Country Girl Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 I'm not a fan of busy work for the sake of busy work but...... my 9yo needs more to do during the school day. He is finishing his work very quickly and ends up being a disruption to the other kids. Part of it may be the level of work that he is doing, but part of it is just that he is a diligent worker and grasps the concepts easily. I don't want to punish him for getting his work done in a timely manner by just piling on more busy work, but I'd like to find a project or another subject that would interest him that he could start to work on. I'd like to find something that has some educational value, but that is also something that he enjoys doing and doesn't see as me giving him more school just for the sake of calling it school. For instance, his brother and sister both play instruments and his older brother has starting working through a mechanical drafting program. These are things that they enjoy doing and don't really look at as "school". We've tried the instrument route with this ds, but he didn't get too excited about playing the guitar or violin, and with our geographical limitations, we are hard pressed to find a teacher for any of the instruments he has expressed an insterest in (drums or trumpet). He showed some interest in drawing and so I bought him a bunch of drawing supplies and even offere to buy him some books or programs to help him with his technique, but that interest seems to have fizzled. Here is a list of what he is currently doing for school: BJU Math 5 WWE 3 30 minutes of extra writing NOEO Biology 2 MCT Practice Island Notgrass America the Beautiful Logic wkbks Megawords 1 Mandarin lessons 4xs week Kung Fu lessons 1x week Any ideas of things we are missing from his school day that we should add, or inspiration for some extra acitivites would be awesome. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 What about including silent independent reading? This will keep him busy without being "busy work" and quiet. Or have him research a topic of his choice and prepare an oral presentation to the family about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wabi Sabi Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 Art? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckens Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 1) Legos from Lego Education (teaches engineering and programming). I would do either WeDo or Mindstorms. 2) A second language. Chinese is great. Knowing Hindustani or Spanish will make him a powerhouse and open doors for him. (To sell this, google the top languages in the world and how many people he could communicate with if he knew either of those on top of Chinese). 3) Silent reading. 4) Engineering Activities with Paper and Cardboard Pitsco has many building kits: from catapults to rockets. Browse the site. 5) Snap Circuits to teach electronics. There are threads on WTM discussing which kit is the best. 6) Join Boy Scouts, and assign this time for working on badge requirements. 7) If you have a dog (or a neighbor with a dog), assign this time to walk the dog, play with the dog, and train it. Tricks could be: sit, lay, leave it, roll over, come, etc. What would he like to do? What solution does he have for this issue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbpaulie Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 I'll add in Scratch programming - http://scratch.mit.edu Magic? he could then perform at local nursing home/ Anything he can do to help out w/ the younger? - paper grading? Reading? Providing spelling words? What's his interest of the week? Get LOADS of library books at the library on the topic or look up websites for it. Set boundaries - this is what disrupting looks like. You may do what you want while I finish up w/ others but it "this" (disrupting) happens then.... Laundry, dinner and house cleaning sound like wonderful ideas to me :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 DIY.org. He can pick a badge/educational area to work on, get the materials, and spend hours on the projects. Ask me how I know. :laugh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 I like the engineering ideas presented but I would say the clearest thing missing is and the easiest thing to implement is more reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Posted January 7, 2013 Share Posted January 7, 2013 The Singapore Math "More Challenging Word Problems" book is filled with great math problems that aren't busy work by any means. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Country Girl Posted January 8, 2013 Author Share Posted January 8, 2013 Thank you everyone for the ideas. He already spends quite a bit of time each day reading independently by his own choice, and it is usually my default suggestion to him when he is looking for something to do, so I think we do have that covered pretty well. Unfortunately, being in China limits some of our resources to a few of the things mentioned, but you all still gave me lots of ideas to explore. I'm going to sit down with him and go over some of the ideas to try to gauge his interest and see if we can find something that sparks some excitement in him. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trilliums Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 Around that age I set up a box of lentils for my kids. I added in measuring cups, rulers, hollow geometric shapes, a scale, magnets, bottle tops, etc. It was a bit messy at times, but it occupied them for surprisingly long periods of times. They would use it together, so I do not know the potential for solitary enjoyment. They also still enjoyed home made play dough and wiki sticks. Does he have any interest in stop action animation, cooking, origami, paper airplanes, growing a garden, programming (scratch, alice, gamemaker are all free)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs Twain Posted January 8, 2013 Share Posted January 8, 2013 If you have the online access, you might try Mark Kistler's online drawing lessons. There are a bunch of free drawing lessons he could try on the link below. He would just need paper and pencils and to watch the lesson on the computer. My kids enjoy these quite a bit. http://www.mkisdraw3d.com/public/p_ovaa/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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