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

Summer Learning - Reading

Our number one goal for learning this summer was to spend a lot of time reading.  I want to raise my kids to be avid readers who are excited to read new books.  I want books to be a part of their everyday routine.

Last year when Pinky was learning to read she set a goal to read 100 books by the end of summer.  I created a sticker chart for her and helped her find books that she was able to read (we read the entire Bob book collection and many intro readers).  It was hard work, but she was so determined. 


This summer she wanted to read even more.  We set her goal at 110 books.  It's getting trickier as her books are getting longer, and it's not quite as easy for her to ready a dozen books a day like it was before.  I mostly give her free choice of what she reads though I do make books available that I think she may enjoy and will allow her to improve her reading.  We have some basic ground rules: the book must have a story (not just one or two words per page) and no repeats.  If she reads a chapter book on her own we count it as 2 books.  I've also allowed her to choose to read a magazine in place of a book.  I don't want to be to strict on WHAT she reads, I just want her to read and enjoy it.  I think next summer we will set a goal for how long she reads each day instead of a certain number of books.  This is more in line with what her school requires (30 minutes a day, twice a day).

For Chaos, he is showing many signs of being ready to read.  He knows all of his letters and their sounds and can even recognize a few sight words.  We've begun VERY slowly introducing the Bob books to him.  I downloaded the Bob Books Reading Magic app for my iPhone, and he really enjoys it.  It's helped him become familiar with the books and words, which has helped him read and sound out a few words in the books.


To help him learn his sight words, I printed out our public school's Kindergarten sight word list on small cards.  I chose 5 words to start (the first sight words to appear in the Bob books) and taped them to his bedroom door.  I told him this was a "lock" for his door.  In order to unlock his door he had to touch each card and say the word.  To lock it when he left he had to do it again (in reverse order).  He thought it was hilarious and loves to "lock" his sisters out of his room.


We are continuing to reinforce letters and their sounds.  We love the LeapFrog movies (Letter Factory, Talking Words Factory, Amazing Alphabet Adventure, Phonics Farm, Let's Go to School, and Word Caper).  Many of these are available on Netflix for instant streaming if you subscribe.

Looking for more ideas?  Check out my pinterest boards:

Love of Learning - Reading

Letter of the Week

Love of Learning - Spelling

Next up in our summer learning series - Math! Thanks for stopping by!

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Storytelling Dice

I've seen many versions of storytelling games online. We even have a few storytelling card games of our own. Still, I couldn't resist making these dice for the kids.

The wooden blocks (they are 3/4 inch squares) came in a 6 pack at Micheals. I'm not certain on the exact price, but I do know the were under $2. Using a black Sharpie, I drew characters on one die, setting on another, and objects on the third.

I'm not an artist, so I tried to keep the pictures simple. I knew my kids would enjoy these, but I was surprised by how long it held their attention.

Super fun, easy, quick and inexpensive - everything I love in a project!

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What We Did This Week

**Just a quick note - I welcome any pinning from my blog as long as it does not include pictures of my kids. If I credit the idea from another blog, please be sure to pin from the ORIGINAL source so proper credit can be given. Thank you!**

Pinky is 6 years, Chaos is 4 years, Wild One is 2 years, and Sprout is 1 year

This week Chaos learned about the Letter T.


We started with our uppercase letter creation - Taxi T!

Chaos kept asking to do more, so we put a lot of pages in our Alphabet Binder this week:

1. Handprint T (Chaos traced his own hand) - Tiger
2. Tactile T - toothpicks. The idea for this craft is here at The Active Toddler and the letter sheets were printed from Quality Kids Crafts.
3. Color by Letter. The sheet is from here at Education.com.
4. Letter T maze (Chaos loved this even though it was a bit hard for him). This worksheet is also from Education.com.
5. Color by Number from here at 1+1+1=1
6. Animal T coloring sheet from here at Education.com
7. Triangle art page. The idea for this page came from here at Kidscount1234.com
8. Taxi T uppercase letter creation

Chaos has been asking to write his letters so I laminated some tracing sheets for him. He thought this was okay, but still prefers to write on the magnadoodle.

These adorable letter tracing sheets are a free printable from Lawteedah.

We also worked on letter searches from COAHS and Education.com.


We used our alphabet cookie cutters with our homemade playdoh.


We played with Chaos's Hot Dots Jr. this week too. We have the Getting Ready For School set and used the "Learn Your Alphabet" and "Uppercase and Lowercase Letters" cards. He did very well with these.


The favorite activity of the week was the Letter T Discovery box. I found the idea here at No Time for Flashcards and modified it a bit. I gave Chaos a bin and had him search the house for "T" items to put in it. We had a lot of fun talking about our "treasures."

One of Chaos's search results - a tissue, tea cup, toothbrush, tiger, table, triangle, toilet paper roll, and Thomas the Train.

For our second "row" Wild One and I read Goodnight Moon.

She really enjoyed this book, and I loved that she would say goodnight to every object in the room ' "Night-night chairs! Night Night bears!" She also insisted on counting the three bears each and every time we read the book.


After we read it a few times, I set up a baby bed for her doll and we had fun putting baby to bed. Wild One really loves playing with dolls so this was an activity we did a LOT this week.


Next we made a moon craft with instructions from I Heart Crafty Things. We added silver glitter glue for stars. All of the kids had fun with project (especially when they found out glitter was involved!).


Finally, we had some fun playing with a red balloon!

Pinky and I started our after school adventure by reading a book by one of my favorite authors: Bear Shadow by Frank Asch.


The book led to a discussion about why we have shadows.

To get a basic understanding of shadows, we read What Makes a Shadow?



We tried a few of the experiments in the book. First, we used a flashlight and a stuffed animal to predict where the shadow would be (in front, to the side, behind, etc). We moved the flashlight around to see how the shadow moved.


Next, we shined the flashlight through objects with different opaqueness and predicted if the shadow would be dark or light. We used a paper towel, a sheet of vellum and construction paper, and a book. We talked about why some of the shadows were lighter (more light could shine through the vellum and paper towel). I tried, but could not get a decent picture of this activity.

Finally, for some shadow fun, we made our own shadow puppet theater. I used the tutorial at minieco.co.uk to make a theater from a cereal box. I cut a few landscape shapes from cardstock to set the scene.

Instead of cutting out characters (which would be easy to do with your Cricut and some black cardstock) we used Star Wars figurines. We really had a lot of fun with this project, and I encourage you to give it a try. You may be surprised at how creative you kids can be while telling a story (and learning something too!).

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Spring Sensory Bin

The warm weather has inspired me to change out the sensory bin for something more Spring-like!

The base of the bin is Easter grass and black beans (for the garden area). To keep the two bases seperate, I used a line of playdough across the bottom of the bin and inserted the fence pieces. It's not perfect, but has done well so far.


The grass area of the bin features a birds nest (Micheals), 2 birds (Dollar Store), feather butterflies (Dollar Store), a metal bucket (Target Dollar Spot), a shovel, a wooden birdhouse (Dollar Store), a tiny plastic paint bucket that has been used as a bug jar (Michaels), and various plastic insects (Insect Toob).


The wooden fence posts are from Michaels. The garden area has 3 terra cotta pots (Dollar Store), silk flowers (Dollar Store), and a plastic bee (Insect Toob). I added some black beans inside the pots so the flowers can be picked and planted.

The kids quickly added some pompoms to be used as both eggs and seeds to plant the flowers. They also managed to find the watering can I was looking for!

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Decorate Your Own Superhero Cape Tutorial

For Chaos's 4th birthday, instead of a big party, we invited his two closest friends over for a "Superhero Playdate." One of the activities I had planned was to decorate their own superhero capes. These were super easy and inexpensive to make and the boys (and my girls too!) loved them. I thought I would share how I made them.


The first thing I needed was felt. I found that the felt by the yard at both Joanns and Hobby Lobby were too expensive for what I had in mind. As luck would have it, I stumbled upon these prepackaged felt yards at Michaels.

The brand is Creatology and each package contains one 36in x 36in square of felt. They had about a half dozen color options at my local store. The regular price was $3.99, but I went back with my 40% coupon several times during the week to get them for less. I was able to make 2 capes from each package.

The first thing I did was fold the felt in half, then in half again. By doing this, I was able to cut out both capes at once.

I drew a basic half-cape shape freehand. My cape is roughly 32 inches long which was a good size for both the 4 year olds at the playdate and Pinky (who is the tallest of the bunch at 49 inches).

Once you cut out and unfold your capes you will be left with this:


I needed a way to keep the capes attached and really didn't want to sew on velcro. I had some sticky back velcro dots and thought I would give them a try.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they worked! I gave them a few tugs to make sure they wouldn't fall off, and while I don't expect them to last forever, they were perfect for the playdate. If you plan to use the cape for awhile I would definitely suggest adding a few stitches to secure your velcro.


To decorate the capes I cut out shapes from various colors of felt. I loved the adhesive backed felt, but could not find it in all the colors I wanted so I had to use regular felt as well. The craft felt was less expensive at 20 cents a sheet compared to 99 cents for the adhesive backed. However the adhesive felt was easier for the kids to use (we used tacky glue for the shapes cut from regular craft felt).

My superhero shapes were pretty random - various sizes of circles, stars, lightning bolts, flames and a crown.


On the day of the party I set out the capes, decorations and some tacky glue. The boys had a great time creating their own superhero identities.

While the glue and adhesive felt worked fine for the playdate (and are still holding up almost 2 weeks later) you will definitely want to either sew these on or use an iron on adhesive if you want the cape to last longer.


Once their capes were done these superheroes were ready to save the world!

Be sure to check back next week when I share more details from our Superhero Playdate!

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What We Did This Week

**Just a quick note - I welcome any pinning from my blog as long as it does not include pictures of my kids. If I credit the idea from another blog, please be sure to pin from the ORIGINAL source so proper credit can be given. Thank you!**

Pinky is 6 years, Chaos is 4 years, Wild One is 2 years, and Sprout is 11 months

In addition to doing letter of the week with Chaos, I also began Before Five in a Row with Wild One.

This week we talked about the Letter M. Here are the crafts we made (again while listening to the music on the Hooked on Phonics software).


We started by creating our uppercase letter craft - Mountain M. The idea for this craft came from No Time for Flashcards.

We did our usual pages: tactile letters, coloring page, color by number and handprint art. Sources are below.

1. Tactile M (masking tape). The idea for this craft is here at The Active Toddler and the letter sheets were printed from Quality Kids Crafts.
2. Animal M coloring sheet from here at Education.com
3. Color by number picture from here at 1+1+1=1
4. Monkey handprint art from this post at Handprint and Footprint Art.


Our favorite craft this week was our mosaic art. I drew a basic outline of a sun and rays on a sheet of paper. Chaos cut squares from strips of construction paper and glued them down to form the sun and sky. The idea for art inspired by the alphabet came from here at Kidscount1234.com

We also played some fun letter M games:


Using the alphabet blocks from Hooked on Phonics we played a great movement game. You could recreate this game with any alphabet block , foam letter, card or even letters written on construction paper. I scattered the letters around the room. The kids (Pinky wanted to play too) would have to run, skip, hop, jump or whatever fun and crazy movement we could think of - to the letter I called out. The kids loved to "do a silly dance to..." and "go crazy to..." Can you tell that my kids love to be wild? :)

We had a lot of (surprise) fun with our wooden alphabet blocks. I originally brought these out for Sprout to stack, but Chaos took quite an interest in them. The blocks have a lowercase letter on one side and an uppercase on the other side. He would turn the letters over to lowercase side and try to guess which letter it was. He could simply flip it over to check if he was right.


Next he pulled out his alphabet poster (from the Hooked on Phonics set) and matched the blocks to the letters on the poster.


He also did a lot of lining up the blocks in order and pointing to them as he sang the alphabet song. I love it when impromptu learning fun happens! Don't worry - we did our share of building and knocking down towers too!


Our favorite non-craft activity was writing in flour! I thought this would be a fun way to have Chaos practice his writing.

He had so much fun with this! Even Pinky decided to join us. It made a big mess, but it was worth it.

Finally, we did letter hunts using the Letter Hunt worksheets from COAHS and the nursery rhyme pages from Education.com.

After doing a lot of reading, I decided to give BFIAR a try with Wild One. She's always loved, loved, loved books. We will stick to only play activities (no lapbooks or worksheets) because she is so young. It's my hope that this will be a fun way for us to "hang out" together while the older kids are at school.

The first book we "rowed" was We're Going on a Bear Hunt. We had read it before, but this was the first time Wild One really LOVED it. She even carried it around with her everywhere we went. I'm not sure what made it "click" with her, but it certainly made this week fun!


The first day we read the book I built a cave (out of an old sheet) for us to explore - complete with a bear too! She was initially terrified (whoops!), but once she saw Pinky and Chaos exploring, she was excited too.


Wild One really enjoys coloring so I was really excited to find this coloring page at scholastic.com.


I made her her first ever sensory bin based on the idea here at Delightful Learning. The base is corn and split peas (leftover from our St. Patty's day bin last year). I used green foam sheets and Easter basket grass for the grass, cotton balls, snowflakes and sequins for the snowstorm, pipe cleaners for the roots of the trees in the forest, shaving cream and blue paint (well sealed in a plastic bag) for the river, brown foam for the cave and brown foam covered in contact paper for the (sticky) mud (we were all out of brown paint). I added a small toy bear to complete it.

She was a little unsure of what to do at first, but Chaos helped her. They eventually grabbed some dolls from her dollhouse and reenacted the book.

We also tried our hand at sound effects using the ideas here at Reading Confetti.

Throughout the week we also turned the book into a game for wherever we were going. When we picked Pinky up from school we were "Going on a Pinky Hunt" and I made our trip into it's own story (mud in the front yard, bumpy road to drive on, playground to walk through, etc). Wild One had a lot of giggles for this game and wanted to play nonstop.

Coming up next week: Letter T, Goodnight Moon and fun with Pinky!

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