Pattern Block Piece Picture

First off, sorry about my very long hiatus! I really needed a break from worrying about getting posts up here, so I took it. Sometimes you just need to let things go, you know?

We of course didn't let doing learning activities go, so on with the posting!

This is a great activity to work math skills. 

SUPPLIES:

• paper
• glue
• crayons (optional)
• scissors
• pattern blocks or pattern shapes printed off of your computer (you can make the shapes in a Word document and print them out)

ACTIVITY
Have your child trace the pattern block pieces onto a paper and then cut them out. If you don't have pattern block pieces, just create some shapes in Word and print them out. If your child isn't able to trace and cut, do this for your child beforehand.

Have your child take the pieces and create a picture. Older children can use their creativity. For younger children, you will likely need to give direction (like, let's make a cat with these shapes).

Have your child glue the pieces in place and use crayons to add some details to make the picture if desired.

Apple Math

This last week, we did an apple theme here. I came up with a couple new pages for the week and thought I would share them here.

The first was inspired by Raegan's: 

Apple File Folder Game- Counting

I wanted to do this, but didn't want to do the file folder thing. So I made this. I printed it and laminated it. I can write whatever I want on the baskets with a dry erase or wet erase marker. I think you can print from the image, but if not, here is the link in my google documents.

I had her first sort the skittles into three different bowls, then she put the correct number into each basket.

This was inspired by my 

Apple Seed Counting

I wanted to put the seeds on the apple and have the kids do math with them. The idea here is you put seeds in each apple, then the child counts and writes how many under the apple. You decide if the child is doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division...write that in the square between the apples. The child writes the answer on the provided line. I liked this because I can use the same sheet for all three of my children. I laminated it so I don't have to do a bunch of printouts. My kids get a big kick out of using the markers to write. Here is the link in Google Documents.

Avoiding Summer Setback in Math

We have our reading strategy down well--read, read, read. We read a lot to avoid summer setback in our reading skills. This seems to be the area most focused on.

As we recently did a math activity that involved simple addition, I realized my seven year old needed some extra attention for avoiding summer setback with math skills. I figured our day to day discussion in numbers would be enough, but it is not. Here is a list of websites where you can find math help. This list was compiled by Brayden's first grade teacher. This is such a valuable list of resources!

Math Baseball

Matho

CoolMath4Kids

Math Games with Dice

Money, Money, Money

Money Activities

Math Games

Math Worksheets

Lots of Math

Math Resources and Printables

Fabulous Fall Fun: Corn Maze

Fall is almost over for me (okay, let's be real, it was over about three weeks ago, I mean, it is snowing while I write this). Anyway, the "calendar" says fall so I am doing a fabulous fall post. 

One of our favorite traditions is to do a corn maze. I am sure not all of you will have access to a corn maze because corn doesn't grow everywhere. You might have a straw maze or something that you can go to.

Now, some places will have a corn maze that is kid-friendly--meaning it is not several miles of maze. If you do not have a kid-friendly version, don't be afraid of turning around and coming back out the entrance. We have done that several times. If you don't have an hour or two to walk through the maze, there is no problem with retreating out the entrance. 

If you go for the long haul, we have found this to be most pleasant if it is warm, so going on a Saturday in the middle of the day is better for us than trying to beat the sunset after work on a weekday. Bring a stroller for young kids--even young kids who typically walk (unless you don't mind carrying this young child). Bring blankets, hats, and coats. 

We let Brayden take the map and navigate us through the maze, which he is very happy about. If you don't want to hand it all over to the child, let the child help look at the map and talk about which way to to to get out. 

A maze is a great activity! You get exercise, you can practice map reading and maze-following as well as instruction following. Lots of fabulous fall fun!

Pipe Cleaner Bead Math

Brayden made these in Kindergarten and I thought they were genius. Something they learned about in Kindergarten was what numbers could be combined to make a certain number. For example, take the number six. You can get six with 6+0, 5+1, 4+2, and 3+3. These number bracelets make it very easy for the children to see what numbers you need to make other numbers.

Making one is simple. You take a piece of pipe cleaner and the number of beads you want on the bracelet/ring. You then connect the ends with a little twist, and cover up with tape or sticky paper. You can then write the number on the tape. Then you have a very tactile math activity!

3D Shapes

This is a fun way to talk about 3D shapes. All you need are toothpicks and miniatures marshmallows! Brayden did this in his Kindergarten class this year.

Give your child some toothpicks and marshmallows. I suggest you sit and do this activity with your child while he works on it. Then let your imaginations run while you build fun 3D creations! Talk about the names of the shapes you create (like a cube).

I would say this is for children 3 and up. Some more mature two year olds could do it, so long as they have the fine motor control to not poke themselves and to also create these items without getting frustrated in the process.

Lucky Charms Math

I gave J a little bowl of Lucky Charms cereal and first had him sort the marshmallows using the sorting printout here.  I actually had a bowl of cereal to sort myself.  I've found this often helps J stay focused and work more independently.  Sometimes if he's doing an activity with me just sitting there next to him, he'll ask for my help more often.  If I have my own activity to work on, he's fine doing this by himself.  It's also a great way to teach something new since I'm basically modeling what to do (and helped a lot when we did the charting later).

After sorting the marshmallows, he graphed them using the chart here.  We practiced reading the graph to find out how many marshmallows he had in each category (without actually counting), and quickly determine which category had the most and the least.
 J did really well on this.  He waited so patiently to eat his marshmallows (I did let him eat the broken ones and the cereal as we sorted).



Here's another chart that would work well for coloring, but there's not enough space for actually charting the marshmallows.

Age attempted: 35 months

Shape matching

I recently had baby #3, and had multiple procedures done during that surgery, so things have been slow moving around here. Finally hopping back into things, I decided to start slow w/ the learning activities.

It's a simple activity you can do to evaluate progress, have a simple matching game, teach shapes (or other skill), or have a game you can pull out later that is easy for them to handle.

I went to the Dollar Store locally and bought packs of bulletin boarders in the teacher section. These are great for game pieces, making file folder games, hiding shapes, matching, sorting, etc.

Then I drew a few of the shapes on a paper and let her match them. After she matched them, I asked her to find the ____ (circle, square,etc). We also worked on colors.

Easy, quick, cheap. Great for those busy days!

Feed The Penguin

This is a fun math activity for penguins. 

AGE RANGE

Your child needs to be old enough to be able to count dots and recognize numbers. This will vary greatly from child to child. My 3 year old could do it, as could my 5 year old. 

SKILLS TAUGHT

Counting Skills

PREPARATION

You want to have a penguin with a number on the belly as well as a fish with dots. I Googled "penguin clip art" and choose an image I liked. I then put it into Microsoft Word, copied it 11 times, and ended up with 12 penguins. I then created a text box and typed a number in for each penguin. I made the border and the fill as "no border" and "no fill" so that the box didn't cover up the penguin, then I put the number over each penguin. 

I Googled "fish clip art" and choose a fish that looked like one a penguin would eat. I then copied it and put it into Word and copied it 11 times. I then used the shape tool to draw dots on each fish.

I then printed the documents. I have uploaded two versions of this into my Google Documents. You can click on these Documents for blank Word file of just penguins and just fish. These documents have no numbers and no fish. If you plan to edit, please save it to your computer and edit your own copy. I also saved the exact files I usd in a PDF here:

Fish
Penguins

Then I laminated the pages. I got a laminator for Christmas and I LOVE it. 

I then cut everything out.

ACTIVITY

The idea is to tell your child the penguins are hungry. A number four penguin needs a number four fish to get full. You have your child match the penguins to the fish.

Younger children will do best with starting with numbers 1-5. The higher numbers get hard to count the dots, especially because I made it a little challenging intentionally. That is one reason I provided  you with blank fish so you can make it how you want it. You could also do dots on the penguins and numbers on the fish if you want. 

There are further extensions. If your child needs more of a challenge, you could tell him to feed the penguin two fish to feed it. So a number three penguin would get a two fish and a one fish.

You could also do numbers or dots on the penguins but then just print out blank fish and have  your child feed the penguin the correct number of fish. 

Ordering Objects

For math homework, Brayden was supposed to do some ordering games. The goal here was to teach about sizes and positional words. I decided our three little Christmas trees would work well for this game.

Supplies

Three items of distinct sizes.

Vocabulary to Practice

• biggest
• middle-sized
• smallest
• first
• between
• last
• next to

Activity

Have your child do different activities ordering the objects. Be sure to use your target vocabulary. "Put the trees in a line from biggest to smallest." 

Line the items up. Have your child describe what he sees. "The biggest tree is first. The smallest tree is last. The middle-sized tree is in between the biggest and smallest trees."

Fun and simple math!

Go Fish

Age Range: 2+ years (the big requirement is to recognize numbers 1-10)

Materials: Deck of cards, preferably one made for kids

Activity:

• Shuffle deck, deal cards one at a time to each player until each has 5 cards
• Place the rest of the deck face down in the center
• You (player 1) ask your child "Can I have a five?" (or whatever other card you are holding)Your child (player 2) responds with either "yes" and hands over the card if he/she has it or "No, Go fish!" if he/she does not have it.
• If you are told to "Go fish" you must draw the top card from the stack. If the drawn card matches three cards of a value you already hold, you can lay down the four cards and continue. Otherwise it's player 2's turn.

*A variation we do of the game that makes things easier for a 2 year old to play is we only require two cards of the same kind to lay them down as a matched set. This allows the game to move a bit faster at first and encourages simple matching of like numbers.

*We also kept our cards and Tobias' cards visible for the first 2 games until he understood how to play. Then we started hiding our cards but kept his cards visible so we could help him. Once he gets a bit better he can hide his cards as well and we'll play as normal.

• The first player to lay down all his cards in matched sets wins!
  

-please ignore the crazy outfit, Daddy dressed him this morning :)

Skills:

• matching
• number recognition
• taking turns
• care of objects (they have to be careful not to bend the cards while playing)

Home Made Calendar

Doing a daily calendar is a great way to help teach your children about days of the week and help them grasp things like "yesterday" and "tomorrow" and "two weeks."

I made this one very inexpensively. It is far from perfect, but good enough for us! I got a piece of poster board from the dollar store as well as some numbers. You could also print the numbers off. I then put a grid for the calendar days. Then I wrote the days of the week across the top. I put pictures of people on their birthday. I also put a spot for the weather for the day. I printed out some weather clipart (sunny, partly sunny, cloudy, raining, snowing, etc.). I have a spot for the scripture we are memorizing. Then I have the title of the month mounted on some scrapbook paper to offer some color. I might start doing a Spanish vocabulary word and put that up, too.

Each day, we put up the number and I say "Today is SATURDAY September 4, 2010. What is the weather like today?" Then we put up the weather picture. We then recite the scripture. This works well with our Learning Poster.

Apple Seed Counting

If you decide to spend some time learning about apples this Fall, you might choose to do the Apple Print Activity Raegan shared last year. Or perhaps you will choose to have apples as snacks one day. Either way, you will be cutting into an apple. As you do, you can add a number counting activity!

AGE RANGE

A great thing about counting things is that any age can benefit from it. If you have a baby or pre-toddler, you can count for them. My little 17 month old can count to two or three if you say "one..." That is just from her hearing me count things all the time. The Toddlers and older can start to count on their own, though young toddlers will need a lot of help.

SUPPLIES

• Apple
• Knife

PREP

Cut apple in half

ACTIVITY

Remove the apple seeds from the apple. Count the seeds with your child. For the younger crowd, just count. For the older toddler and preschooler, have her count them herself by holding them and counting. For the older preschooler and older, do some simple addition or subtraction with the seeds depending on your child's ability.

This activity was inspired by The Toddler's Busy Book, page 195.

Apple File Folder Game- Counting

Here is another example of a file folder game I made, this time focusing on counting. If you'd like the template for the small baskets, here you go! Here's the template for the large basket, if you'd like it.
Okay, for the activity. The file folder with 12 baskets is for my 3 year old, the 6 baskets are for my 19 month old. I printed, cut and glued down the baskets where I wanted them. Then, again, I "laminated" them with packing tape. This game I'm really excited about because it's very versatile. You can write on the baskets using a Vis-A-Vis marker, or dry erase marker. Wipes right off, so the game can change as your child's needs change. Again, super cheap to make, easy to store, and the girls both had a blast.
Since our theme this week is apples (at our house), I used red, green, and yellow "apples" (Skittles) for counting.
.
For my 1 year old: We are working on 1-1 correspondence and recognizing numbers. I wrote a #1 on each basket and she has to put 1 skittle in each basket.

For my 3 year old: I wrote different numbers, 1-10 (I started easy for her for the introduction to the game), and she has to count out the correct number of apples for each basket.

Some options:

• Different numbers
• Patterns (AB, ABB, AABB, etc)
• Introduction of a new number (ex:write 7 on each basket, and they will get between 6-12 times to practice counting out that number per game played)
• Addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc
• Letter matching. Instead of candy apples, put a group of letters (paper, magnetic, etc) and write a letter on each basket. Have them match the correct letters. It could be capitals to capitals, or capital to lower case.
• Color matching

Fruit Bowl Math

This idea is inspired from the Math In Focus program. This is one of those things I thought I would try out, but was sure the kids would be only mildly interested. Then they surprised me by not wanting to ever stop.

AGE RANGE: It is meant for Kindergarteners, but my 3 year old also did it all with no problem at all. I would say definitely preschooler and up, with some older toddlers being able to do it. You could also do a variation for younger toddlers. See Variation section below.

SKILLS LEARNED

This activity works on teaching similarities and differences among objects. It also works on counting and shapes. You will also get some color work in there.

SUPPLIES

• bowl
• Two apples
• One banana
• One lemon
• One strawberry

PREPARATION

Simply put the fruit in the bowl.

ACTIVITY

• Choose two fruits. Have your child say the name and what is the same and/or different about them.
• I had my children describe the shape of the fruit
• I put all of the fruit in a bowl and asked the child to take out two circle shape fruits or two yellow fruits, etc.
• Put X number of fruit in the bowl and ask your child to count them
• Take all fruit out of the bowl. Ask your child to put X number of fruits in the bowl
• Put two fruit in the bowl. Ask your child to make it so there are four fruit in the bowl
• Put five fruit in the bowl. Ask your child to make it so there are three fruit in the bowl.

Etc.

VARIATION

For the younger crowd, go through the fruit in the bowl and describe what is the same and different around them. Hearing you talk about it will help build his vocabulary and awareness. Say colors, shapes, number, etc.

Math Activities

MATH
You know how your teachers always said you would use math a lot in life? Wasn't that so true! Math is all around us--whether we realize (or like) it or not ;). Math is much more than simply adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. It is about shapes, patterns, relationships, and more. The good news for those who don't love math is that means you can have a lot of fun with math. To teach your child math skills, you don't have to just sit down and count and do addition worksheets. Here are some fun ideas that teach math skills.

• Stacking Rings: For younger children, the Fisher-Price Rock-A-Stack is teaching them math by allowing them to become familiar with patterns and spacial relationships.

• Bead Stringing: I make jewelry and Brayden is always fascinated and desirous to help me out. They sell Bead Stringing kits for kids. You could also go to your local craft store and buy big beads and yarn. A benefit of any of the bead stringing kits from the company Melissa and Doug is that they replace lost pieces for free on their products (including with puzzles). So if and when your pieces get lost, you can get them replaced for free!

• 
  
  Pegboards: These also teach patterns: Pegboard Toys. We have this set, which we love, but it is unavailable right now. Pegs and Pegboard Set with Pattern Cards
• Pattern Blocks: Pattern Blocks teach, well, patterns. We have this set from Melissa and Doug and love it. Melissa & Doug Pattern Blocks and Boards

• Calendars: Calendars help your child develop math awareness. It also helps your child come to understand days of the week and terms like "tomorrow" and "yesterday." You can buy one or make your own.

• Counting: Count everything. I like to count when clipping fingernails ("Let's see how many clips it takes to clip your fingernails this week"). Not only does it teach counting over and over, the child holds still and counts with you.
• Number of the Week: Have a number to focus on each week. Give your child that number of Cheerios to eat or something like that. Count to your number over and over.
• Math Worksheets: You can create or find and print off addition pages and beyond once your child is ready for it. Start simple with the number zero. (5+0=? etc.).
• Board Games: Many board games require counting. Some include Hi Ho Cherry-O, Chutes and Ladders, and Cootie.

• Geomag: Geomag teach geometry. Brayden, Kaitlyn, and my husband all have hours of fun with our Geomags. They are magnetic.

• Magformers: Another fun magnetic toy that teaches geometry. that is hugely popular in my area right now are the MAGFORMERS.  We just got some last week, and so far the kids are liking them.