow in front of the light source rather than in front of the object creating the shadow. There was even an example on the same paper for her to see where the shadow should be, and she just didn’t get it.
We both got frustrated, but after reexplaining what was going on she seemed to understand and made the shadow correctly.
I feel like she still needs help with the concept, but luckily, I have figured out a way to help her with this, and actually this boredom jar is what gave me the idea. I’ve decided that she is going to make some finger puppets and go into a dark room with a flashlight so we can figure out how light and shadows work.
By making it a game and having her do this puppet show I feel like doing this will help her to truly understand.
Final Thoughts
Something else I had to work on recently was an article about how to help your kids be successful in life, and doing the research on that and seeing all of the things that can be done to help your kids veer in the right direction was awesome! I feel like this writing experience and research is definitely worth it.
Making a difference starts with change, and that starts with our kids as they are truly the future of us all. If things are to get better in the world, it starts with all of us. Maybe one person can’t do much, but one person spreading the idea and gaining followers for the idea, plants even more seeds for growth.
Best regards,
~TKNott~
Comments