Posters As Learning Aids

First grader's posters for new year

Okay, I went a little poster crazy.  I don't mean that I have posted everywhere on the world wide web.  Rather, I've put up posters within my house.  This past Sunday, my hubby decided to put up a bunch of pictures and other things on our walls.  That helped take some things off of our floors.

That encouraged me to place educational posters in the kids' rooms.  When I had a classroom, my walls were filled to the brim.  I still remember my nephew once telling me that it was very distracting to him.  Then again, he was diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder.  I worried that I would go overboard for my kids, too.

Among Kaelyn's posters are: 

--Consonant Blends

--Vowels

--What begins with each alphabet

--Printing the alphabet

--Numbers from 1-100

--Money

Feelings poster

I decided to put this one up so my first grader can learn to express herself more effectively.  I wanted to give her a way to tell us when she is frustrated.  With this poster, she can let us know how she is feeling at any given time.  My hope is that she will be able to communicate to us, in a concrete manner, when we need to address how she feels, throughout her new school year.

Writing corner

I decided to create a writing corner for my teen daughter.  She is into writing although her thoughts get a little jumbled together.  That's why I wanted her to have these posters to refer to when writing.  The posters deal with the writing process, parts of a story, parts of speech, and an editor's checklist.

Hallway posters

I mounted some posters in the hallway.  Yes, I know, my whole house is a classroom.  I love words on my walls!  The posters above are for Study Habits and Things To Do when bored.

Parts of speech poster

I even put a poster behind my son's bedroom door.  This one is for the Parts of Speech.  He chose that one for his room.

C-SPAN's American Presidents Timeline

Weeks ago, we received this free poster, C-SPAN's American Presidents Timeline, through snail mail.  My younger son's room had the widest wall for this poster.  My son relished the idea of it being in his room.  He liked that it included our current president, Mr. Obama.

Science and history posters

I think my son's room is the history poster room.  Maps are on this wall.  He also has the multiplication and division charts on another wall (not pictured).

Oldest son's room

My oldest son is now in what used to be my classroom.  I never took down the set that includes the 5 W's for writing top stories, but he doesn't mind.  I also have the multiplication and punctuation posters there.  I do want to find a regular page size poster about contractions because that is one of his weaknesses.  He often misuses contractions in his comics, and I want to help him overcome it.

Well, thanks for reading this entry about the posters I am using for my children.  I hope I've given you an idea of visual learning aids which could be used in the home school.

How about you, my readers?  Are you using posters as educational aids?  Have you used any posters for your children to refer to in their learning environment?  It's fun to find various teaching aids.  It gives our children a chance to learn from different sources.

 

I pray that God helps us all, whether we are homeschooling or not.  May God bless us all with His wisdom and peace, as we teach our children.

This has been an entry for Thorough Thursdays.  Hope you liked it.

Homeschool Organization 3: Music, Poster, & Art Supplies

Old, broken container that served its purpose in our homeschool.

I have many more areas of organization to present you in this third installment of homeschool organization.  I am presenting it to you piecemeal so that I can allow you to digest the ideas slowly.  I have, as a homeschooling mom, seen that some containers are no longer doing their job properly.  That's why I often change out the contents into other containers.  Yes, I like to re-purpose containers.

First up are the musical toys.

Musical instruments fit in this Rubbermaid container.

I went through many containers trying to find the right one that would hold all of the instruments.  I was given this green container by a friend.  It fits lots of toys, including the maracas and two xylophones.

Musical instruments that my children use to worship God.

 

Here is a sampling of some of the toys that fit inside the green box.  I have collected these toys over the years. Some I have found in yard sales.  Some were given to us.  Some we bought.

Next, we have the posters.

A large box that held a disassembled computer chair hold some posters.

Over time, I have also accumulated quite a few posters and charts.  The best containers for posters have been flat boxes like the one above.  You can slide the posters in and out.  The posters remain flat.  I dislike when posters are rolled up and stay curled when you try to hang them up on the wall.

Posters are gathered together in two rings.

Hole-punched the posters and put them in rings.

I used two rings to distribute the weight of carrying the posters.

White rack held my posters by the rings.

Another option is to group them together.  I hole-punched the ends of the posters and put them in rings.  That way, I could hang them on a makeshift wardrobe rolling rack.  My hope is to find a more sturdier rack than the one you see above.  That white one was cheap and cheaply made, as you can see from the legs.

Finally, we deal with the arts and crafts supplies.

This is really two containers-the pink one and the white one.

The containers above held the arts and crafts.  I had joined the two sets of containers with double-sided glued tabs.  The supplies stayed in this setup for a few years.  The bad thing is that the pink drawers were broken.  Also, we had to yank the drawers open just to access the supplies.

The white tower is really two sets of containers.

Again, I used double-sided glue tabs to keep these two sets of white containers together.  It used to hold the girls' doll collection.  Since they decided to get rid of the dolls and their accessories, it freed up the tower.  I decided to re-purpose the tower for the arts and crafts supplies.

Closeup of top of tower.

The top portion holds paints, glues, smocks, and old CDs.

Closeup of bottom of tower

The bottom of the tower holds wood craft, construction paper, and colors.

Well, I hope that I have provided some solid ideas on how to organize arts supplies, posters, and musical instruments within a homeschool.  There are more pictures and themes I want to cover.  Stay tuned to see how I organize such things as DVDs, audiocassettes, and the Wii games.  In order to use the items in your home, we must make the time to organize our teaching aids.

Thanks for reading this blog entry.

How about you, my readers?  Are your posters all in one box?  Are your instruments ready for your kids to use?  Are your arts supplies organized enough for your children to want to use them?  I encourage you to see if you have the right containers to hold these collections.

I pray that God bless you all, my dear readers, with His wisdom and peace.

This has been an entry for Thorough Thursdays.