An Unschooling Homeschooling Giftlist

So many of the big sites have Christmas giftlists that are great, if you had all the money to buy the stuff and knew the exact people they are talking about, maybe. Geekparenting.com did a cool one of geeky stuff for babies and really all you need is to hand a geek a Tigerdirect or Thinkgeek catalog and have the perfect wishlist. But I was thinking, what about an unschooling family? What about a nontraditional homeschooling family? The following is a list of the cool educational/fun things I have been way too tempted to buy around the net.

Acrobotics: We have a set of these and the kids LOVE them. They are actually my husband’s and the kids often beg to play with them. They have used these not only to build strange towers with geometric magnets that I picked up on clearance at Saples but have learned all about how magnets worked, poles, repelling, and how various joints work. (I should mention that they learned all about 3-d shapes using the cheap plastic geometric shapes magnets I got at Staples. VEry cool.)

Tetris Magnets: These are just too cool. Plus what better way to learn spatial relationships (other than Blockus of course, which is almost as cool.)

Blokus: We LOVE Blokus. This is a game that is easy for even a 4 year old to grasp and which the whole family enjoys. It helps children develop problem solving skills and spatial relationships.

What better way to introduce kids to the periodic able than on a shower curtain. My kids LOVE to take baths and read EVERYTHING they see. Having a giant periodic table in a place they are likely to view it and spend a long time viewing it is perfect. If we had this it would go on the inside of our decorative curtain facing the tub. We had a giant aquarium one up that way and the kids took great delight in finding all the fish and turtles and figuring out what they were. Of course this is also cool.

Having killed off several ant farms in my life time I find this VERY cool. Especially great for families like ours who due to allergies cannot have pets. What a great way to study ants.

Giant plush microbes. Much better than beanie babies. 🙂 What kid wouldn’t love their own plushie E. Coli or Lice.

 

If you are not so sure about the microbes, what about a diy music box kit. I know my oldest who LOVES music boxes and always wants to take them apart would LOVE this.

Then there are the CRanium games. We LOVE Cranium games and still play Hullabaloo even though it is a bit young for all three kids it is great for listening skills. This one looks like a GREAT game for all. Since we have several ages playing and all three kids LOVE playing games we like to look for games that are good across the age ranges. This one looks awesome.

So many other things out there but that is good for now. 🙂 The point is that there are many books and activities out there that are fun AND educational. My son is getting The Dangerous Book for Boys which my husband and I perused before I wrapped it. There are so many cool things in it that remind me of the activities my brother and I did growing up. I think the girls are going to get as much out of it as he will. 🙂