When my children were in Pre-K through 3rd grade, they became easily bored with worksheets and textbooks. As a matter of fact, so did I. It was like pulling teeth to get some of them to finish their work, let alone care about learning.

We came across curriculum that helped take the drudgery out of school in those early years. The children were learning and having fun at the same time. The only problem was, this was so much fun, it didn't feel like school!

To make sure the basics were covered, we used Mortensen Math (a hands-on and workbook combination) and Play-n-Talk for phonics. I read them lots of stories, including historical ones, and we did some science experiments. Besides that, we had some games that taught concepts well.

GRAMMAR- The children learned the parts of speech through grammar songs and doing charades For instance, in the Verb Game, a child would come into the room being a verb, and we would have to guess what it was. Mad Libs was also a big help for grammar. (Mad Libs are still available in most book stores or party supply stores.)

MATH - Lots of games here. We played one I called "Math Beans". I would take a bag of dried, large beans, and spray paint one side of them. After they were dry, we could use them for so many kinds of math! To internalize a number, to really understand what 7 meant, for instance, I would take 7 of the beans, let the child count them, then hide them behind my back, putting some of the beans in one hand, and some in the other. Showing the child the first hand, they would have to guess how many were in the hidden hand. This taught addition and subtraction for that particular number family. Also, since they were two-colored, I could drop them from my hand onto the table, the child could count how many were bean colored, and how many were white. This would also introduce the concept of fractions (how many of all the beans are white?).

The beans could be put into bags... the child counting out ten, ten times... would make a bag of 100 (ziplock is good, because they can see them). Also, counting out individual bags of ten and securing them. Lay out three pieces of paper next to each other (we used different colors) and label at the top of one, 100s, at the top of another tens, and on the last, ones (Or start with only tens and ones in 1st grade). Write down a number and ask the child to build the number on the papers using the bags of beans. The number 315 would have three bags of 100 beans on the hundreds page, one bag of tens on the tens page, and five individual beans on the ones page. It's good to award points for correct answers instead of grades when doing math in this way. After they get used to the beans, you can use real or play money the same way.

Another game that teaches base 10 is "Zud". We use UNIFIX cubes for this. The rules are, you cannot say the number ten, you have to say zud. And, you are not allowed to say zud-zud. There are two papers side by side of different colors. There is the ones page and the zud page. The child tells you the number of cubes as you place them on the ones page. Once you get to (10) they say zud. No more than nine cubes are allowed on the ones side, (and no more then nine zuds on the zud side, if you ever get that far) so you stick the ten cubes together, place it on the zud page, and call it one zud. Then counting as you add individual cubes to the ones page, one zud and one, one zud and two, ... eventually two zud or further. To make the game more interesting you may ask a question and each right answer gets another cube. You can use an egg timer to see how quickly they can reach a certain score. This way, they learn that each place can only hold nine before moving to the higher place value.

Cookie Math: Bake chocolate chip cookies. Introduce measurement by volume. You may show how 1/4 and 1/4 cup does fit perfectly into 1/2. Older children can double a recipe and practice multiplying fractions. The children may count the chocolate chips in two cups and write down how many there are in all, then guess how many chips are in each cookie after the batch is cooked. They should write down their guess. Then they can help carefully eat three (or more) cookies and discover how many chips are really in each one. Write the actual number down for each cookie. Find the average chips per cookie and see how close the child's estimate was to the actual finding. Note: since this is only a small sampling of the whole batch, it isn't as accurate as eating all the cookies, but this is that nature of test groups or polls!

M&Ms. (as age or grade appropriate), Sort by color. What percentage of the whole are brown? If you pull four M&Ms from the bag, are you likely to get an orange one? These can be used for addition, subtraction (yum), multiplication, and handing them out to the crew, division. These also work well for fractions.

Playing Store - Save old boxes, jars, cans of groceries and label them with prices and set up a mock store. Or if you prefer a clothing or jewelry store, those work well too. Give your child some play money to shop and if you have an older child, let them play the cashier. The child will have to figure out what they can afford to get. If you want to make it more advanced, let them figure out price per ounce to get the best bargains, have two children compete to get the most groceries on the list for their money. I would definitely try this at home before doing it at the real store.

Tuppence - This is something we did to motivate our children to do their chores. We would award tuppence (in a checkbook log) for chores, and on Saturday, set up a table of prizes. Each prize would be worth a certain number of tuppence. They could save for bigger prizes, or buy more small ones. This was an introduction to budgeting on paper.

Note: We worried from time to time about paying the children for chores... and certain things were expected to be done without payment. But for the sake of teaching them the value of money because it represented work, it was worth it. Today, the children still do help around the house when asked without expecting money.

READING: Besides reading to the children from the best, most exciting books, on a regular basis, we have set up an annual reading contest. The children get credit for each 100 pages (as one book), and a certain amount of money at the end of the contest for filling out their reading cards with names of books they have read. Bible pages were worth more (four times as much) and biographies or required reading were double points. Besides the amount each received for their own reading, the one who read the most received an additional money prize. The children have read and discovered they liked books that they otherwise wouldn't have given a chance.

Unit studies and field trips, music and art, nature walks and experiments, star gazing, drama, building or taking things apart to see how they work... all these things can enhance the child's learning and help them to remember and to care about their subject. As your children grow to love learning, you will want to introduce more traditional methods as well, gradually increasing the structure. Even as they mature, they don't need to be a slave to a book, if there is a more effective way of learning the material. By the time they are in Jr High/High School, your students should be motivated and pretty self-sufficient in their education. They will also develop a strong desire for learning in a certain area. They will begin to understand their God-given gifts and talents. Those interests should direct the parent in selection of electives. It may very well become their vocation.

Disclaimer note: These are the methods that have worked well for my family. Some children do learn better with traditional methods from the beginning. Some are distracted by all the noise and the color, and miss the point of the lesson or story. The key here is to know your own children.