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.
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.
Pinky is 5 years, Chaos is 35 months, Wild One is 14 months
Recently, Pinky has been telling my husband and I that she wants to be a zookeeper when she grows up. So this week I decided to have a Zookeeper theme to (most) our activities!
Where We Went: In addition to all of our regular activities (preschool, dance, playgroup, Spanish, etc) the older two were also invited to a birthday party at a local gymnastics center. It was SO great to see the kids running off some energy. I was impressed with the activities that both of them tried!
Artist Study: Eric Carle I wanted to find an artist to study who painted lots of animals to keep with our theme. Who better for kids to study than Eric Carle? We have several of his books so we started by looking at them and talking about the pictures and what made them different from other drawings.
Next, we visited the Eric Carle website and watched the slide shows of how creates his pictures. You can find the slide shows here on his website.
We divided the art project up over several days. First, we painted our tissue paper. I used leftover tissue paper from gifts (being a hoarder of supplies pays off sometimes!) and watered down some Crayola Kids Paint. I offered the kids different sizes and types of paintbrushes and told them to go to work! The papers were very wet so we set them aside to dry (they were mostly dry after a few hours, but we let them sit overnight).
After seeing an idea of painting with qtips (here), I decided that the next step should be qtip painting the background papers. I asked the kids to think about what type of animal or insect they wanted to create (Pinky wanted a flamingo and Chaos chose a bear - I made a fish to show them what to do). We talked about their habitats and what the paper should look like.
After the backgrounds were dry (we used blank white cards as we were making these pictures as Thinking of You cards for their great grandma) we cut out and glued our painted tissue paper to them (idea from here).
Here are our final pictures:
It was a lot of work, but we really enjoyed doing something different!They didn't turn out exactly as I had planned, but really, it's more about the process than the finished product.
Ocean Waves in a Bottle: For this week's sensory activity we made ocean waves in a bottle. The kids really loved it (especially the glitter) and played for quite awhile rolling it back and forth to each other to see the waves. You can find the instructions here on Ten Kids and a Dog.
Zoo Maps: This was by far the kids' favorite activity this week and it was SO simple! After building their own zoo (info below), we decided to make our own zoo maps. We looked at a few maps online, talked about what a zoo map would contain (sidewalks, welcome center, animal pictures, etc), and got to work. We used construction paper, animal stickers and crayons. The kids were SO proud of their creations and asked to make more zoo maps all week long. Chaos wanted my help with his map. He isn't big into coloring with crayons so he told me what he wanted (mostly copying what big sister did) and added the stickers himself
Pinky's zoo map. The smiley building is the welcome center. The circle with the lion, bats, snake and oyster is the "scary place." I love the way she added monkeys to the trees where the giraffes are eating and planted flowers along her sidewalks. My favorite though is the nest she drew for the Easter eggs. Her favorite part is the "zoo fairies."
Even Wild One took a turn making her own map. This was her first real art experience and she really loved putting all the stickers on the page. She was a bit more reluctant with the crayons (though maybe it was the type we used), but she tried them anyway.
What We Read: I checked a few zookeeper books out from our local library to give the kids an idea of what it is zookeepers do each day. We read Jungle Jack Hanna's What Zookeepers Do and A Day in the Life of a Zookeeper together. Both books had a lot of great pictures and just the right amount of information for Pinky's age (the links are in the widget at the bottom of the post).
Wild One read her Dear Zoo book (all the kids have loved this book) and we played with our Baby Einstein animal flashcards (even the older kids had fun with these - they took turns answering the facts on the back of the cards).
What We Played With: The plastic/rubber animals have always been a favorite around here. So it was no surprise that the kids wanted to build their own zoo with them. They even had a zookeeper and Chaos grabbed the toy camera to take some pictures of all the animals. Gathering animals to build a zoo
Popsicle Stick Puzzles: I saw a cute idea on Impress Your Kids that I adapted to fit our theme. I let the kids search through some old magazines and cut out pictures of animals. We then glued them to popsicle sticks and cut them apart to make our own puzzles. Another really easy craft! You can find the tutorial here at Impress Your Kids.
Computer Time: Once again we played at Switcheroo Zoo, but this week we tried the habitat game. Pinky was shown an animal and had to pick the correct habitat to make the animals happy.
Family Time Activity: Since winter returned in full force here (after a WONDERFUL warm up last week) we had a great family snowball fight.
When we were done, we headed inside to warm up and watch some movies! First the kids watched two movies that I borrowed from the library, What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up: Zoo Crew and Adventures with Wink & Blink: A Day in the Life of a Zoo. Then, on the weekend, we watched Disney Nature: Oceans together as a family. What a great movie!
Mom's Favorite: Wild One doing one of her two most favorite things - stacking blocks!
These amazon links are NOT affiliate links. I just want to share some of the toys, books and crafts that we love.
Pinky is 5 years, Chaos is 34 months, Wild One is 14 months
I thought linking up to a few Homeschool/Tot carnivals and showcasing what I do all week with the kids (when I'm not working on my own crafts) would be fun. It's a great way to keep myself organized with all the cool things I see on other blogs and want to do with my kids.
The amazon links at the end of the post are NOT affiliate links. I just want to share some of the toys, books and crafts that we love. Plus I think the carousel action is pretty cool.
Where We Went: In addition to our activities at home we were also out of the house quite a bit this week. Pinky had her normal preschool (and one day of Spanish enrichment). In addition, she attended her ballet and tap class, Princess class (she's in LOVE with this 4 week class!), and a Valentine's Day party at her school. Chaos enjoyed his last Toddler Gym Time class with Daddy, and all 3 kids visited a friends' house together for a playdate.
Math: We didn't have many math centered activities this week (something I'm really trying to improve on), but Chaos and I did mix up a batch of jello. Cooking is a really fun way to get kids interested in math. He helped me measure, pour and stir. He's gotten pretty good at helping me find the right number on the measuring cup.
Science/Nature: I don't know about you, but our house always seems to be home to ladybugs (okay, I'm told they're not REAL ladybugs, but if they're red with spots, they're ladybugs to me) in the colder months. The kids just adore them, especially when they crawl in their hands. They like to catch them and release them back outside. Chaos was so proud to be the "captor" on this morning.
For a fun science experiment we tried our hand at growing crystals with borax, water and food coloring. The kids were really intrigued. I got the idea from here at Our Crafts N Things. I think they wanted instant results. (And yes, Chaos insisted on wearing a headband like his Sissy so he could "see better.")
Sensory: Pinky and Chaos continued to love playing with the Rainbow Sensory Box. I have a feeling they are going to be very disappointed when I switch it out in about a week. How do you handle this? I had planned to change out the box every month, but if they are still interested with the contents, do you leave it?
Modern Parents Messy Kids had a great tutorial for shaving cream Valentines. I skipped the card part and just let the kids "paint" with the color bags. We nicknamed this activity "Squishy Color Bags." You can find the tutorial here at Modern Parents Messy Kids. The bags before the kids blended the colors.
They quickly got to work "painting" and mixing using their hands and a q-tip.
Geography: My husband printed out a large map our our town for the kids to explore. Pinky is especially interested in maps right now. They spent a good deal of time with Daddy locating our house, Pinky's school, their favorite playground, and Daddy's office building.
What We Read: Pinky and I continued to read The Rainbow Fairies series together. This week we read Sunny: The Yellow Fairy and Fern: The Green Fairy.
Chaos really enjoys reading about animals so it was no surprise that he loved his new National Geographic Kids First Big Book of Animals. The pictures and facts in this book are really engaging. Pinky, Chaos, Daddy and myself were all really mesmerized by this book.
Wild One loves touch books so she really enjoyed her new Usborne Touchy Feely Faires book from Grandma and Pappy.
What We Played With: There was a lot of imaginitive play going on this week. The favorite toy was Pinky's rainbow ribbon wand. It was a fishing pole, a magic wand, a hitching posts for horses, a magic "fix it" stick, and just plain fun for twirling.
Later in the week Chaos and I had a wonderful tea party together. He loved that the cups changed colors with cold/warm water.
Motor Skills: Pinky practiced her handwriting by signing her name to over 20 Valentines for her preschool class! I had planned for her to do this over several nights so she wouldn't get frustrated, but she was a superstar and finished them all at once without a single complaint!
Wild One has really been interested in stacking blocks lately so I pulled out our Wedgits for her to play with. She loved stacking them (and had some help from Chaos). She even played a bit of peek a boo with them too!
Sight Words (for 2 weeks): said, on, and, are, go, can, was, in
Pinky has been very interested in learning to read and learning site words, so I've been choosing a few words for her to learn. I'm trying to make it a bit more exciting than just standard memorization, so this week we played a variation of the Shape and Number Game.
I laid the flashcards on the ground and called out a word. She had to run to it as fast as she could. It was a fun way to practice her words and even burned off a bit of excess energy in the process!
Computer Time: Pinky has been talking a lot lately about wanting to be a zookeeper when she grows up. So, what perfect timing that a friend told me aboutSwitcheroo Zoo. It's a cute site that lets kids travel through the zoo and "switch up" the animals. Give the elephant a fish head and a cougar's tail or see what a pig would look like with bird legs and wings. Pinky was laughing hysterically while she played. The game also tells you facts about each of the animal parts you choose and you can name your animal and write a story about it. I think we'll be visiting this site a lot more.
Family Time Activity: We had a family game night this week. We played Cranium Cariboo, Pretty Pretty Princess and Turtle Shells. The kids are always so excited on game night!
Mom's Favorite: I love the sheepish look on Chaos's face when I caught him and Wild One emptying the bookshelf in her room. They just look so "busted!" (You'll see more of this bookshelf this week in my organization post!).
. 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.
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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.
