We were given the products featured in this post in exchange for this review and post on helping your children learn at home. All opinions are honest and our own.
My children are heading back to school this week and it marks the end of a long period of home schooling. I actually really enjoyed home schooling in many ways. I loved learning more about what they are interested in and how they learn. I found it really rewarding teaching them new things and seeing them learn and develop every day.
As they return to school I'd like to continue to be involved in helping them to learn. I am also mindful that over the next few months one or more of us may get sick, or we may have to isolate due to local lockdowns or positive cases in their school so I don't think that we've seen the back of home learning just yet.
Learning Resources is a great website with so many brilliant educational toys and games. They also have lots of free printable worksheets too. We have been sent a few of their games and learning tools to try out and share with you. They are great ways of helping your children learn at home.
Sum Swamp
This is an addition and subtraction game aimed at children between 5-10. It is perfect for my little boy who is 6 to help him with his mental addition and subtraction skills in a fun way. We have been having a quick game after dinner and his adding and subtraction have gotten a lot quicker! The maths in this game is too simple for my elder daughter (9) but she enjoyed playing the game with us in any event which shows that it is a great standalone game, even once your little one has mastered the arithmetic needed. You basically have three die, two number ones and one with + and - on. When you throw them you create a sum, the answer to which is the number of spaces you move on the board. There are also bonus squares where you can move extra spaces if you roll an even or an odd number. A game of Sum Swamp took about 10 minutes or so, is easy to set up and the children enjoyed it.
Sight Word Swat
This is a brilliant game with lots of different uses. You basically have 300 high frequency words from phases 2-6 of the government Letters & Sounds phonics framework printed onto fly shaped cards and a plastic 'fly swatter'. The words are colour coded for different difficulties. The idea is that you call out the words on the card and your child has to swot them when they see them.
Sight Word Swat is lots of fun, you can play it with one child, or with more than one if you want to get competitive! It's a really fun way to get your child reading and learning high frequency words whilst they are having fun.
Mathlink Cubes
I know that my children have used these in school so we actually bought a set during lockdown and they were so helpful in aiding my little boy (6) to visualise sums. You can use the Mathlink Cubes for all sorts of elements of maths, from addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, fractions, area, volume etc. They are easy for children to use and click together themselves if they are thinking about a particular sum or problem. They are definitely a staple item in our house. There are also separate activity sets you can buy too which are a great learning resource.
Tackling Tables
Again, this is a game that has the benefit of helping your little ones learn some maths skills. The girls have now learnt their times tables so this game is a brilliant tool for re-enforcing them. There are different coloured cards with time tables sums on them. You can choose to have particular times tables based on the colour of the cards. This is great because it means you can successfully play the game with different aged children without them getting frustrated that it is too difficult or even too easy for them.
It's the kind of game that you can play quite quickly, so it's easy to get in a quick ten minute times tables practice after dinner. I'm sure that within no time the girls times tables recollection will be much improved.
Definitely take a browse of the Learning Resources website, there is so much on there that could be useful for your journey in educating your children.
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