The Great South African Education at Home Adventure

Written by Karen Galloway

100 Good ideas from South African Homeschoolers for the kids at home right now.

Draw around your feet, work out the surface area, cut them out and make it into artwork of sorts.
Invite an older friend, family or neighbour to give a history lesson from their own life. Invite another person and compare experiences, discuss verbal history, how can the stories of one event differ?
Take turns to read stories: read to your parents, read with siblings and get your parents/guardians to read to you.
Work out what volume of water your favourite mug holds, then check some of the containers in your recycling bin and see how much water they can hold if filled up to the lid.
Catch the rain in various containers and try to work out how many mm fell that day. Why is a rain gauge a conical shape?
Make your favourite supper from raw ingredients and work out how much the whole meal cost. Did you add in the cost of your labour? How long were you cooking for?
Write a story about the adventures a child had at home when they needed to stay home from school. Illustrate this story. Can you swop stories with a friend and give each other helpful feedback about how you could make them better?
Do you know anyone with cows? Do you know how to milk a cow? Get some cream, put it into a clean jam jar and shake it until it turns into butter, add a bit of salt and eat it on bread.
Work out how much water you use to wash your clothes. Can you find a way for it to easily run into a vegetable garden or fruit tree? Calculate how much water you use every month to wash clothes.
Plant a bean or other seed and see if you can get your bean to grow faster than your sibling/friend’s bean. If you put it under a pot what happens to the leaves? Can you work out what the ideal amount of water to give it is?
Get a leaf and draw it or rub over it. Do you know what all the parts of a leaf do? How many different types of leaves can you find, and how do they differ?
Get your mom/dad/guardian to make up a story and write it down for them. Illustrate it and write on the cover “Told by [Mom/Dad etc] and illustrated by me”
Put some water into different types of bottles/containers (get different sizes and colours of bottles) and leave them in the sun and work out which one gets hotter and why? Could you heat your body washing water like this?
Peel an orange or a naartjie, work out how many segments there are, can you work out what they would be as fractions? What percentage of the whole fruit? Did you get seeds? Why do some fruit get lots of seeds and some only a few?
How do you test if an egg is fresh or old? What changes in the egg to enable you to do this? How can you tell if the egg was fertilised or not?
Look in your food in the cupboard, does the food come from South Africa or elsewhere? Can you find the other countries on a map? How does the food get here? And the South African food, where in the country can it be produced or grown?
Pick some grass, and pour a little milk in a cup – look at them both and see if you can work out how a cow can make grass into milk? Do you know what the relationship between big grazers and healthy grasslands is? Have you tried to add some cow poop to your garden? What makes grasses healthy?
Phone a friend with chickens: Can a chicken lay an egg if there is no rooster? How often can a chicken lay an egg? If eggs are different colours on the outside, are they different colours on the inside?
Ask 4 family/friends what skills they need for their work (and note that keeping family is also work! Just not always paid work!) Are you able to learn some of those skills whilst you are still a child?
Measure the length of your fingernails and then measure them 2 weeks later. How much do they grow each day? What is your fingernail made of?
On one day, clean the house together as a team (put music on if it helps!) then do it on your own. Which is faster? How does team work affect the job? How does it affect the team’s feelings?
Write down your whole name vertically, then make up a poem about yourself, starting each line with the letter from your name.
Learn five words from 2 other languages, and also the phrase “I am trying to learn how to speak_____________” (Write the words down to remember them, and note the spelling in other languages.)
Find out where in South Africa you can grow: maize, oranges, peaches, oats, almond nuts, wheat, olives, beans. What do the farmers in your area grow? What could you grow around your home? Have you ever seen gardens on walls or roofs?
Go find a few flowers. Put them between pieces of paper or newspaper and place under a heavy book or flat piece of wood. Wait a few days, and then take it out, stick it to a page and try to name the parts. Why do plants have flowers? Do insects/birds like some colours more than others?
Find sticks, rocks, stones and grasses and see if you can make a whole town/village on the ground. Try to lay out the things the mini people in that town/village would need like a park/open space or a shop or school etc.
Work out how big your roof is. How much water could you catch if it rained 15mm? How would you catch the water? Are some roofs more convenient for catching water than others? Why?
Learn a new card game with a pack of cards (ask a Grandpa or a Granny – they always know a few!) Do you know how to play the memory game with a pack of cards?
Can you make a show? Use everyday things around the house to dress up – forks for horns etc
Get fit! Make a list of exercises (make up some of your own originals), then see how many you can do today, and test yourself again in 2 weeks.
Draw a map of your area, can you do it to scale? Are there any points of interest that a visitor would be interested in knowing about?
Can you post a letter to family further away or a friend or perhaps someone who is sick? Do you know what the postal code for their area is? How are South African postal codes worked out?
Can you draw a bunch of pictures, and then staple or glue them together to make a colouring in book for some smaller kids in your area? What types of pictures are easiest to colour in?
Toy treasure hunt: take turns with siblings to design a treasure hunt by hiding certain toys or items and setting up clues as to where to find them. You can make it more complicated by writing it in code or a cryptic poem.
Can you build a small fort/house inside your house? (Hint: Sometimes a table helps with the structure) Take a book to read inside and hide away in your small little room.
Get some things from the clean rubbish/recycling bin. Can you make them into a game or a board game? Can you write down the instructions and rules for your game so others can understand how to play it?
Go bird watching, take a note book. What kinds of beaks did the birds have? Why? What colour were their feet? How big are the birds and what do they look like when they fly? Can you imitate their songs?
Can you skip like a boxer with a piece of rope? Do you know how boxers skip? What is the highest number of skips you can get to without making a mistake?
Take a stick and find big piece of sandy ground – can you draw a huge maze? Get a sibling or friend to test it out!
Do you know how to make a pie or steam bread? Make a pie for Pi day. Do you know what the number Pi is? Can you calculate the circumference and surface area of your pie?
Read a favourite book or tell a favourite story then act it out with some friends or family. Can you add some unexpected elements to the story?
Draw around a brother or sister and then try to draw in all their organs inside their body. What do the different organs do?
Keep a record of the weather and cloud patterns each day. Looking back, can the weather pattern or types of clouds give you a clue as to whether it would rain or not?
Learn to be a paramedic – What must you do if there is a fire? If someone cuts themselves? What about if someone is too hot or too cold?
Can you make a 3 dimensional version of your name with things around the house? Can you make your body into letter shapes to spell out your name?
Get an empty box – make a puzzle by drawing a nice big picture on the blank side of the cardboard and then cutting it into pieces. Are you able to make it again? Can you give it to someone as a gift?
Imagine you are a ward counsellor (What does a ward counsellor do?) What would you do at your first week at work in your area? Maybe send your ward counsellor a letter with your suggestions.
After you eat a fruit or vegetable, save the seeds and then plant them. If you don’t have space to plant them around your house, then find someone who likes to eat that kind of fruit or veg, who you can gift them to.
Help your parents/guardians cook rice but add a piece of beetroot. Then enjoy some PINK rice! If you close your eyes, does it taste pink?
Dig through your recycling or clean rubbish and find some tin cans or empty bottles, then gather some little stones. Line them up and have a target hitting competition. How far can you stand from them and how many can you hit without missing? You can also make a hole in the middle of a piece of cardboard and try to throw ten stones through it without missing.
Do you know any dances? Can you make up a dance to a song that you know and then teach it to other kids in your home and perform it to your family?
Find a place with a decent amount of space either inside or just outside your home and make an obstacle course. You can add some actions like star jumps or push ups. See if you can time yourself doing the whole obstacle course and see if you can do it faster each time!
Stick newspaper over a table and write the alphabet on it and see if you can help a younger sibling or friend to draw pictures for each letter. How many languages do you know, can you draw different pictures for things that start with that letter in different languages?
Do you know how to play chess or draughts or amarubaruba? Can you make a board and pieces out of bottle tops and cardboard? Can you make two boards and gift one to someone else?
Are there any people isolated in your area? Can you talk to them through the window and ask them if they need any help? How about drawing a picture or writing a letter to them and sticking it under their door to encourage them?
Do you know how to knit or crochet? Ask a friend or relative to teach you, then knit a scarf or crochet a hat. Can you get friends to knit a few squares each and then sew them all together to make a big blanket for someone who might need it?
Look around you outside, can you collect natural items and lay them out on the ground making them into a picture or artwork? How long would it take your picture to biodegrade or disintegrate and form part of the soil?
Take a crayon and a piece of paper. Walk outside and put the paper over things like leaves and bark and then rub the crayon over it to make the patterns and shapes of the leaves etc show through. Why are things made up of different textures? Do trees have different types of bark? What texture is your skin?
Watch a bug/insect/ant/caterpillar walk. How do its legs move? Can you draw them? Can you try to make a model of it out of sticks or straws you can find around?
Ask your parents/guardians if there are any buttons to be sewn on, or things needing to be repaired. Do you know more than one way of stitching? Do you know anyone who could teach you a different way?
See if you can find out how to tie three different types of knots. What are they used for? (Hint: Fishermen are particularly good at knots!)
Write down 20 words on different pieces of paper, ask a friend to say them in any order and try to remember them in that order and repeat the words back to them. Can you do it? Try waiting 2 minutes or writing more words! You can also test your memory with a friend putting 20 different things on a tray look and remember what all the items are, then close your eyes and they remove one. Can you tell which one is taken away?
Find items in the recycling or clean rubbish that have the following colours: black, blue, red, green, yellow and white. Make a South African Flag with them. Do you know what the colours in the flag represent?
What is a compass? How does it work? What is to the North of where you live? And the South? If you took 20 steps NNE from your front door where would you get to? Which side of your home is the hottest and why?
In the days before you could just go and buy paints, people made paint using things around them to make colours with which to paint. Can you make natural paints and paint something? How long does the colour last?
Mix some flour and some water into a paste like glue. Make beads or models of things out of newspaper with this. Can you make a bucket for rubbish out of it? Where does your rubbish go? How does it get there? What happens to it there? Are there ways to make it a more efficient system?
Think of any story with characters in it, and make a few masks out of cardboard or paper plates or material. Then act out the story using the masks to create the characters. Can you make a mask that shows a happy face? A sad face? An Angry face?
Draw a map of your area with all the emergency services: Police Station, Fire Station, Clinic, and Hospital. How far is it to each place (in Kilometers and also time on foot, on taxi, in a car etc) Do you know how to draw a map to scale?
What is the difference between a Long Drop toilet, a Compost toilet and a flushing water toilet? If a water toilet uses 9 litres per flush, and you flush 8 times a day, how much water would one person flush in one year? How many 5000 litre tanks of drinking water is that?
Do you have a library nearby? Have you read any books that are written by South African authors? See if you can find some to read.
Write two stories: one must be made up and something that only happened in your imagination (fiction), and the other must be about something that did happen to you (non-fiction). Give your stories to someone to see whether they can tell which story is fiction and which story is non-fiction.
Are there any organisations that help people/children working in your area. What do they do? Is there any way you can help them in their work?
Have you ever heard about South Africa’s constitution? What does it say about looking after children? Where would you be able to find a copy of the constitution?
How do you explain the world and everything in it? This is called your “worldview”. Ask people around you what their worldview is, and find out why they believe what they believe. Usually a worldview will try to explain the origin and purpose of our lives on Earth. What do you believe? Should your way of explaining the world be consistant or doesn’t it matter?
Do you know any international codes? Morse Code is one, and so is semaphore. How do these codes work? Can you tap out SOS (the “help me” signal) in Morse Code?
How many feelings can you list? (expert target is 25) Can you act out all of them? Can you tell a story about when someone might feel those feelings to a friend?
Go and look at a car. Can you explain why these things make it a safer car/vehicle: side mirrors, tyres with deep tread on them, front and back lights that work, a number plate, clean and uncracked windscreen. What other safety features do cars and other vehicles have?
Some poems are funnier than others, try to find a funny one and memorise it. If you can, write your own poem and do the same!
Save a piece of raw sweet potato or potato and plant it in some soil. Wait for it to sprout and draw the leaves as they come up. Do a drawing each day and note changes. If you have a garden, plant it in the soil and harvest it later in the year.
Can you list three indigenous South African trees that have edible parts?
Do you know how to weave with grass? Try to develop this expert skill and ask older people to show you their techniques. Do you know you can make a weaving loom using old batteries as weights?
Find a piece of wood and try to sand it or carve it into a boat shape. Test if it floats by putting it on water.
Do you know anything about Pangolins, Geometric Tortoises, or Aardvark? Can you find out anything from people around you, books or Google? Ask the older people around you about wildlife that they have encountered in their lives.
Make a kite with sticks and recycled plastic. Why does the kite need a tail? How high can it fly? (You may need a LONG piece of string!)
Find things around the house and see if you can invent a machine that can do work of some sort for you. Have a close look at a can opener. How does to manage to open a tin? Why is it easier to use a tin opener than your hands to open a tin?
Make a variety of shapes and designs of paper aeroplanes and measure how far they each fly. Try to hit a target with your plane.
Can you juggle three balls or three round stones? Can you throw a ball or stone to a friend or sibling at the same time as they throw a ball to you? Can you do the same while you bounce the balls? Try juggle 4 balls!
Why is there plastic covering electric wires? What is it easy for electricity to travel along? What is an insulator? Why must you be careful not to touch overhead electricity wires if they fall down?
Time yourself as you balance on one leg with your eyes closed. For how long can you do it?
Do you know how a heavy aeroplane is able to fly? Why must it take off facing the wind every time? Can you make a wind sock to show which way the wind is blowing at your house?
What is polony made of? How can you find out? What kind of meat is it?
Think of something that it is important that people know about. Design an informative poster that you could put up in your community. Make sure the information on it is accurate and up to date.
Try to look at something real and draw it onto paper in pencil. It is easier if the thing you are drawing doesn’t walk around! Can you draw the shadow that it makes?
Look up at the sky at night, can you see the Southern Cross? How can you use it to tell the direction? Do you know any stories about these stars or others?
Can you name and describe three poisonous snakes? Do you get them in your area? How many snakes are not poisonous?
Think up a good business idea. Write a plan for what you would need to do it, how much money you would need to get ready, and how much you would charge. How much money could you make with your idea? (How do you work this out?)
Blindfold yourself with a long sock or piece of material. Get a friend or family member to lead you. Are there better or worse ways to be led? How did you feel doing it?
Can you find out a recipe from another country and cook a meal in that way? What are the things that make it taste different from your usual meals?
Why does a chicken scratch in the dirt? Why does it bath in dust? How can you tell if a chicken is healthy or sick?
What is the emergency number to phone in South Africa? How does the call centre work? What kind of information would you need to tell someone on the phone so that they know where you are and know how they need to help you?

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