Summer Plans

It's summer vacation and once again I'm excited and motivated for another summer of learning with my kids! Here's hoping that the motivation lasts all summer and extends to regular blog posting!

To be honest, I wasn't sure if I was going to do much besides summer bridge books and flashcards this summer, but I changed my mind because of two things:

1. Wild One has a huge desire to learn to read.  And not just any books, but chapter books.  :)  I told her that we would take it one step at a time, but I just can't ignore her enthusiasm to learn!
2. I stumbled upon the "Alphabet in Simple Science" over at Memorizing the Moments.  If you haven't see it yet, you should definitely check it out!  After reading through the posts, I was inspired to try it with my kids!

I've decided to adapt the science curriculum that Kaysha at Memorizing the Moments has developed to make it work for all 4 of my kids.  For the younger 2, we will focus on letters and sounds and the introduction of science concepts.  For the older 2, we will delve deeper into topics and maybe even do some science notebooking (I've created some experiment observation pages that I plan to share).

In addition, Wild One will be working through the First Start Reading program with me.  In fact, the order that letters and sounds are introduced in this curriculum will determine the order that we tackle the "Alphabet in Simple Science" series.

As for the older 2, they will both be completing their summer bridge books as they do every year (I take them out for ice cream when they finish it).  Pinky has been struggling a bit with math this year, so she's also working on the Math Mammoth review books this summer.

 I also picked her up this book just to prove to her that math can be fun.  

We'll also be reading plenty of books, and I plan to continue our "What We're Reading" posts throughout the summer.

This summer we're finally trying out the Summer Challenge that Carisa created at 1+1+1=1 too!  I had fun stocking up my prize bucket and coming up with tasks for the kids to complete to earn a point.  I will share our prizes and challenges in another post.

Finally, I have taken on my own sort of challenge and am working on organization (a task that will take much longer than just this summer).  I started by listing 40 areas of my house that need to be organized using this printable from White House Black Shutters.  I plan to take them on one at a time and document befores and afters.  If I feel brave I may share those here too.

Well, that's another ambitious summer for us.  What are your summer plans?

Summer Math and the Math Curse

While the kids will be reading every day this summer, I also want them to be practicing math every day too. I've always loved the concept of a math journal so I decided to make one for Pinky and Chaos. Each day they will solve one problem in their math journals for some extra practice.

To start, I bought a one subject notebook for each kid.  I whipped up some super simple labels in Publisher to add to the front with some packaging tape (I went with simplicity over beauty here).

Inside, on the top of each page, is a word problem.  They can use the two page spread to draw and write the answer to the problems.

 For Chaos (shown above), I downloaded a free set of Kindergarten math journal prompts from Krazee 4 Kindergarten.

For Pinky, I purchased a set of prompts from Teacher Tam's Teachers Pay Teachers Store.  To start though, we are using problems from the book Math Curse by John Scieszka.



We read the book together, then I typed up some of the problems in the book to add to her math journal.  Some of the problems I changed slightly either by simplifying or changing numbers.  A few problems are made up by me.

I hope the kids have fun with these math problems!  The book, if you've never read it, is really fun.

Linking up to some of these great parties!

Summer Learning - Math

Being the wife of a self-proclaimed math nerd, it's important to us that our kids have a strong foundation in math.  Trying to make it fun can sometimes be a challenge though.

Last summer we worked on addition and subtraction facts with Pinky.  We also reinforced skip counting, telling time to the hour and half hour, and counting money.

While we did use flashcards - we made it a routine to spend 10 minutes with a set of flashcards each day - we also spent a lot of time playing games.


The hands down math game winner in our house is Sum Swamp Addition and Subtraction Game.  I found this at a garage sale for only $1 (and it had all the pieces - bonus!), but you can buy it from Amazon or Learning Resources.  The premise of the game is simple.  You choose a game piece and try to be the first person around the board.  You roll 3 dice - 2 number dice and one operations (addition or subtraction).  You arrange the dice into a math equation (always putting the larger number first) and solve.  The answer to the problem is how many spaces you can move.  There are, of course, some tricks along the way.  You can land in a spot marked "even" or "odd" and you must remain there until you roll the appropriate number.  The favorite part of the game for my kids is "the endless loop" which ensures that you will get lots of practice.  The game itself doesn't take long, but my kids beg me to play over and over.  It was $1 well spent.


Another fun math game is Eeboo Time Telling Game. The game can be adjusted based on skill level.  You can choose to tell time by the hour, half hour, quarter hour or down to the minute.  Each player chooses a clock with moveable hands.  A card is flipped over to show a digital time.  Players must then set their clocks to that time.  We very often change up the rules to this game or just use the clocks to practice without playing the game.  Pinky loves to use the clocks to play school with Chaos.

Of course, having fun with math doesn't have to mean spending money on a store bought game.  A great way to practice coin counting skills is to count real coins or even to set up a store and play with a toy cash register.

We've also had a lot of fun with Add it Math by the very talented Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Life of Fred: Apples has also made a few appearances this summer as well.  Both Pinky and Chaos enjoy reading about Fred and his doll Kingie.  If you've never heard of Fred,  you can read a sample here.

For my techie loving kids, we also watch a few LeapFrog movies (these are really more appropriate for Wild One and Chaos, but Pinky still enjoys them) - Numbers Ahoy, Number Land, Math Adventure to the Moon, and others are often available on Netflix instant streaming.

Looking for more great math ideas (most low or no cost)?  Check out my pinterest boards:
Love of Learning - Math
Love of Learning - Online Games
Love of Learning  - Education Apps

What We Did This Week - Bunny Theme

While playing in the backyard this week we discovered a rabbit had built a nest right next to our swing set. That was all the motivation we needed to learn more about rabbits!


I found a book (perfect for preschool/toddler aged children) about rabbits at the library.

The book covered a lot of basic information about rabbits - where they live, physical attributes, feeding, life cycle, making nests and mating.

After learning how rabbits build their nests, we decided to make our own. First I had each kid paint a paper plate brown. While they dried, the kids cut out bunny shapes that I drew for them.

Once the paper plates were dry, we cut them in half and stapled them together to form a "nest"." The kids used Easter grass, crayons and paper cut to look like straw to decorate their nests. Finally, we glued in the rabbits.


I was also able to find some poetry books about rabbits at the library.

Nibble Nibble (by the author of Goodnight Moon) contains 5 simple poems. The illustrations are lovely and the poems are quick reads.


Rabbits, Rabbits contained many more poems including some longer poems than the previous book. My kids really enjoyed the variety of poems in this book.

We also continued our Letter of the Week activity with Chaos. This week we made a "Bunny B." He loves that the ears are so long they hang off the page.


Finally, we did some "bunny math" using Carrots for the Rabbit play doh mats at the PreKinders blog.

What have you been up to this week?

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What We Did This Week

Pinky is 5 years, Chaos is 3 years, Wild One is 17 months, and Sprout is 1 month

We were blessed with beautiful weather this week so we spent a lot of time playing outside (and as I get ready to post this, it's back to rainy, cold weather). I hope you had some time to enjoy playing outdoors!

Geography
This week Pinky learned all about our state in school (in preparation for our state's birthday this past Wednesday). It tied in perfectly to some map activities. First we explored our new Usborne Children's Atlas.

This book is a good intro to maps and different cultures. Both Pinky and Chaos had fun finding the different animals pictured in each country.

For a more in depth map, Daddy printed out a giant map of all the parks in our city. The kids had a lot of fun trying to find our house based on landmarks (the lake, a big park, etc). We plan to use this map to mark all the places we've been on our playground tour.

Math
Pinky tried out a new book/game - Math Gear Addition. It's a neat book that quizzes kids on addition facts up to +12. Each page has a spinner so the child can change to first number that is being added. Once they've tried to find an answer they can lift the flap to see if they are correct.

Pinky LOVED this book. I was amazed by how long she played with it. I think it will be a great book to take on long car trips to keep her busy. There are other versions of Math Gear too, and I may just pick up the subtraction book as well.

Reading

Inspired by this post at Living, Loving and Learning at Home, I decided to make Pinky her own BOB books to illustrate. This activity combined her two favorite things - reading and drawing - so we may be doing more of this!

The books are simple to make with construction paper and plain printer paper (I'm sure you could make them much fancier too). I made two books this week: Pinky and the Cat and Dogs, Dogs, Dogs! The text in each book is simple:

"Pinky had a cat. The cat was sad. Pinky had a hat. The cat saw the hat. The cat had a hat. The cat was glad."

I made the second book to contain all of our names because Pinky loves to be able to spell and write names for the whole family:

"Pinky had a dog. Chaos had a dog. Wild One had a dog. Sprout had a dog. Mom and Dad had a dog. Dogs, dogs, dogs!"

Alphabet
I decided to start the letter of the week with Chaos. What's funny about Chaos is that he can tell you what the letters are for - he'll point to a P and say it's for Pinky, a C for Chaos, etc - but he can't actually name the letters.

We started by reading The Sleepy Little Alphabet. It's a cute book about putting all of the letters to bed at night.


Next, we made an Alligator A (from this post on No Time for Flashcards). We even gave the alligator glittery teeth! I was really happy that Choas made this (and surprised at how good his scissor skills are!) because he is not usually interested in crafts.

He's very excited to make the whole alphabet and hang it up in his room.

I also added some alphabet magnets to the fridge for him to explore. I selected A, B, and C (with lowercase magnets to match) to start with.


Finally, the most favorite activity of the week (for all of us), Alphabet Cookies!! I found this adorable alphabet cookie cutter set at a garage sale and was excited to try it out.

We had so much fun frosting and decorating these (and eating them too of course!).


Shapes and Colors
Chaos tried his hand at sorting shapes and colors this week. I printed these shape mats from Confessions of a Homeschooler and had Chaos sort plastic buttons according to shape.

He did pretty well (I was surprised that he knew the difference between a circle and an oval). The rectangles/squares confused him, but I know he'll get it soon enough. Later we tried sorting by color, but he got frustrated, so we stopped.

We also used our new geoboard for the first time this week. Pinky and Chaos had fun making shapes while I used it show the kids how to make letters. I hope to spend more time playing with this next week.


Fun With the Younger Kids
Wild One spent a lot of time playing with Chaos's Chuck E Cheese tokens. She loved to put them in the jar one by one and then dump them all back out and start over. It's the simple things, right?


As usual, she also spent a lot of time reading. I think she would be happy to read every minute of the day. I'm glad that she occasionally gives me a break and looks at books by herself too!


I introduced PlayDoh to her for the first time this week. She did so well! Much like the coins, she liked to dump it out and put it back in the jar, but she also had fun tearing it into little pieces. I gave her a stamper to try and was surprised that she had enough strength to make the stamp (a fish) show up!


Sprout has been spending a lot of time on her play mat these days so I made her her own felt board to look at (the instructions can be found at this post on Made by Joel) . It was super quick and easy to make and the kids had fun switching out the shapes and colors for her.


What fun activities did you do this week?

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