There are many different ways to run your homeschool day. Perhaps you like a planned-out Classic style, or you prefer your days to be more eclectic or nature-based. One thing that is important across all methods of learning is incorporating craft time into your lessons.
Why is craft time such a big deal? After all, wouldn’t kids be better off studying or getting hands-on experience outside? While there are many important aspects to homeschool life, the fact remains that crafts are an invaluable tool to not only have fun but also teach your kids.
Visual and kinesthetic learning are both great ways to imprint a lesson into your kids’ minds. Pretty much all kids absorb information this way best when they are young, but many continue to thrive from hands-on lessons as they get older as well. Craft time incorporates both!
How Crafts Help With Learning
Taking a concept they’ve read about and drawing it or using some other art method helps them process information in multiple ways. The first way is that they now have a visual aid to help their memory. Similar to how adding musical elements help us with learning, art does the same thing. It creates visual cues in their brain that make that lesson unique.
The other way it helps is that they need a certain level of understanding in order to translate it to art! In their efforts to depict a lesson, they have to remember what they’re trying to create. This encourages them to focus on the lesson more or go back to it as needed to remember what is required for the artwork.
Here is a quick example of how these two points have worked in our lessons. While teaching my daughter about the 7 days of creation, we did a craft to represent each day and hung them all up in order. This hands-on activity of creating based on her lessons helped her to gain a better grasp on what was created and actually remember the order that God did it! I have even found drawings to be helpful in my own Bible studies, such as drawing out God’s throne room as described in Revelation 4.
Other Benefits to Crafting
The benefits of craft time don’t stop at visual aids and memory cues. Crafting is essential to the school day because, well, kids love it!! There are so many ways to go about creating artwork that you’re sure to find one that your kids get excited about. And isn’t that excitement for learning and creating what homeschool is all about?
One of my favorite aspects of crafting for homeschool is the creativity it allows my children. Similar to reading a book and imagining the story in your head versus a TV telling you how to picture it, creating artwork in school allows kids to work out the lesson in their own creative minds. There is nothing more powerful than teaching our kids to take control of their own understanding and coming to the answers themselves, and art is a wonderful way to encourage that.
Craft Time for All Ages
As you may have guessed, craft time is an essential part of our family’s day for both homeschool and fun. Even if you have older kids, don’t count them out for having crafty fun! If anything, they may be interested in trying more advanced art methods and expanding their visual learning. While the idea of “craft time” is so often associated with younger kids working on fine motor skills, its influence can go much beyond that once you tap into your child’s individual interests.
Thank you to Christine A. of The Growing Creatives
for writing this Crew Article.
Let’s Encourage Each Other!
How do you incorporate craft time into your homeschool day?
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