Pattern blocks

Little man is working on his  shapes with pattern blocks and cards.  He just picked them up and started work on his own, matching the shapes to the pattern card. No instruction just figured it out on his own. I need to pick up more foam pattern blocks at the education store after work tommorro so all three can do this work at once. Our set is from discovery toys and I have owned it for a long time.

summer fun

I build this waterboard for the kids and they loved it. I found the idea on the internet but can remember where to give credit but will post a link as soon as I find it again.They had races to see who could fill their buckets fastest. Don't tell them measuring volume is math. They think this was all a play activity ok.

What did we do all day?

Today we started with a hundreds board for number review. That turned into a sorting game since I got out the bin of place markers most of which the kids hadn't seen. Little man started a color sort with the egg tray I keep in the bin all by himself. I was surprised and then pleased at how many he put on the right color no prompting from the peanut gallery either. Pitty-pat and Tippy-toe then abandoned the hundreds chart for the sorting game so I gave them each a Candyland card and told them to find only the color on their card.

Then I took Pitty-pat aside and gave her number cards I found on Mathwire that are like the hundred board-but I only gave her the 5's and asked her to count by fives to 100. I am surprised at the tears but then she caught on and now can count in her head to 100 by 5's.

Then all three little one made crosses from tissue paper and contact paper. I showed them how pretty they were when held up to the light. Little man held on to his all day long. He like placing the tissues on the "sticky".

I also got out the Resurrection basket and talked about each item and how we would be learning about the real meaning of Easter the next two weeks. Pitty-pat was amazed to learn Jesus was "real". Of course then she demanded to see where Israel was on the map and astounded to see me point to it. I could see the wheels turn as she realized it was "REALLY REAL". I think today was a success.I was going to study Scotland next but I think we should study Israel for our next country instead. I don't want to do too much right now at the holidays but I might be able to find the flag and a map for our continent box at least.

Presidents Day

Cherry Pie-place the cherries on the pie using red pom poms for the cherries

 The Bells are a great hit for music this week. We had several bells from a collection of my daughter's and thought Little-man would really like to play these.

 We are lap booking about Abe Lincoln. I got the most of the sheets from Homeschoolshare. But  we also did a search for more coloring sheets and an easy reader book.

I got this Penny bingo marker sheet from Jolanthe appropriate since Lincoln is on the penny. I am using it for a math game using pennies for markers and  roll dice first one to to cover the card wins.

world community service project

We have learned of a project to build houses in Haiti. I am proud to know Connie M. a friend at work who is retired and does alot of medical mission work by going to Haiti with her church.  I feel it is important for the kids to learn to help others in need. The rainy season is coming and many people are still living in tents so everyting they own gets wet.Each house costs $2,000.00 US dollars to build. The houses are very small 6ft by 9ft with a cement foundation, wood walls, tin roofs, a window and a door. All the materials must be shipped in to the island. I think it is a reasonable goal for the kids to raise enough money to build one house for another family in Haiti.  The kids all have agreed.
So far we have collected on day 1
couch cushion change and moms honey jar we have $9.00
+ Cam put in $12.21 from her savings.
+ Pitty-Pat put in $2.89 from her piggy bank
+Tippy-toe put in $0.15 from his savings
+Laundry room change jar
=$24.25

$2000.00-$24.25=$1986.75

We brainstormed and came up with these ideas to raise more money
Sell candy bars
Take back pop cans/pop can drive
Bake sale
Sell candles

If anyone reads this and wants to help or also build a house please contact me and I will send you Connie's and the church info. I can't publish it until I ask her permission.

what to do with those extra square dowels

I had those square dowels left over from our weather vane project and while cruising around the web I found this page from the packer family that cut the square dowels into 1, 2, 3, 4...8,.and 9 inch lengths for measuring. Tippy-toe is obsessed with the tape measure now so this is a perfect use for those extra pieces of dowel i have been saving. I love finding ways to use what I already have laying around.
I also liked her idea of spooning marbles on to an egg crate foam piece.

Trip to craft store

I was on call last night so I went to the craft store to find some new ideas. At Michaels I found some wooden shapes to use with our Geometry and fractions--An ovid. a ball, a large cube and small cubes that stack to replicate the same size large cube.
*I also bought pipe cleaners and pony beads and made several patterns for them to copy. A wooden mosaic form for a 1.29 makes the perfect tray for this activity. The edges keep the beads from rolling too far.
*I found Zebra print felt to make the letter Z to finish my felt alphabets I am cutting out for little man.
*I also bought some spring themed funfusion beed kits for a dollar.
*More balsam airplanes for our airplane theme Aaron is doing with them.
*But my best find was a dessert animal set. These will work with the felt map of the continets I plan to make on a fleece blanket. I loved this idea the minuet I saw it somewhere and plan to copy it. I will link to it when I find it again.

At the dollar store I found some wonder-under and colored yarn. I made a pipe cleaner needle and cut a placemat size piece of wonder-under for a begining sewing lesson. The yarn is easier to pull through this than it is plastic canvas. We bend our blunt needles trying to work with the plastic canvas. Today is a rainy day great for practicing fine motor skills indoors.

Geoboards

The kids are making their own geoboards. I went to probuilders for the boards and nails $12.59 to make three geoboards. We even had some pine board left over. I printed the 10x10 geoboard dot paper template from the Eclectic Homeschool website. Then I made shape cards from the worksheets found at abcteach. I will pick up colored rubber bands or hair ties on my next dollar store run. I glued the dot template to the board and set the kids loose with a hammer outside on the porch. I found detailed instructions on how to make a geoboard at http://www.kidscanmakeit.com/AC0003.htm The original idea to search on geoboards came from lapazfarm.homeschooljournal.net thanks to everyone mentioned for all the ideas.

Fractions

Today I made felt circles cut into fractions up to 1/6th. Then we made an apple and cherry pie to illustrate how many pieces do you want your pie cut into. Lizzi got it. Jon could do the pie puzzle but didn't get why. Edible math yummy!

Domino Addition

Found some neat domino math sheets at www.first-school.ws/t/numbers/worksheets/domino-addition.html We use real dominos to draw from a pile then draw and write out a math problem using each domino for addition. Pitty-pat really like doing this but he would rather set the dominoes up and watch them fall.

Tanagrams

I printed out a tanagram patterns set from a montessori site and cut the tanagram from foam one set for each. I put a hole punch in the corner of the patterns to put them on a ring. This helps keep them all together better. Trick is they don't know they're learning math. Jon stuck to it better than Liz who was much better at doing this.