Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

Homophones Memory Game

2012-02-24T07:19:00.001-06:00

You know what’s REALLY funny to a first grader? Homophones!These are words that sound the same but have different spelling and meaning.Learning about homophones helps your child with reading comprehension and spelling. We kicked off this funactivity with two fabulous books.

There were cascades of laughter during both. My son couldn’tstop giggling at all the silly uses of homophones. These books make languagearts hysterical!!

If you haven’t checked out Brian P. Cleary’s Words AreCATegorical series, you must. This is the third time we’ve read one of them andeach has been a joy (stop hereand hereto see the other activities where we used his books). Gene Barretta’s book wasequally enjoyable and useful in teaching my son about homophones. I wouldrecommend both.

After reading, I gave my son some homophone cards I’d made.

Download a 2-page PDF of the cards I made here. Printthem on cardstock, glue construction paper to the back so they aren’t see-through, andcut them out. You're ready to play!

Now we made a four-by-six grid of the cards, placing eachface down on the table. It was time for a Homophones Memory game! Playalternated between myself and my son.

We each turned over two cards at a time, trying to find ahomophones match (e.g. stair and stare). When either of us found a match, we took anotherturn. The winner of the game is the player with the most matches at the end.

My son’s memory is so much better than mine, but even Ienjoyed this game!

I am Pharaoh [Craft & Writing Prompt]

2012-02-22T07:13:00.000-06:00

Warning: If your child tends to be bossy, it might be bestto avoid this activity. My son thoroughly enjoyed being “Ruler of Egypt” ... perhaps a little bit too much!

Before my son got crafty, we read up on Ancient Egypt. Bothof these books contain amazing graphics and illustrate the Egyptian jewelry,headdresses, and clothes beautifully.

Now watch how we transformed one large sheet of goldposterboard, double-sided sticky tape, and construction paper strips into pharaohaccessories!

First my son made an Egyptian Pharaoh’s headdress, usinginstructions on the Activity Villagewebsite. I used their pattern as a guide, folding a sheet of newspaper inhalf so the pattern would be symmetrical. Then my son cut it out and we stapledit to a strip of the paper (this became the headband).

Next, he used double-sided sticky tape to glue on bluestrips of paper. Voila! He looked just like the Great Sphinx of Giza (well, fromthe neck up anyway!).

Then we used the rest of the posterboard to make a goldcollar with directions from Show Me. We traced aplate for our circle shape and then positioned another circular bowl inside it closerto the edge and traced it too. By cutting a slit in the back, it was easy formy son to cut out the interior circle and to slip it on and off.

Since my pantry only had bowtie pasta (a decidedlyun-Egyptian shape), my son glued on more strips of paper to emulate preciousjewels.

Once completed, he put them on and promptly told me he was Pharaohand I was a royal guard. I gave him a blank sheet of writing paper and told himthat as Pharaoh, he needed to record his rules.

Download a PDF of this writing paper here.

His rules follow. (Um … I'm not sure how I feel about that first one …)
Mom has to clean the dishes.
Everyone hugs Dad.
Live in the pyramids.
No school!
All wear chapstick.

While my son would rather do just about anything other thanwrite, giving him this opportunity was just the motivation he needed. Nowhining, just writing. (Oh, how that makes me happy!)

What's the Weather There?

2012-02-20T07:56:00.000-06:00

Download this thermometer here.

Spring break is coming up so I figured it would be fun totake an imaginary trip to five U.S. capital cities. Just the idea of thispretend adventure made my son giddy!

“Where we goin’, Mom?" he asked. From a bowl full of papers printed with each capital city, my son drew one. This was our first stop: Sacramento, CA. (Woo Hoo! On a coolFebruary day in the Midwest, it was a real treat to go there, even if it was just in our minds!)

I handed my son a plastic sheet protector filled with two papers: amap of the United States on one side and a thermometer on the other.

We used Google Maps to locate where in California the cityof Sacramento was located. My son made a dot on his sheet protector-covered map with a dry-erase marker. Then we headed over toweather.com to see what the temps were like that day. My son wrote the name ofthe city and temperature next to the thermometer and colored in the mercury upto 65 degrees Fahrenheit with the dry-erase marker.

We made stops at four other capital cities -Juneau, AK; Charleston, WV; Bismarck, ND; and Salt Lake City, UT. What a blastwe had on our virtual vacay!

When all the cities were identified on the maps and thermometers were colored, we “returnedhome” and I asked my son the following:

What was the hottest city we visited?
What was the coolest?

Then he put the cities (i.e. thermometers) in order fromcoolest to warmest temperature.

Lastly, I put his subtraction skills to the test and askedhim to tell me how much warmer it was from one city to the next.

“Why didn’t we go more places, Mom?” he asked when we weredone. It looks like more “vacations” are in order!

Spelling Practice with Nautical Flags

2012-02-17T07:27:00.000-06:00

Back when we practiced fractions with nautical flags, Idiscovered something pretty awesome about them: there is a flag for each letterof the alphabet! Cool, huh?

Deciphering secret codes is ALWAYS a favorite activity of myson’s so I knew that using the flags to practice sight and spelling words wouldbe a hit. I was right.

I designed a nautical flag alpha key, three pages of sightword codes, and a 1-page sentence cipher. Download them here.

When my son got home from school, I quickly took his newspelling list and made that into a customized worksheet for him. While I wasdoing that, my son read aloud a book by Lois Lenski: The Little Sailboat.It didn’t explain the flags or teach him much about sailing, but it was a cutefiction story that related to our activity and snuck in some reading practice(hee hee).

Afterwards, I gave him the key and a few pages to decode. Hegot right after it, completing the pages in no time. He didn’t even realize hewas practicing for the week’s spelling test. Mission accomplished!

The answers to the pages I made are below. Enjoy!

The sentence cipher on page 4 says, "Good job. You are so awesome!"

EXTENSION IDEA: Print four pages of the nautical flag alpha key. Set one aside. Glue the other three pages to chipboard (aka empty cereal boxes), cut out, and attach magnet tape to the back (I did something similar here). That way you can easily make codes out of ANY words ... or better yet, your child can make codes for their friends or siblings to decipher!

A Klimt-Inspired Self Portrait

2012-02-15T07:16:00.000-06:00

Can you think of a more romantic piece of art than GustavKlimt’s The Kiss? I can’t.While romance isn’t at the heart of this lesson, exposing my son to Klimt’swork is. The artist’s rich paintings celebrate the sheen of metallics, elaboratepatterns, emotion, and beauty.

I love it when authors make artists’ work approachable forchildren. Bernice Capatti has done that with her clever book Klimt and His Cat.

The book is written from the perspective of Katze, anobservant cat that does a wonderful job of explaining why her owner’s artdoesn’t look like everyone else’s. At the end of the book, several of Klimt’spaintings are featured. We looked at TheKiss and shared our observations.

“It looks like the two people are wrapped in a blanket,right?” I asked my son. He agreed. It was time for him to create his ownKlimt-inspired self portrait.

Since Klimt’s faces have a realism lacking in the rest ofhis portraiture, I printed a photo of my son and cut out around his head. Thenhe glued aluminum foil to a piece of construction paper. On the back I drew ashape that (hopefully) resembles his body wrapped in a blanket.

My son cut this out and glued it on a yellow piece of constructionpaper. Next, he glued the cut-out photo head atop his ‘blanketed’ body.

To truly make this look like a Klimt masterpiece, I cut uplots of small rectangular confetti out of scrapbooking papers I had on hand. Handling these tiny scraps of paper was great fine-motor practice! Weadded dots of white school glue to the body form and laid the patterned papersover the top.

Then my son drew a foreground to his mixed-media portraitand added some background detail with markers.

My son loves his portrait! (I do too.)

Math Post-it Note Scavenger Hunt

2012-02-13T07:15:00.001-06:00

My son asked me for another scavenger hunt last week. Iwanted to do something different, though (see our other hunts here and here). Blissfuland Domestic provided some much-needed inspiration: apost-it note hunt!

To practice some subtraction, I grabbed 20 post-its, aSharpie marker, and a pencil. I wrote down ten subtraction problems and theiranswers on a separate piece of paper.

I wrote the first problem on the front of a post-it note togive to my son at the start of our hunt.

Now I wrote the answer with a Sharpie on the front of the nextnote. On the back of it, I wrote the next math problem in pencil (so it wasn’tsee-through). I continued to do this until all the answers and problems werewritten on the post-its. On the post-it note with the last answer, though,there was no problem. Instead, I wrote, “Good job! There is a prize for you inmy bathroom.” (I had to hide it somewhere he doesn't usually go.)

I wrote random numbers on 10 other post-its; these had noproblems on the back. If my son picked one of them mistakenly, he’d know heanswered wrong since the back was blank.

Now I ran around sticking post-its everywhere!

My son barely dropped his backpack at the front door when hesaw the post-it notes I’d scattered in our living room, kitchen, and entryway.His curiosity was piqued and he was chomping at the bit to get going.

I gave him the first post-it, the one with the problemwritten on the front and off he went, answering problems and dashing around tofind the post-its with the answers. When he grabbed the last answer and readthe note, his legs carried him at lightning speed to the puzzle.

This took 5 minutes to prepare and barely any materials. Andthe result was one happy boy who is now the proud owner of an inexpensive (andawesome) Star Wars puzzle.

Compound Word Card Game

2012-02-10T07:07:00.000-06:00

Compound words are like addition problems with words instead of numbers. For amath-loving boy like my son, that makes them extra cool. His first brush withthe concept of combining two words was a GoGurt wrapper that had “star + rock =what?” ROCK STAR! (Okay, so this isn’t a REAL compound word, but it was the inspiration for this activity.)

After explaining what a compound word was, my son and I readOnce There Was a Bull … Frog. Rick Walton's book is the perfect complement to this activity. It has TONS of compound wordsin it. After pointing out the first few, my son was able to identify most ofthe rest.

Now he was ready for my DIY compound word card game!

What you need:

The cards. (Download the 11-page PDF of game cards here andprint on heavyweight cardstock. Glue a layer of paper to the back so they’re notsee-through; I used spray glue and colorful scrapbooking paper).
Some type of small object to use with the Traffic Cop card. I made a plaster of paris molded LEGO minifigure and paintedhim like a police man. That’s, of course, not necessary. You could use anything– a large button, poker chip, dollar store police badge, small rock, etc.

How to Play

Shuffle all the cards. Deal 8 cards to each player. Placethe remaining cards facedown on the table and flip over the top card. This is the beginningof the discard pile.

Each player should look at their cards. Any cards withcompound words should be laid face-up on the table (e.g. cupcake, mailman,football). Any cards that contain words that are in that compound word shouldalso be laid down (e.g. cup, man, ball) with the compound word card. All othercards are held in the player’s hand.

When it’s each player’s turn, they can choose to draw a cardor pick up the card on top of the discard pile. Each player should discard acard with each turn.

If the draw pile becomes totally depleted, the discard pile can be reshuffled to continue play.

THE OBJECTIVE

Make three matches (the stoplight cards above are an example). A match contains 3 cards: the compoundword card (e.g. toothbrush), and the two cards that contain the words that itis made up of (e.g. tooth and brush). The first player to make three matcheswins the game.

SNEAKY THIEF CARD

When a player plays the Sneaky Thief card by putting it in thediscard pile, they can either:

Pick a card at random from an opponent’s hand or
Take a card from one of the unfinished matches thatis laid face-up on the table. Finished matches, complete with all three cards,are off limits.

When the Sneaky Thief card is discarded, it cannot be pickedup by the next player.

TRAFFIC COP CARD

When a player plays the Traffic Cop card, he or she puts itin the discard pile, and moves the small object on top of one of the matchpiles an opponent is building. This prevents them from building that compoundword match until they draw the traffic cop and can move the small object toone of their opponent’s piles.

Like the Sneaky Thief card, the next player cannot pick upthe Traffic Cop card from the discard pile.

This was a GREAT way to help my son understand what acompound word is and help him identify them!

Since a lot of this game is based on luck, kids AND adultswill have fun playing. (My son sure enjoyed beating me!)

Plastic Plate Snowman Snow Globe

2012-02-08T07:07:00.001-06:00

This winter has been one of the least snowy on record here.To make up for the lack of white fluffy stuff, I organized this fun DIY snowglobe craft for my son. I HEARTCrafty Things and CraftElfprovided the inspiration.

Before we got started crafting, we read Snowmen at Night, awonderfully enchanting book about snowmen who frolic and party while humansslumber in their beds oblivious.

Once we finished the book, I gathered our supplies:

A piece of flat cardboard

Blue cardstock

1 clear plastic disposable dessert plate

Brown construction paper

Iridescent glitter

Snowflake party confetti

Low-temp glue gun and glue sticks

White acrylic paint

1 large jumbo marshmallow (optional)

Markers

Paintbrushes

Gluestick

Scissors

I glued the cardstock onto the cardboard for addedsturdiness. Then I laid the plate facedown onto the cardstock and traced aroundit lightly. Now I handed my son the jumbo marshmallow and some white paint I’dsquirted onto a paper plate. The marshmallow was the perfect shape to stampa snowman body!

Once he’d made the snowman inside the circle, he added thesnow globe’s base beneath the circle and painted some more “snow.” When thiswas done, I tossed the paper into the microwave for a few seconds to speed upthe drying time. (Patience doesn't come easy for my son OR I.)

Now it was time to give Frosty some personality. My sonadded a hat, eyes, nose, mouth, buttons, and stick arms. To finish the wintryscene, he drew a bare tree.

Up to this point, my son just couldn't see how it was going to be asnow globe. After all, it just looked like a mixed-medium piece of art. Here’swhere the magic happens!

I gave him a few shakers of iridescent glitter and somesnowflake shaped confetti and told him to add it all in a pile in the middle ofthe circle. Once the pile was sufficient, I used the low-temp glue gun to add abead of glue along the line I’d traced.

He quickly added the upside down clear plate. We checked tosee that there were no gaps between the glue and the plate and added more gluewherever necessary, making sure the seal was tight.

After a minute, our snow globe was done. My son gave it lotsof shaking and had fun watching the glitter and snowflakes dance around hissnowman.

Quarter To, Quarter of, Half Past [Time Sort]

2012-02-06T07:26:00.000-06:00

When my son’s first grade teacher sent a note home toparents telling us what we could work on with our sons and daughters, I didn’tignore it. One of the things she suggested was a little extra practice identifyingwhen times were “quarter to,” “quarter past,” and “half past.”

To work on this with my son, I created some clocks of thesetimes. (Print the 2-page PDF I made here.)

I cut them out and labeled three pieces of paper “quarterto,” “quarter past,” and “half past.” It was up to my son to look at the clockcards and sort them into the right piles.

He whipped through the stack in no time. To check his work,I had him read back the times in each pile.

OOPS! He had several “quarter to”and “quarter past” times confused!

Having him read them aloud was a good reminder, too, thatthe “quarter to” times were one hour ahead of where the little hand waspointing.

This was a simple activity that really helped my son improvehis time-telling abilities.

Let’s Play Library! [An Alphabetizing & Sequencing Activity]

2012-02-03T07:21:00.000-06:00

Children’s librarians tirelessly go through theshelves day in and day out to reorganize the books kids carelessly pull out andshove back in at some other totally random spot. I cannot imagine how frustrating it must be! The school gives kids paintsticks to mark where they removed the book so it can be returned to the samespot if necessary, but not every kid grabs one and sooner or later they’ll all have to be able to figure out the books’rightful place – including my son.

Before he got started with the library-inspired activity Imade, we read a sweet book about library puppets (used during story time) thatcome to life when the lights go out. It put us in the mood for our own imaginary trip to the library.

When the story was finished, I gave my son some laminated “books”I’d made. On several were written the author’s names with a fine-tip dry-erasemarker; the rest had card catalog numbers.

Download a 2-page PDF of these book spines here.

I asked my son which were fiction and which were non-fictionbooks. He wasn’t sure.

I explained that at the library, fiction books were shelvedalphabetically by the author's last name. Non-fiction books were shelved by card catalognumbers.

He promptly sorted the books into two piles – those with authors(fiction) and those with numbers (non-fiction).

Now I told him to put them in order.

He looked at the cardcatalog numbers on the non-fiction books, and put the book with the smallest numbers first and the largest numbers at the end of our imaginary shelf.

He alphabetized the fiction books by the first (and sometimes second) letter of the author’slast name.

Books with numbers like 145.21 and 110.4 tripped him up abit. I explained that you focus first on the digits in front of the decimal.

“Whichnumber is smaller: 145 or 110?” That was easy for him.

My son beamed with pride when all the books were reshelvedin the right order!

Maybe he’s a future librarian.

A Pasta Shell Home for Hermit Crab

2012-02-01T06:56:00.000-06:00

We live in the Midwest. And we’re landlocked. There is noshell-collecting happening 'round here. When my son became interested in hermitcrabs, I had to get creative – REAL creative. I’m too cheap to buy thoseoverpriced shells at the craft store, so when inspiration hit while makingcheesy shell-stuffed shells the other night for dinner, I was over-the-moonexcited.

Pasta shells are shells, right? Those jumbo ones look justlike sea shells!! You know what? They make a great home for a homemade hermit crab!

Supplies

2 large red pom poms

1 red pipecleaner (cut in half)
2 small wooden craft clothespins

2 small googly eyes

1 jumbo pasta shell

Paint

Low-temp glue gun

Before we got crafty, my son read the book Moving Day by Robert Kalan aloud. It’sa great book about a hermit crab in search of the perfect shell. It’s good for exploring opposites, too. Check out some of the text:

Too long,

too wide,

too big,

too small,

these shells will not do at all.

After we finished the book, my son painted the two small clothespinsred (these are the crabs pinchers). Then he painted the jumbo pasta shell tohis liking.

Once done, he used the hot glue gun to glue two red pom pomstogether. And glued the pinchers on. Then he bent the two pipecleaners in halfand twisted them around the pom pom crab body for legs. Lastly, he glued twogoogly eyes on.

Now all that was left to do was see if “Herman” liked his newshell. Not surprisingly, he did!

My son has had so much fun playing with this little crab.And I’ve gotten a kick out of seeing where he turns up around our house!

Up & Down, Add & Subtract – Elevator Math!

2012-01-30T07:38:00.001-06:00

At the library, I stumbled on a wonderful math word problembook – Arithme-Tickle by J. PatrickLewis. The first problem in the book is about a mailman that rides the elevatorup and down delivering letters and packages. Readers have to use their mathskills to figure out what floor he eventually ends up on.

It was the inspiration for this little game - Elevator Math!!

What You Need

24-floor skyscraper picture (download it here)

Lamination

Fine-tip dry-erase markers

2 regular dice

1 adapted UP and DOWN die (visit my Slide-A-Story activity for a download)

Notebook paper and pencil (optional)

Prep

To play, write six destinations on different floors of thelaminated skyscraper (e.g. swimming pool, vet, chocolate shop, toy store, artstudio, cheese factory, cafeteria, karate dojo, etc.).

Objective
See how many of the special destinations youvisit while “riding” the elevator 11 times.

Play

Roll the two regular dice. Add the dots together. Roll themagain and add all the dots together.The total of these four dice rolls equal the floor that you start on.

Next, roll the three dice. Add the dots on the two regulardie together and, if the third die reads “UP,” add the totaled number to thefloor number you are on; if the other die reads “DOWN,” subtract the numberfrom the floor number you are on. Then, color a window on that floor and make atally mark. Roll the three dice 9 more times until you have 10 tally marks onyour skyscraper page, adding/subtracting and coloring the floors.

THE ROOF/BASEMENT: If the player ends up on the roof or inthe basement, have him/her circle the word “roof” or “basement.” When on theroof, there’s only one way to go: down. The opposite is true for a player stuckin the basement. A total of the two regular dice determines how far up/downthe player goes. For example, if the player is stuck on the roof and rolls aseven, they’ll descend 7 floors to floor 17.

My son has played this game three times since I made it. Even though it's as much a game in pretend as it is a math exercise, my son was thrilled this last time to finally "pay a visit" to LEGOland!

Magnetic Snowman Hangman [Spelling Practice]

2012-01-27T07:13:00.000-06:00

Okay, okay, so my son didn’t really hang our snowman (that's kind of morbid), but hedid build it gradually with eachletter he guessed incorrectly in my mystery word. I began with a few of thespelling words my son’s teacher sent home and progressed to a fewwords of my choosing – the current season (winter) and a favorite toy (ninjago).

To make our game, I created a snowman body and some attire. (Download a 1-page PDF of the snowman I made here.)

Then, I printed them on a sheet of sticker paper and attached itto an 8½- x 11-inch piece of magnet paper (a 3-pack runs about $5 at localcraft stores).

The magnet paper is thin enough to cut through so I got busywith the scissors cutting all of the shapes out.

Yes, the stick arms ARE apain to cut out, but it's totally worth it.

One of the shapes I made is an oval game label. It workedperfectly to hold a piece of notebook paper on our refrigerator.

On the paperwere the blanks I’d drawn, one for each letter in the word I was thinking of.

Under the blanks, I recorded the letters he guessed that weren’t in the mysteryword (to keep him from guessing them twice).

I’m not going to lie; I gave him hints – sometimes the numberof vowels or other clues – to keep him from getting frustrated.

This was so much fun!

NOTE: Our printer’scolor ink was pretty depleted, hence our snowman has a pink carrot nose and blue (instead of green) scarf. We still think he's pretty cute though.

Painting with Markers (Georgia O’Keeffe-inspired Art)

2012-01-25T07:01:00.000-06:00

There is something so bold about Georgia O’Keeffe’spaintings. Her larger than life depictions of flowers, desert hills, and animal skullsare simple, yet stunning. To teach my son a little about her phenomenal workand life, we created our own flower art.

First, we read the book My Name is Georgia by Jeanette Winter. Not only does this bookshare the story of O’Keeffe’s life, but it also has an underlying message thatis so important to convey to kids: it’s okay to be different. An excerptfollows.

I did things otherpeople don’t do.

When my sisterswore sashes – I didn’t.

When my sisterswore stockings – I didn’t.

And when my sisterswore braids –

I let my black hairfly.

This “don’t give in to peer pressure” lesson was such anunexpected (and pleasant) surprise; I planned the activity to be all about art,but it was so much richer thanks to Winter’s portrait of Georgia O'Keeffe.

When we finished reading, we embarked on our own kind of flowerpaintings. Freehand drawing is a bit of a struggle for my son. To keep him fromgetting frustrated, we used some homemade stencils. (Print the pattern I usedhere.)

First, I cut a heavyweight piece of acetate paper (likewhat you’d use on an overhead projector) that I purchased from the copy servicedepartment at OfficeMax into fourths. Then I cut petal shapes out of eachsection of the paper using an Exacto knife.

Next, my son grabbed his thick Crayola markers in “pretty”colors and a piece of paper.

I had him to draw the center of his flower in themiddle of the paper, approximately the size of a quarter.

Then I gave him the acetate sheet petalstencils. He positioned his choice of petals next to the flower’s center and used the markerto draw a thick line around the outside edge of the petal, on top of thestencil.

I gave him a stiff-bristled brush, and told him to brushthe marker on the stencil in towards the center, picking up the brush aftereach swipe.

The color from the marker was swept into the center of the stencil,creating a wonderful texture!!

When done, he picked up the stencil and was amazed at theeffect our "painting" technique had created.
After repositioning the stencil, reapplying the marker, andbrushing it in toward the stencil’s center several more times, he had enoughpetals to complete the flower.

I couldn’t resist and made one too. Aren't they beautiful?

A Music Measure of Math

2012-01-23T07:33:00.000-06:00

Aside from an appreciation for music, I have no otherknowledge of it or possess any talent myself. My son's music teacher’s “tee tee tah”lesson on music notes had my son trying to teach me, though.

His curiosity became minetoo.

To help him learn the names of the music notes and practice some math, Idesigned this fun activity.

Download the music measure mat, cheat sheet, and notes/rests cards here.

The objective? See how many different combinations of notescan be used to create a measure of music with a 4/4 time signature.

I made some “note” cards and a cheat sheet that showed allthe notes and rests and the number of beats each has.

After cutting the cards and taping together the musicmeasure mat, my son sorted the cards into piles. Then I told him that the topnumber in the time signature (4/4) told us that each measure of music shouldhave four beats. Each note does not have 1 beat, some have as little as a halfbeat, others as much as 4 beats.

I told him to fill the measure with notes and rests thatadded to four beats. He started with the easiest combinations: 1 whole note and thenfour quarter notes. But they got progressively harder.

I had to explain that two half beats equal one beat (I used an apple cut in half to show how two halves equal one whole). Then,the fun really began – using the eighth notes and eighth rests! More and more cards were laid down.

This was a greatway to boost my son’s music vocabulary and work on counting, addition, and fractions. We made LOTS of different combinations of notes and rests that added to four beats. I lostcount after he created 13 measures!

Eagles: Lesson and Snack

2012-01-20T07:32:00.000-06:00

My husband and I read to our two sons every night atbedtime. The latest chapter book I have beenreading to my oldest son is SUCH a charming book, I thought I’d share it.

Rylant’s book, The Eagle, is fantasy at its best. Three mice childrenare adopted by a seafaring male dog and female cat who call a lighthouse home.Two of the mice children learn to use a compass so they can explore the forest.When they lose the compass, an eagle comes to the rescue. My son truly enjoyed this story, probably because large birds have fascinated him for months.

After our yarn and paste bird’s nest was made, I figured weneeded a bird to put in it – why not make an eagle?!?

I remembered seeing AlwaysLearning’s amazing bald eagle snack and since I had leftover coconut fromwhen we made cookies and did our bakingmath activity, the timing was perfect!

What you need:

Coconut

White chocolate chips

Miniature chocolate chips

Toothpick

Cashews

Chocolate snack cookies

Jumbo Marshmallows

Melt the white chocolate chips in the microwave stirringevery 30-60 seconds. When melted, spread the white chocolate over the sides andtop of the jumbo marshmallow (do not cover the bottom).

Roll the marshmallowthrough coconut.

Add a dollop of white chocolate onto a chocolate snack cookieand place the bottom of the jumbo marshmallow on top of it.

Take a cashew and poke it into the marshmallow to make theeagle’s beak.

Then poke holes in the coconut-covered marshmallow with thetoothpick where the eyes belong.

Stick the miniature chocolate chips,point-side in, into the holes you poked for eyes.

Cute, huh?

Making a Yarn Bird's Nest

2012-01-18T07:31:00.000-06:00

I’m not sure how it came up, but just last week out of theblue, my son mentioned the bird’s nest that we had under our deck this pastsummer. We were lucky that it had two sets of babies in it – first a robin, andthen a squatter who took over when she and her babies vacated. It was so muchfun for the boys to peer through the slats in the floorboards down onto the nestfilled with eager fledglings.

I suppose it was nostalgia for those sweet moments thatmotivated this activity. … Well that AND this amazing yarn basket I saw on Homework. (Isn’t that breathtakingly awesome?!?)

If I picked the right color yarn and it wasn’t orderly,wouldn’t our bowl look like a nest, I thought. (Sometimes experimenting is theonly way to answer a question like that.)

My son came home from school and we made some paper machepaste, following Carolyn’s recipe exactly as instructed. There was only one problem.I could have mass marketed our nests with the amount of paste we made. If youdo this craft, either line up other paper mache projects to follow it, or cutthe recipe down by at least a fourth.

You know what they say: a watched pot never boils. Instead of watching and waiting for the water to boil, we took a small cereal bowl and covered it in saran wrap so that no part of the outside of the bowl was peeking through. Once that was done, we were ready to move on to the next steps in the recipe (which I had my son read).

While our paste cooled and thickened, we read a wonderfulbook that my eyes fell in love with the second they saw it on the library shelf: Birds Build Nests by Yvonne Winer. The illustrations by Tony Oliver reminded me of John James Audubon’s prints. The book features 16different kinds of nests from birds all over the world.

My son and I LOVED seeing how different they all were andenjoyed trying to guess some of the birds (I got the red-winged blackbirdright, my son knew the peregrine falcon; the birds are identified at the backof the book).

When the book was done and the paste was cool, my sonunwound a ridiculously long strand of yarn from the spool I’d purchased. Then he dunked it in a shallow bowl of the paste and stirred it, making sure it wascompletely covered.

Now, I have to be honest … my son hates having dirty sticky hands. I should have remembered this fromour last paper mache project: the dinosaur egg we made. (sigh) But, alas, I hadforgotten. It took a lot of coaxing and quite a bit of “assistance” for myson to get the yarn spread over the outside of the bowl. We left the bowl upside down on a piece of waxed paper; in 24 hours our nest would be dry.

The next day, I wedged a butter knife between the yarn andthe saran wrap and eased it off its mold. Voila! Our own version of a bird’snest!

Scrambled Schedule [Active Time-Telling Practice]

2012-01-16T06:53:00.000-06:00

Sometimes one idea leads to another. In the process oftrying to dream up a game that works on half-past, quarter-to, andquarter-after time telling, this little activity was born. It got my son out ofhis seat and gave him some extra practice drawing the hands on ourComplete-A-Clock.

First, I made 12 cards with a variety of times from 8:30a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Download them here (page 3 of the PDF contains 8 blank cards).

Under each time was a specific activity (e.g. do 5 jumpingjacks, write your name, give a high-five, etc.). I printed the cards andscrambled them up.

I reminded my son what a schedule was. Like the routine hefollows at school, it was a sequence of events that are completed at certaintimes. I told him that we needed to unscramble a schedule and complete theactivities on it.

Then I gave my son a dry-erase marker and our laminated blankclock. I told him that the first time was 8:30 a.m. After he found that card, he drew a long and short hand on the clock to display it,and then did the activity on the card.

Now it was time to find what time and activity came next inthe schedule.

My son needed a little help at first but caught on after thefirst three times and had a blast drawing the hands on the clock and doingeach activity. See for yourself:

Contractions Down on the Farm

2012-01-13T07:14:00.000-06:00

My son reads books with contractions all the time andcomprehends the meaning of the story. But strangely enough, he doesn’t knowdiddley about what the contractions are short for. So I got busy trying to finda way to make this grammar lesson fun.

Denise from Sunny Days in Second Grade provided the inspiration for this activity with her Creepy Contractions post.

I have to also give credit to Brian P. Cleary, the author of thechildren’s book series Words Are CATegorical. The first time I shared one ofhis books with my son was during our NounClown activity. It was a hit so I knew I’mand Won’t, They’re and Don’t: What’s a Contraction? wouldn’t disappoint.

I was right. The text was not only explanatory, but alsowhimsical and rhythmic. It was a great introduction to contractions!

After reading, I added two small pieces of packing tape tothe windows of a barn I’d designed in Microsoft Publisher and printed onheavyweight cardstock. Download the contractions barn here.

Then I gave it to my son to color.

Afterwards, I used an Exacto knife and a straight edge tocut along all the dotted lines and scored and folded open the barn doors.

Then I cut two pieces of office paper into strips. The strips need to be slightlynarrower than if you’d cut the paper in half. Tape them together end to end, tomake one very long strip.

Now weave the strip through the slits on either side of thebarn and fold open the barn doors. Grab a fine-tip dry-erase marker and giveyour child a pencil. You’re ready to start practicing contractions.

I used a list of contractions I found here.I added two words to the barn, one to each tape-covered window with the dry-erase marker. Itwas up to my son to figure out what letters to kick out and replace with anapostrophe to transform the two words into one contraction.

When he was done with that contraction, I used a paper towelto erase the dry-erase words, added new words, and he pulled the paper untilthe space behind the barn doors was blank.

My son caught on quick and was super excited with eachcontraction he made!

Penguins Printable Book & Craft

2012-01-11T07:42:00.000-06:00

Penguins are SUCH cool birds. When I was rinsing out anempty bottle of coffee creamer I couldn’t help but notice its shape; itreminded me of a penguin’s body! When I had another bottle emptied, it was timeto start our lesson in these flightless birds.

We read Gail Gibbon’s book Penguins! and learned that thereare 17 species of penguins, they all live in the Southern Hemisphere, and couldfly 1 million years ago.

Then I got some felt, googly eyes, polyfil, our low-tempglue gun, and two sharpie markers (black and silver). For the clear bottle, westuffed polyfil inside it.

Then I outlined some flippers and a body using silver markeronto half a sheet of folded black felt. My son cut it out. We glued it aroundthe bottle.

Then he cut feet out of stiffened orange felt and we glued them tothe bottom. For the white-capped bottle, we added an extra hood of black feltand some black detailing with the sharpie.

All that was left to do was glue on some googly eyes. Voila!Ricky and Rocky the penguins were finished!

After the craft was done, I gave my son some blank pages I’dmade so he could document all the different types of penguins. I knew he'd love this; he's STILL adding pages and birds to the printable bird lover's field guide we made last summer!

Download theblank penguin book pages I designed here.

He used the Penguin Parade guide the end of Bob Barner’s Penguins, Penguins, Everywhere! book as a guide to complete the pages, coloring the penguins to look like thepictures, writing their names, height, and where they live.

This was a great exercise in studying and recognizing allthe differences in penguins!

Fridge Football [a Subtraction Scrimmage Game]

2012-01-09T07:38:00.000-06:00

My son is getting pretty good at throwing a spiral and LOVESto support mine and my husband’s alma mater when they take to the field. Togive him some subtraction practice, I created a fun magnetic football game.

First, I made and printed a football field onto two pages ofsticker paper and attached it to 8 1/2- x 11-inch magnet paper (cost for a3-pack was about $5 at my local craft store).

Download a 2-page PDF of the football field here.

Then I used one of the spoon-molded plaster shapes I hadleft over from our BeetleTic-Tac-Toe and Firefliesaddition game to make a football.

My son painted it with brown acrylicpaint and then I added small strips of white paper for the details using modpodge glue. I used super glue to attach two small magnets to the back.

For this 2-player game, I used two buttons with glued-on magnets to representeach player. (There are no “teams” in this game, just two opponents.) Lastly, Imade several cards with subtraction problems of varying difficulty. I alsoadded some lose-a-turn (i.e. interception) and penalty cards.

Download a 4-page PDF of the game cards here.

When my son got home from school, he read a fun, Level 1 easy reader, After-School Sports Club: Touchdown! by Alyson Heller.

Let the games begin! I attached the magnetic field to the refrigerator and put the football and players (aka magnetic buttons) on the 50-yard line.

Once the cards were shuffled, I had my son toss a coin tosee who went first: him or me. When he won the coin toss, he drew the firstcard from the pile, answered the problem, and moved his button magnet towardone of the endzones. (Each card displays the number of yards you earn with thecorrect answer; it's inside a small football in the lower left corner. More yardsare earned for harder problems.)

Since the field is marked in increments of two, this provedto be an excellent exercise in skip counting by twos as well as subtractionpractice!

The card was returned to the bottom of the pile. Now it wasmy turn. Play continued like this, with the football being moved next to thebutton of whoever’s turn it was. My son jumped up and down when either one ofus drew the penalty or lose-a-turn cards; he was really into the game!

TOUCHDOWN! Whichever player gets his button (and the ball)into the endzone first wins. We played this game three times, until we finallyhad to stop so I could start making dinner.

When my husband came home, the first words out of my son’s mouthwere, “Dad, can we play our new football game?” They played two MORE roundsafter dinner!!

Paper Word Chains

2012-01-06T07:20:00.000-06:00

The spelling words just keep on a ’comin. I hope I don’t runout of creative ways for my son to practice them anytime soon! So far, he’sgotten perfect scores on the post-tests his teacher is giving each week. (Keepyour fingers crossed!)

Simply reading the words on his spelling list and having himwrite them never goes well. [Imagine copious amounts of whining.]

When I read another blogger’s post about how all kids likemaking paper chains, I recalled the few other times he’d made them and realized that she was speaking words of profound wisdom!

So when my son came home toting a short list of theweek’s spelling words, I was ready. I’d cut what seemed like a zillionstrips of colored construction paper (okay, I may be exaggerating a bit; therewere more like 30).

While he tossed back some fruit snacks, I used a permanentmarker to write one letter of each word from the list onto every strip. Then Iscrambled the strips, and handed him the pile along with the stapler.

I told him to lay out the strips so he could see all theletters. Then I read the first word on his spelling list: dog. (The words get progressively harder.) He grabbed a strip witha d, an o, and a g and put themin order.

Then I reminded him how to make a paper chain. Just like the bloggerhad said, he was positively giddy at the mere mention of doing this.

One by one, he worked through each of the words, makingseveral small chains, until the grand finale, when he made yesterday into a chain. “Did I get it right, Mom?” he asked.

“Yep, that’s how you spell yesterday,” I responded. To which, he exclaimed loudly, “WOO HOO!”

Before we finished for the day, he stretched out the chains,putting them in order from longest to shortest along the table’s edge – yesterday at the beginning and dog at the end.

Later that night, he added loops between each word chain tomake one very long necklace. I’d wish that he could wear it for his post-test,but after this activity, I just don’t think he’ll need it.

TIP: If you do this activity with your child, be sure to puta line under letters like n and u because if the strips get turnedupside down, the letters could easily be confused!

NOTE: It's easy for the letters once added to the chain to appear upside down. I didn't worry about this; after all, it's the spelling and order of the letters that's most important.

Hidden Story Hunt

2012-01-04T07:43:00.000-06:00

My son’s reading has come a long way but getting him to readmore than 5 pages is still a bit of a struggle. To give him some extramotivation, I used a Scooby-Doo easy reader book to create a fun activity thatwould make him WANT to read.

This activity is a hybrid of the Treasure Hunt and Scrambled Story activities we’ve done in the past. First, I retyped the book's text, making one “card”per each page of the book. There were 11 cards in all. Then I printed and cutthem out.

Hiding small pieces of paper all over our house would havemost certainly been frustrating. To make it easier, I limited the hunt to ourliving room, kitchen, and dining area. I also attached some gift-wrap bows(left over from Christmas) to the backs of the cards. Now all that was left todo was hide them.

My son was excited for the hunt. I told him to look for 11bows. As he found each of them, I took the opportunity to ask him, “How many doyou have left to find?” (I couldn’t resist sneaking in a little subtractionpractice!)

When my son found all 11, he pulled the bows off and readthe cards.

Now came the hard part: put them in the right order. We read several cards multiple times, making sure the sequence was right. This was hardand a lot of reading but my son nevercomplained.

I wish I had a video camera to show you his happy dance whenthe story was put back in order; He was so proud of himself!

Personalize this activity to match your child's reading proficiency and interests. Ten (10) minutes at the computer and 5 minutes hiding the cards is all the preparation needed for this great activity!!

Spiders: Learn, Craft, and Write

2012-01-02T07:54:00.000-06:00

When my son did the Build a Bug activity, all thedifferences between insects and spiders popped up and got me thinking about howfun it would be to make a spider. This wasn’t the first time we’ve exploredthese little eight-legged wonders of nature. But it was certainly our mostdetailed study.

To begin, we read WeavingWonders: Spiders in Your Backyard, a fantastic book that talks about allthings spiders; it even has a diagram of their body parts!

After reading, I gave my son the following supplies:

2 styrofoam balls (one slightly smaller than the other)

1 toothpick

5 black pipecleaners (4 of which were cut in half using nailclippers)

8 googly eyes

School glue

He stuck the two balls together for the spider’s body usingthe toothpick, poked in the 8 small black pipecleaners (for legs), glued ongoogly eyes, and clipped some small sections of pipecleaner to add as thespider’s spinnerets. Meet Cyger the Spider!

Afterwards,he wrote what he’d learned on a nifty spider recording sheet I’d created.

To download a PDF of the spider writing prompt, click here.

Blog Post Recap: Favorite 11 from 2011

2011-12-30T08:12:00.000-06:00

I can’t believe that I’ve been blogging consistently sinceApril (thank you for tagging along, blog followers!) and that 2011 is nearlyover. This year was a phenomenal one. My son has advanced tremendously inschool, which is proof positive that a wonderful teacher and the right kind ofencouragement at home equal a more successful learning experience.

Before the year closes, I wanted to recap some of theactivities near and dear to my heart (and faves of my son) that may have goneunnoticed.

#11

NatureScavenger Hunt

Get outside and search high and low for the wonders that naturehas waiting for you! This free download has been one of my most popularprintables.

#10

Whereis my money made?

Teach kids about where U.S. currency is minted; then grabsome coins and have them graph where the coins are from. Will there be moreminted in Philadelphia or Denver?

DIY‘African’ Mask & Printable Book

Art from other cultures can be so hard to relate to. Thisprintable book draws comparisons between the masks of Africa and many westernactivities and traditions. Art projects don’t always hold my son’s attentionfor long periods; however, that wasn’t the case when he made a milk jug ‘African’mask!

PlanetsWinding Word Puzzle

Read about the planets and then practice right and left witha winding word puzzle. As kids follow the directions, moving around the wordgrid, the words they land on form clues. The answer to each clue is one of the planets inour solar system.

PaperAirplane Competition

Make several paper airplanes and then see which flies thefarthest. This activity is a fun way to practice measuring and ordering theplanes to see which one got first, second, third, etc. place.

GONUTS! (Mixed Nuts Sort, Tally, & Taste)

Grab a can of mixed nuts; they are an amazing mathmanipulative – not to mention they taste so darn good too! Kids sort, tally andskip count each variety, then rank them yummiest to yuckiest after doing ataste test.

KenteCloth-Inspired Pattern Practice

Make a stunning art project by alternating rectangles madefrom strips of colored cardstock with yarn-block stamped rectangles. This Kentecloth-inspired paper project provides the perfect opportunity to practice AB, AAB, ABC, and ABB patterns!

SecretDecoder Math

My son LOVES this. It’s quite possibly his favorite mathactivity. Doing a worksheet of math problems is a bore. Make the answers a codeand WHAM!, your child feels like a secret agent on a math mission.

Snappythe Syllable Turtle [Board Game]

A DIY castanet-style snapping turtle is perfect to clickwords’ syllables. We made a game of it! Kids draw a card, click the syllables with“Snappy,” and move their game piece the number of syllables in the word. The playerto get Snappy back home to the lake first wins.

UnderConstruction (a Greater-Than Less-Than Game)

Got LEGOs? Then simply print these downloads and get readyfor some fun greater-than/less-than practice. Kids put the blocks in two piles,determine which is greater than the other, then use those to build with.

PaintYour Organs Shirt and Printable Body Book

Months after making his organs shirt, my son can still identify many of the organs hepainted and what they do!

My son is growing into a very curious boy. I hope tocontinue to encourage his inquisitiveness in 2012. Stay tuned for more fun activitiesthat sneak in science, history, math, art, and language arts in the new year!

Build a Bug

2011-12-28T07:30:00.001-06:00

Boys like bugs. This I know is true. When my oldest son was inpreschool, I discovered the book BugtownBoogie at our local library. After renewing it that first time, andchecking it multiple times thereafter, I finally broke down and bought it. (Iwas starting to feel guilty that we were denying other kids the joy of readingthis amazing book!)

The story is about a boy who stumbles on a bug’s dance club.It describes a myriad of insects and how they shake it to the buggy-wuggy beat.The book’s rhyming text is lyrical and after a few readings, we started tosing the “chorus.” The book starts:

I was strollin’ on home through the woods the other night,

When I saw something a-flashin’ – it was shinin’ mighty bright!

It was blinkin’ and a-winkin’ near the bottom of the tree,

So I scurried on over just to see what I could see.

To say that Warren Hanson’s masterpiece is one my mostfavorite children’s books is an understatement. It’s the kind of book you giveas a gift, you are glad your child asks you to read over and over, and remindsyou how magical the world seemed when you were young.

When I pulled it out to read with this activity, my son wasthrilled (he hasn't tired of this book even after two years)! We also read a great non-fiction book from The Cat in the HatLearning Library – On Beyond Bugs byTish Rabe. It’s cleverly written and filled with fun facts about all kinds ofinsects.

After we’d finished reading, I gave my son a die and twopages of bug body parts.

Download a 2-page PDF of bug bodies and parts here.

First I had him pick the bug body of his choice, cutit out, and glue it to another piece of paper. Then he rolled the die todetermine what he’d add to the picture. If he rolled a three, he could add aleg. I left it up to him whether his creation was an insect or spider (i.e. 6or 8 legs).

Every time he rolled a four, he added more spots, a twomeant he had to keep building his bug’s habitat (first, he added clouds, then atree – his bug was flying!). He used examples from the sheet I made to help himknow what to draw and how many of each (the number of body parts is noted abovethe die on the ‘parts’ page).

My son’s buggy creation may be the very first winged spider!I love his creativity!

Baking Up Some Math Fun!

2011-12-26T20:57:00.000-06:00

I love being in the kitchen with my two cookie monsters. My boysnever hesitate to volunteer to help make a mess. My toddler loves to dumppre-measured ingredients into the bowl; my first-grader is a master at drivingthe Kitchen-aid mixer.

When grandma and grandpa were coming for lunch and we neededcookies to go with our ice cream dessert, I recruited my oldest son to help. Wewhipped up one of my favorite kinds – cowboy cookies. YUM. They have a zillioningredients, everything delicious (with the exception of peanut butter andm&ms) in one cookie.

To sneak in some math practice I made some generalingredient cards. Each has a value; for instance, oats are worth six, sugar hasa value of two, etc.

Download a 2-page PDF of these cards here.

While we waited for the cookies to bake, I told my son topick three ingredient cards and add the values together.

It was so fun to seethe combinations of ingredients he came up with (of course, he picked m&ms+ chocolate chips + frosting as his first cookie problem; HA!).

His reward for a job well done? A cookie, of course!

Easy Reader Puzzle

2011-12-23T07:45:00.000-06:00

When my son used to read aloud, he sort of sounded like a robot. It always left me wondering, “Does he really comprehend the story or is he just reading the words?” To satisfy my curiosity awhile back, I got him a new Level 1 easy reader Hot Wheels book called Volcano Blast!

Then I created a crossword puzzle whose hints and answers all related to the story. To do this, I used Discovery Education’s free online Criss Cross puzzlemaker. I kept the clues to a minimum (only 9), left the default settings for the number of squares as is (Width 50; Height 50), and made the puzzle squares large enough for his giant handwriting (square size = 50).

After he read the book, I gave him the puzzle and explained how the answers to the clues would either be written across or down with one letter in each box. I answered the first question as an example.

To my surprise, he did a great job remembering the story details! In order to spell the words correctly, though, he had to turn back to the pages of the book and locate the answer words.

Although the crossword squares were larger than what you’d find in the local newspaper, they still challenged my son’s fine motor skills. Not only that, but now he knows how to spell the word ‘lava.’

Exploring (and Making) a Coral Reef

2011-12-21T07:55:00.000-06:00

My son can’t get enough of Amanda Lumry’s Adventures of Riley books. I love them, too.

These books talk about wildlife preservation andconservation of natural resources in a way that kids can connect to.Nine-year-old Riley takes excursions all over the world with his Uncle Max and AuntMartha, who are scientists, with their daughter Alice (Riley’s cousin) in tow.

When our local library had a new one of Lumry’s Adventures,I nearly got tennis elbow grabbing it off the shelf.

Riddle of the Reefprovided an awesome lesson in the coral life cycle, how fragile their ecosystemis, and the dangers that threaten the Great Barrier Reef.

Once we’d read all about Riley’s adventure to the world’slargest reef, we made our own 3-D coral reef.

I cut some cardboard to build a standing frame. Then, my son painted a piece of cardstock ocean blue. Afterwards, I gave him a DIY rolling pin covered in a paper towel tube. (Once done with the project, I tore off the tube; now the rolling pin is ready for our next project!)

He used a Sharpie marker to draw undulatingwaves and bubbles on the cardboard tube. When done, I traced over his lines with alow-temp glue gun. Afterwards, we smeared some acrylic paint around on top of apiece of clingwrap and rolled the rolling pin through it. This became a giantrolling stamp that when rolled over the blue-painted paper, looked like theundulation of the water. We LOVED the effect it created!

While that dried, I gave my son some cut-outs I’d created.

Download a 2-page PDF of these shapes here.

Themarine life were printed on sticker paper. The coral was printed on heavyweightcardstock. He set about the task of coloring three of each.

When done, I glued his ocean background to the cardboardstructure and we cut out what he’d colored. After peeling off the backing fromthe fish and ray, they were added to the water backdrop.

Next, we folded the bottoms of the coral cut-outs andusing the low-temp glue, attached them to our sea floor. This project was somuch fun and the 3-D effect is truly magical!

Count, Stamp, and Graph Vehicle Wheels

2011-12-19T07:12:00.000-06:00

When I used up all of my tan thread, I found it difficult tothrow the little plastic spool away. The ends looked like a wheel. I tucked it awayand figured I’d find a way to recycle it into an activity someday.

That day came when I read Margaret Mayo’s Dig Dig Diggingto my toddler. The book provides page-by-page descriptions and graphics of all different kinds of vehicles.

With the book, a big piece of paper, a few empty spools, a stamp pad,and some vehicle labels, I was ready for my son when he got home from school.

First we read Mayo’s book. Then he added the labels, which I'd madeand printed on sticker paper, onto a big piece of lined paper. Now all that wasleft to do was have him count the tires.

Download the labels I made here.

Since most of the graphics on the labels and in the bookonly show one side of the vehicle, my son had to count or multiply (e.g. 4+4 or4x2) to determine how many TOTAL wheels there were on each vehicle.

Once he’d done that, he pressed the spool into an ink padand stamped the number of wheels onto the graph. When he was done stamping thewheels for each vehicle, he counted the wheels in each row of the chart, circled the vehicle with the largest number of wheels, and wrote "winner" beside it on his chart.

Then, all on his own he explained to me which vehicles hadthe same number of wheels and asked if he could keep using "these cool stamps."

Making a States Book

2011-12-16T08:24:00.000-06:00

My son has a fascination with the state quarters. So when Isaw The Paper Pony’s blogpost about creating rubbings of the quarters, the idea stuck with me.

After finding the amazing printablestate bird and state flower cards offered for free download on Step Into 2^ndGrade with Mrs. Lemons, a full-blown activity was born.

I printed and cut apart the state bird cards, mixing themall together. Then I made a States Book for my son, dividing up the states intofour geographic regions: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and West. I listed allthe states on the book’s cover in alphabetical order and printed a mapof the United States with the states labeled. (Click on the links in this paragraph to download the cover and pages of the States Book I made.)

I punched holes in the pages, as well as a small manilaenvelope that holds the unused bird cards. The book and envelope are held together with brads.

When my son got home from school, I handed him the StatesBook, Loreen Leedy’s book Celebrate the 50 States!, colored pencils, a gluestick, and his piggy bank.

First we found some state quarters in his bank. Then welocated those states in Leedy’s book, which told us the state birds for each.He found the bird card, glued it in his book, and made a rubbing of the statequarter.

The rubbings require light pressure and newly sharpened pencils.Practice first!

A line was drawn through the states he completed on thebook’s cover and the next day, he was back at it hunting for more quarters sohe could keep working on his book!

Reptiles: Book and Bookmark Craft

2011-12-14T07:20:00.000-06:00

My son’s teacher is sending home books that are long enoughfor him to read sections of each night (yahoo!). Bookmarks are a must now. Funny thing,though, they keep disappearing!

I came up with a fun way to learn about reptiles and makesome scaly long-tongued bookmarks too. To learn about cold-bloodedcreatures, we read Miles and Miles of Reptiles by Tish Rabe. Have I evermentioned how much I love the books in The Cat in the Hat Learning Library? They combine information about non-fiction topics with lively cartoon-likecharacters and rhyming text (I have a weakness for books that rhyme). My sonLOVES these and I do too.

After we finished reading, I gave him some lizard andsnake templates I made and cut apart.

Download this 1-page PDF here.

Then I cut apart a shower poof andplaced a piece of 7 ¼-inch wide cardboard inside the netting tube I cut. My sonpicked the colors of acrylic paint to use on each snake.

We placed the paper under the netting and over thecardboard. I taught my son to stencil, pouncing the brush until it was mostlydry and then pouncing again over netting. The netting created the perfect “stencil”to make scaly snake skin! Next, my son painted his lizards – one with spots,the other with stripes.

I used a hairdryer to speed up the dry time. Once dry, headded eyes with a black crayola marker. After I’d cut them out, we took them tothe store to be laminated.

Once laminated, I cut around each bookmark, used a punch toadd a hole in the mouth of each animal and my son threaded pink or red ribbonthrough for a tongue.

Of course, I added his name to the backs of each in the hope that his new super cool cold-blooded long-tongued bookmarks never slither away.

It’s All the Same (a Math Puzzle Game)

2011-12-12T07:29:00.000-06:00

I wanted a fun way for my son to see how that the same mathproblem can be written in different ways. And I wanted him to be able check hiswork independently, similar to the Lock and Key Math game I made.

So I created a series of 12 puzzles for my son to play.

Eachpuzzle has three pieces: 1) a multiplication problem, 2) an addition problem,and 3) groupings of dots.

Download 12 puzzles and the game board here.

To keep the pieces from slipping around, I spray gluedsheets of felt to the back of the puzzles (printed on cardstock) before cutting them out and usedanother felt sheet as the game board. It worked perfectly!

I wish you could have heard the “YEESSSSSS” my son shoutedafter each puzzle was assembled. It was thrilling to see him catch on and enjoythis so much.

These puzzles would be great for preschoolers and kindergarteners working on numbers. One piece could have the numeral, another with the number spelled out, and the last piece could display the equivalent number of dots. To make these, download the blank puzzles here.

Jumbo Stamp Art

2011-12-09T07:31:00.000-06:00

My son really enjoyed our Postage Paid coin-countingactivity. To capitalize on his interest in the stamps, I thought I'd help him design a jumboone.

Before he started the craft, I reminded him what stamps were– that they are like receipts to prove we’ve paid to mail our letter or package.Then we read a fun fiction book about delivering the mail: Tortoise Brings the Mail by Dee Lillegard.

In this book, Tortoise loves delivering the mail but manyother animals think they can do it just as well but faster. After several takea turn at it, they discover that there is no one better for the job thanTortoise. The illustrations are beautiful and the story is heartfelt. As usualwhen I check out books from the library that my son loves, he asked, “Do wehave to return this to the library?”

After we finished the story, we read Mir Tamim Ansary’s bookabout collecting stamps. The book shows lots of real stamps from all over theworld and gives suggestions for different types of stamp collections kids can start.My son was excited to see a stamp with a familiar face on it – Abraham Lincoln’s!

When we were done reading, I handed my son a piece ofcardstock with a rectangle in the center. I told him it was time for him todesign his own stamp and determine its value. He settled on 88 cents, and addedthe number and a Christmas scene depicting Ziggy, our Elf on the Shelf, insidethe rectangle.

After his drawing was complete, he used my Martha Stewart Punch AllOver the Page™ 1 ½-inch circle punch. I helped him line it up to punchhalf circles all around the sides to make the stamp’s perforated edges. I love the finalresult. Don’t you?

Replicating Monet’s Water Lilies (in 3-D)

2011-12-07T07:24:00.000-06:00

My son’s art teacher exposed him to the mastery of ClaudeMonet. To piggyback on what he was learning at school, I thought we’d make our ownimpressionism replica of his gardens at Giverny, specifically the ponds with theirspectacular water lilies.

First we read about Claude’s life, learned about whatimpressionism was, and discovered the artist’s infatuation with the way lightreflected off of all the things in nature.

Then I gave my son some watered-down acrylic paints and abig sheet of art paper. He painted it blue with hints of lavender. He wasdiscouraged that he didn’t get the whole paper covered. I reminded him that thelighter (or white) spots would just look like light reflecting on the water.Suddenly the very thing that he found frustrating was a source of pride!

I sped up the drying time with my hair dryer. Then he tracedsome lily pad shapes onto sticky-backed sheets of green foam. When they werecut out, he peeled off the paper backing and attached the pads to the water.

Next, I cut apart a cardboard egg carton. Then, withscissors he cut lots of V shapes out of their edges to look like the lily padflowers.

All that was left to do was paint each, blow them dry, andglue them atop the lily pads.

This idea came from Judy Press’ book Around-the-World Art & Activities.

Postage Paid (a Coin Counting Activity)

2011-12-05T07:43:00.000-06:00

For a little coin-counting practice, I created this funactivity for my son; not only did it work on money and numbers, but ittaught him about the postal system too!

You should have seen his eyes light up when he saw our homemadepost office box. He was SO curious to see how we’d be using it in our activity,he barely suffered through the book we read.

I have lost count of the number of books we’ve read by GailGibbons. Her book The Post Office Book:Mail and How it Moves didn’t disappoint. Like the other non-fiction gemsshe’s penned, this book simplified a complex subject in a way my son couldgrasp. He loved seeing all the ways the mail moves from its origination to itsdestination – including the historical references to the Pony Express.

When we were done with Gibbons’ book, I gave him:

A dozen oversizedand laminated stamps I had made (truthfully, I made twice this many but we only used half)
12 envelopes filled with coins.
The DIY postoffice box.

Download a 2-page PDF of the oversized stamps I made here.

His task was simple: open each envelope, empty the coins,count them, and find the stamp with the same amount of cents written on it (Iused a fine-tip dry-erase marker to write the amounts on each). After he’dbought his stamp, he set the coins aside. He stuck the stamp to the envelope (therewere Velcro dots on each) and “mailed” the envelope.

Because the stamps are laminated, I can easily wipe away the old amounts and write new ones on. Using the velcro dots is another way to make this activity reusable.

This was GREAT practice counting money and my son loved it. Once all 12 envelopes were mailed, he even counted the number of each type ofcoin he had “spent” on stamps.

Spelling with Cheez-Its

2011-12-02T08:42:00.000-06:00

I love the Scrabble Junior Cheez-Its. Whenever it’s my son’sturn to take a snack to school and I’m too busy (or lazy) to whip up muffins or trail mix,these are my go-to purchase.

Since my son often does his afterschool activities whileeating a snack, using Cheez-Its for our activity was perfect! I created aworksheet with some blanks and a grid.

Download the Cheez-It Spelling worksheet here.

Then I added the snack crackers to thegrid, being careful not to include any letter more than once.

Next I told my son to look and see what words he could makewith the letters. For now, I let him move the crackers to try-out differentcombinations but eventually, we’ll play this like Boggle, wherehe’ll have to find the words in the grid, without moving the letters.

This may be one of the simplest activities we’ve done, but itwas deliciously fun and can easily be repeated over and over again withoutgetting boring.

My son came up with some great words – including the name ofhis new LEGO Ninjago figure Zane.

Sometimes it’s fun to play with your food.

Just ask my son!

Making Lady Liberty’s Torch

2011-11-30T07:13:00.000-06:00

I cannot imagine what it must be like for immigrantsto see the Statue of Liberty on their journey toward U.S. citizenship. To help myson understand all that Lady Liberty symbolizes, we read a few great books.

Thefirst story, a fiction book by Eve Bunting, did an amazing job of talking about the symbolism of thisgreat landmark. (It was hard for me to get through the book without choking up.) A family takes an annual ferry ride to Liberty Island at the request of the grandmother to commemorate the Statue of Liberty's birthday with a picnic.

When we were finished, I pulled out Marion Dane Bauer’sReady-to-Read Level 1 Wonders of Americabook. Unlike the first book, this easy reader talked about the history andconstruction of the statue. My son was amazed to read that Americanschoolchildren donated dimes and nickels to buy the pedestal on which LadyLiberty stands!

After reading, we made our own version of the Statue ofLiberty’s torch. I got this idea from Judy Press’ book Around-the-World Art & Activities.

Whatyou need:

An empty paper towel tube

A small disposable cup

Aluminum foil

School glue and gluestick

Orange construction paper

2 toothpicks (optional)

1 flameless tealight

Cut a hole in the bottom of the disposable cup, the samediameter of the paper towel tube. Have your child slide it down the tube (1). Then,poke toothpicks in an X configuration through the top of the paper towel tube (2) about ½-inch down from the top of the tube (this will be what the tealight sitson). Clip off the ends of the toothpicks that are sticking out. Add school glueto the ends to secure them.

Tear pieces of orange construction paper. Glue the jaggedpaper to the inside of the top of the tube for the torch’s flame (3). Now, coverthe tube and cup with glue, wrapping wide strips of aluminum foil over theentire torch (4). When the glue dries, add the flameless tealight to the top.

Telling Time Printable Card Game

2011-11-28T07:23:00.000-06:00

Before my son’s last playdate with his best buddy, I must have answered “whattime is it now, Mom?” and “how much time before he gets here?” a zilliontimes. (sigh) Finally, I reminded him that he could tell time, too.

I had to jog his memory about which hand told the hour and minutes, but otherwise, hepatiently counted by fives around the clock to tell the time in minutes.

To develop his time-telling skills even more, I made atime-telling card game based on Old Maid. I created 33 cards, 16 of which are analogand digital clocks with the same time and 1 dead battery card.

Download the game cards here.

After printing on cardstock and cutting them out, we wereready to play! ... Well, almost.

First, we read TellingTime by Jules Older, who did a MUCH better job of identifying digital andanalog clocks and explaining each hands’ function on the analogclock than I did.

After we’d finished the book, I shuffled and dealt the entiredeck to my son and I. (The cards won’t divide evenly; that’s okay.) When my sonhad all of his cards, I told him to lay them out so I could help him find thedigital and analog clocks with the same times. I did the same thing with myhand and those matches were set aside.

Then we held our cards and picked one card from each other’shand, alternating turns, matching the clocks and putting the pairs aside. Theobjective is not to get stuck with the dead battery card. The player leftholding that card is the loser.

My son LOVED playing the “Time is Running Out” game I'd made and, with eachgame we play, seems to be getting better at reading the clocks.

Remove the dead battery card from the deck, and play theseother fun children’s games:

Go Fish!

Memory

From Phonics to Words with Slide Cards

2011-11-25T07:21:00.000-06:00

Have you ever known you needed to do something that no oneelse knew about, but you still felt guilty? That’s how I’ve felt about postingthis activity for months now. Literally months. This should have been my veryfirst post ever. These slide cards are the most useful activity that I’ve evercreated for my son.

He did a great job learning phonics in kindergarten. Butblending those phonics into words was a little more challenging for him. At thekindergarten curriculum meeting, the teachers shared a nifty little trick to helpearly readers blend the sounds they learned. Thankfully, midway through theyear, I hadn’t forgotten it.

First, I made a few of these … then a few more … and moreand more, at my son’s request. I don’t know what the cards were called that thekindergarten teachers shared, but I’ve dubbed these amazingly simple things ‘slidecards.’

The basic principle is that by showing a child one letter ata time, they are able to concentrate on the sound it makes before they see thenext letter/phonic. It’s easier for them to blend the sounds gradually ratherthan 1) feeling overwhelmed and giving up or 2) guessing the word.

Simply download and print the first 15 cards (5 pages) on cardstock, flip over and download and print the next 15 (5 pages) on the back. Then grab 15 regular-size securitymailing envelopes and seal them all. Now cut one of the short ends off of each. Insert one card in all the envelopes and you’re ready to work with your son/daughter on blendingsounds. Just pull the cards out slowly and make sure your child says the firstsound before revealing the next letter. When they’ve blended all the letters/sounds together,reveal the picture and watch your child’s face light up with pride!

TIP: It works best toprint the cards so that the type on the back is upside down. That way you cansimply flip the card over and immediately practice the next word, without havingto reposition the card in the envelope.

Now allow me to apologize for not sharing this activitysooner. Until I switched to new design software, I could not share the originalcards I made for my son. I hope a few of you will find these PDFs (or just the idea)to be as helpful as we have.

OJ Carton Lantern & Paul Revere’s Ride

2011-11-23T07:59:00.000-06:00

There’s something to be said for a legend … and a great poem… and transforming junk into a craft. The combination of these three things puts this activity among my favorites.

My son’s class of first graders is learning about earlyAmerica, the Declaration of Independence, the flag, etc. So when I saw Phyllis’postover at All ThingsBeautiful, I knew a lesson in Paul Revere’s ride would fit right in withthe history my son was being exposed to at school.

It’s been ages since I read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’spoem, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.I did remember the line “One if by land, two if by sea,” though. And I had asneaking suspicion that my son would light up (pun intended) at the idea ofusing lanterns in a church tower as a signal.

I was right.

Before we got crafty, we read Longfellow’s poem. The book Ichose has amazing illustrations that practically have readers holding theirbreath with suspense, feeling the damp night air, and hearing the whinny ofRevere’s horse.

When reading, I stopped periodically to put the poem in layman’s terms formy son. Despite the complex language, he was engrossed.

When we finished the poem, I gave him an empty orange juicecarton and told him it was time to make a lantern similar to the ones used tosignal Revere.

First he traced some rectangles on each side of the carton.Then he cut them out. Lastly, he covered the lantern in black duct tape.

I punched a few holes in the lantern on opposite sides.

To make the “glass,” he cut some pieces of vellum paper andI glued them into three of the windows with a few dots of low-temp glue. Weleft one window in the back open.

Then I had my son thread wire through the holes and twist ittogether on the inside of the lantern for a handle.

All that was left to do was add a flickering flameless tealight!

Add and Subtract with Roman Numerals

2011-11-21T07:52:00.000-06:00

My son’s class is working on telling time. His homeworkassignment one night was to find and count the number of clocks in our home. Healso had to draw one of them. Of course, he chose the clock with romannumerals. This got me thinking. Maybe he’d enjoy learning about roman numerals.And thus, this activity was born.

Our library had an amazing book that was both fun to readand extremely helpful (I never learned roman numerals so I was totally clueless).

From David Adler’s book, I made a cheat sheet for my son translatingthe values of each numeral.

I = 1

V = 5

X = 10

L = 50

C = 100

D = 500

M = 1,000

Then, I made a game board and playing cards. I laminated the board to use over and over with a dry-erase marker.

Download a PDF of the game board, playing cards, and cheat sheet here.

The game board has a reminder about three important rules:

When the same number is repeated one after the other, thenumbers are added.

When a larger number is followed by a smaller number, thenumbers are added.

When a smaller number is followed by a larger number, thesmaller number is subtracted from the larger.

Since my son is only in first grade, we did not use the “D”(500) and “M” (1,000) cards I made; I’ll save those for when he’s ready to addand subtract larger numbers. After reading the first half of Fun with Roman Numerals (the more youread, the more complex the combination of numerals becomes), I placed threecards on the game board and asked my son to write their values underneath witha fine-tip dry-erase marker.

To start, I placed the cards in descending order by value sono roman numeral was followed by one that had a higher value. Doing this meant thatthe numbers would always be added. I gave my son a 1-100 numbers grid for help whenhe needed it. Once he had the answer, he wrote it at the bottom of the gameboard. We cleared the dry-erase marks on the board with a paper towel.

Gradually I added different cards, progressively making theaddition harder. Eventually, I placed a numeral with a higher value in themiddle or at the end, so my son would have some subtraction practice. Thistripped him up at first, but eventually he caught on and began thinking aboutwhether greater than/less than numerals should be added or subtracted.

Teaching a first-grader roman numerals was tough but my sonloved it. Now he can not only read our kitchen clock, but also will be able to tellme what number Super Bowl it is this year!

This Family is a Bunch of Turkeys! [printable book]

2011-11-16T15:50:00.001-06:00

Yep, you guessed it. That's me as a turkey. HA!

We’re a goofy family all right. My boys love to be tickled andmy husband and I still love to act silly (despite our ages). So what could be moreperfect than turning each of our family members into a turkey?

That’s precisely what my son did.

When he came home from school, we read 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, a clever book about saving somelovable turkeys from their fate as Thanksgiving dinner. After a few laughs, wegot down to business.

I gave my son pictures of each member of the family and somecoloring pages I’d whipped up. He read the text on the cover page, “This family is a bunchof turkeys,” and immediately chuckled. (This was gonna be fun.)

Download a PDF of the book pages here, cut vertically, and get ready for a whole heap of silliness!

Next he filled in the blanks on each page, telling why eachof us is a turkey and why he’s thankful for us. Then he colored each turkey,cut heads out of each of the photos, and glued them on the turkeys.

It was up to him whether to add googly eyes, glasses, horns,etc. to the photos. At first my son was satisfied with the turkeys as is, butthe next day, we all had glasses and earrings. (What will I look like tomorrow,I wonder?)

When all the pages were complete (starting with the coverand ending with my son’s turkey), I added a small folded scrap of constructionpaper over the pile of pages at the top and stapled it for a spine. Voilá!

This was super fun! (Silly activities always are.)

A blog post from And That’s Family was my inspiration. Stopby for a visit and have a laugh. I did!

Oceans, Continents, and Directions, Oh My!

2011-11-16T07:36:00.000-06:00

When I purchased a subscription to National Geographic Kids magazine for my son, they sent us aninflatable globe. He has been fascinated with it ever since it was filled withmy husband’s hot air.

All on his own he began asking me to name a country for himto find. Of course, I didn’t hesitate to honor his request, even writing someof their names down so he could find them easier. When he had trouble, I foundmyself saying things like, “Look in North America,” “It’s a country in Asia,”or “First find Africa.” Each time, all I got was a blank stare. My son didn’t knowthe seven continents!

This activity is meant to fix that.

To start, we read a great book that shared information aboutthe terrain, location, peoples, and animals on the Earth’s seven different continents.

Afterwards, I gave my son a printed map of the earth with nolabels. I had written the following on the bottom:

North America – green

South America – brown

Europe – purple

Africa - yellow

Asia – red

Australia/Oceania – orange

Antarctica – blue

I asked my son to identify the continents from memory andcolor each according to this key. He remembered North America, South America,and Antarctica but needed to review Bobbie Kalman’s book again for a refresher tolabel the others. (And all the little islands off the coast of the continents,which continent do those belong to?We definitely needed the book’s mapto answer those questions!)

When my son had color-coded all seven continents, I addedtheir names and had him draw a compass rose on his map. Then I gave himdirectional clues to help him label the oceans. I said things like “The PacificOcean is west of North America” and “The Indian Ocean is south of Asia.” (Ihelped him with the spelling until all five oceans were added.)

I could tell he was proud of himself. At bedtime, I told himhe had five more minutes to look at books before it was ‘lights out.’ He askedto look at his new map instead!

Our continents activity was inspired by a blog postover at 2 Love Learning (ifyou haven’t stopped there, do!).

Kente Cloth-inspired Pattern Practice

2011-11-12T16:06:00.001-06:00

AB, AAB, ABC, ABB … if you’ve ever worked with a child onpatterns you, no doubt, recognize these. Frankly, I think some of the traditional pattern-practice activities are a bore [yawn]. I wanted a fun way to keep my son engaged aswe worked on creating and recognizing patterns. When I stumbled across a picture of Kente cloth(fabric woven by the peoples of Ghana, Africa), a light bulb went off.

To start our activity, I Googled Kente cloth and clicked on “images.” Ishowed my son all of the different pictures and told him we were going toreplicate the look of Kente cloth with an art project. He was game.

Earlier in the week, I had my husband cut two rectangular blocksof wood the same size from a 2x4. (If you replicate this activity, don’t feel like you need touse wood. Anything that is hard, shaped like a rectangle, and could get painton it would work.) I cut lots of cardstock rectangles from five colors ofcardstock in the same shape as our blocks of wood.

Then, I had my son wrap the two blocks of wood in yarn. Itied the two ends together on the back of the blocks, he applied acrylic paintwith a sponge brush, and stamped the yarn prints on two different colors ofcardstock. My son was blown away at how cool these homemade stamps were. (Okay,who am I kidding? I was too!) I got the idea here.

When he had stamped eight blocks of each, we moved on and beganmaking our patterned blocks in the following configurations:

AAB

ABC

ABB

Each strip of our Kente cloth would have blocks with one ofthese patterns. I cut the cardstock rectangles into horizontal or vertical strips and my songlued them on. When he’d created two or three blocks with the pattern we weremaking, we glued our blocks onto a big piece of paper in an AB pattern,alternating with the stamped blocks.

This took a long time and a lot of thinking. My son, who isn’tnormally the patient type, stuck with it until all four strips were done andglued onto our plain paper. He was captivated by how the patterns all cametogether!

When it was done, I had him explain the meaning, symbolism,or significance of his Kente cloth design by completing a custom-made handwritingsheet I created. I had to smile at his explanation: the cloth he made commemorateslosing his second tooth!

Download a PDF of this handwriting paper here.

Write Like An Egyptian

2011-11-11T07:22:00.000-06:00

When my son and I got to the sixth chapter of Mary Pope Osborne’s book Mummies in the Morning, a light bulb went off in my head.

The third book in the Magic Tree House series takes Jack and Annie back to ancient Egypt where a ghost-queen asks for their help translating some hieroglyphs.

With a big plastic tub of card-making stamps collecting dust in our basement, I seized an opportunity to put them to use. First I picked 26 small stamps, one for each letter of the alphabet and stamped a key.

Then I stamped a “hieroglyphic” message for my son. Just like in Pope’s book when the code led the two young children to the Book of the Dead, the message my son decoded would reveal a hidden treasure under his bed (an inexpensive toy concealed in a brown lunch sack). I also made a blank sheet so he could stamp his own “hieroglyphs” for his Dad to decode.

Before my son started to read and write like an Egyptian, though, we read the First Facts book Hieroglyphs by Kremena Spengler.

Making a Miniature Totem Pole

2011-11-09T07:13:00.000-06:00

My favorite of all the Native American art is made by tribesin the Pacific Northwest. The transforming masks, button blankets, and totempoles are absolutely incredible! This activity is an effort to give my son his ownappreciation for these peoples and their incredible crafts and legends.

Before my son began creating his own miniature totem pole,we read much of the “Carving the Pole” chapter from Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith’s bookTotem Pole. This excerpt explainedthat totem poles are like signs that help pass on legends and stories fromgeneration to generation.

The book is written in first person, from the perspective ofa young boy in the Tsimshian tribe, whose father is a wood carver. Davidexplains to readers how his father first makes a drawing, then transfers thedrawing to the cedar log before he begins carving.

We looked at the drawing in Hoyt-Goldsmith’s book of thepole David's father planned and then read the meaning of the figures being carved.

Next I gave my son sets of totem pole figures printed fromScissorCraft.com onto brown craft paper (I cut postal mailing paper into 8 ½- by11-inch rectangles and fed it through our printer to replicate the look ofwood). My son selected six drawings, added color to some of the details andthen we cut them out.

Now I asked him to look again at the picture in the book ofthe carver’s drawing and told him to move his cut figures around so they wouldstack vertically well. Next I cut several ½-inch vertical slits in the bottomof a paper towel tube and placed this end of the tube inside another tube, sothey would look like one long pole. Next, he applied glue to the back of eachfigure and placed it on the pole until it was complete.

We looked at pictures of the pole raising in the totem polebook and raised our own pole. To secure in its upright position, I applied abead of hot glue to the bottom of the pole and set it on a small piece ofcorrugated cardboard.

Download a PDF of this handwriting paper here.

Lastly, I gave my son a piece of custom-made handwritingpaper and asked him to tell me the story of his pole. His story seemed to takeinspiration from “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.” It began, “The eagle wentto catch the frog. The frog went to catch the fly …” Very clever, huh?

Not only is his pole pretty cool, but he learned aboutanother culture’s art and got alittle creative writing practice in at the same time! Fun!

Multiplication with Eric Carle’s Zoo

2011-11-07T07:01:00.000-06:00

I like Eric Carle’s books. Way back when my son was atoddler I ordered 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo from a Scholastic book order, expectingto love it as much as Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Imagine my surprise when Iopened it to find no words. Not a single one.

At that age, my son enjoyed identifying and counting the animalson each page. And let’s not forget about that adorable little mouse. What a joy it was to point him out!

As my son grew older, the book was ‘read’ less and less. Untillast week, it was collecting dust on the shelf. I realized then that it was aperfect book to practice multiplication.

I whipped up a two-page worksheet to accompany the book. It asks questions like how many hippos do you see (2), how many teeth does each hippo have (8), and how many teeth do both hippos have (2 x 8 = 16).

Download this 2-page PDF here.

My son went page-by-page answering the questions, firstcounting the number of animals on the page, and then counting the particularbody part (tail, legs, eyes, etc.) that each animal had. Then he answered each multiplication problem, using skip counting (by 2s, 5s, or 10s) when possible.

He had no trouble whipping through the 10 problems, and was SO proud to remember the rules when multiplying times 1 and 0.

He really enjoyed this activity. I really enjoyed reconnecting withEric Carle’s charming book.

Twist-a-Letter Word Maker

2011-11-04T07:43:00.000-05:00

Educational toy stores take a close second behind bookstores on my list of favorite places to shop. When we were shopping not thatlong ago at one downtown, I spied a little toy that I just couldn’t get out ofmy head. Just because its price tag was higher than I was willing to pay, doesn’tmean I wanted to deprive my son of the experience it could provide. I don’t knowwhat it was called, but I’ve named my DIY version the Twist-a-Letter WordMaker.

What you need:

1 ¼-inch plastic PVC pipe, cut with a hacksaw to about 12inches long (costs about $2)
An empty paper towel tube
1 sheet of sticker paper
2 rubberbands
A 1-inch by 8-inch strip of heavy-duty laminate (I used ascrap from another project)
Exacto cutting blade
Fine-tip black permanent marker

TIP: Take your papertowel tube to the home improvement store with you. It should fit very snuglyover the pipe. If it doesn’t, you haven’t found the right size. My hubby kindlycut ours, but you might ask if an employee at the store could cut yours whileyou’re there.

Once your PVC tubing has been cut, slide the paper towel tube over it. Now print the PDF I made with letters on it onto a sheet ofsticker paper; cut the columns of letters where indicated. Keep the strips in order. Wrap the end with the excess paper first, so the end of the strip with the letters closest to it overlaps the plain paper. Wrap the first strip around the papertowel tube next to the tube’s left edge.

Carefully use an Exacto knife to cut the paper-towel tube right next to the edge of the sticker paper you just applied. Once it has beencut, add the next strip to the remaining piece of the tube. Make sure the letters are right-side up. Continue to use thestrips as a guide and cut until all the lettered sticker columns have been appliedto the tube and cut into rings.

Now draw an open rectangle (mine was approximately ¾-inch by6-inches) with permanent marker in the middle of your strip of lamination.Place this over the top of your lettered rings on the PVC pipe and use rubberbandson either end to hold the lamination in place. Now you can rotate the letteredrings and align them inside the rectangle to make words. All that’s left to dois hand it over to your child.

Set the timer and let the word-making begin!

I gave my son seven minutes to see how many words he couldmake. When the timer went off, he had 10 words on the page.

Next time we “play”with the Twist-a-Letter Word Maker, my son can work on beating his 10-wordscore!

DIY ‘African’ Mask & Printable Book

2011-11-02T07:08:00.000-05:00

In college, I volunteered as a docent in a museum that had anincredible collection of African art. Some of the other docents avoided thatgallery like it was cursed, but I loved parading groups of adults and childrenthrough there. My art history classes had taught me enough to help me explainthe art in a way that people could relate to. Once you understand it within thecontext of your own life, customs, and society, its beauty and craftsmanshipare especially inspiring.

I hit the library to see what wonderful literature could help myson relate to African masks and how/when they were worn. Um … well … it wasn’texactly a successful trip. While I’m sure someone has written amazing booksparalleling African art and traditions with our own North American customs, mylibrary didn’t have any of them. Not to be discouraged, I made my own printablebook.

This book shows where in the world Africa is, and drawscomparisons between Western theatre, Halloween, and superheroes and the masksof Africa. Feel free to print the book Imade; Download the first three pages, flip over the stack of papers and downloadand print the second three on the back. Reorder the pages, fold in the middle,staple on the fold and share with your child(ren).

Use a plastic milk jug as a mask.
Earlier in the week, I shared with my son the one book I did find at my local library: Carol Finley's The Art of African Masks. We looked at the book's pictures together.

Then, I told my son we were going to makea mask and asked him to identify shapes for the eyes and mouth. Once he showedme what he liked, I cut an empty gallon-sized plastic milk jug in half, andused an Exacto knife to cut out eyes and a mouth in the shapes he’d identified.

The eyes were cut oneither side of the jug’s handle (which serves as the nose). Then, I used apaper punch to add holes, where I would tie elastic cord later. I painted the jug beigeusing Krylon Fusion spray paint for plastics. (In hindsight, the paint wasprobably unnecessary.)

Decorate the mask.

After we read andcompleted the printable book I made, I handed my son lots of different bits andbobs to use to decorate his own ‘African’ mask (e.g. a dried-soup bean mix,ric-rac trim, dried pasta, raffia, buttons, etc.). We worked together to addthe embellishments; I placed lines of low-temp glue wherever he instructed.

He added elbowmacaroni around the eyes for eyelashes and ric-rac hair, taking his time to getit just right. He sorted the beans. He made AB patterns with the pasta. And he did those things without my suggestion! I was super impressed with the final product. Once the glue had set,I tied elastic string around the back so he could wear it. I thought the mask was done.

I was wrong.

For the next twodays, he continued decorating the mask – now with permanent markers. I loanedhim my Sharpie collection and watched as the mask I already thought was amazingbecame EVEN MORE incredible (see the picture at the top of this post).

He loves his new ‘African’mask, even wearing it occasionally when we play card games or watch TV. I did have to draw the line at wearing itduring dinner though (even with it pushed up on his forehead).

Shut the Box Dice Game

2011-10-31T07:12:00.000-05:00

I’d love to claim this idea as my own, after all itssimplicity is brilliant and what it teaches is incredibly useful. But, alas,this game is not my brainchild. Disney’s FamilyFun magazineshared this idea in the November 2011 issue. My take on it follows.

Shut the Box is a great dice game that gets childrenthinking about different combinations of numbers that can be added to equal asum.

Supplies:

Cardstock

Nine 3”x 4” toploading trading card sleeves (optional)

2 dice

Pencil and paper forscore keeping

I designed a PDF of cardswith each of the numbers 1-9 on them and printed the pages on cardstock. Iflipped the pages over and printed Shut the Box graphics on the back so thecards would be double-sided. Then I cut out the cards and slid them into some tradingcard sleeves (while the sleeves are unnecessary, they make the cards moredurable; lamination would serve the same purpose).

Then, I laid thecards out in order with the numbers face up on the table and handed my son twodice. He rolled the dice and added the two numbers together. Then it was up to myson to decide what two combination of numbers (that would add up to the sum) toflip over.

If he rolled a sixand one, he added the numbers to get a sum of seven. He could flip over any twocards with numbers that added up to seven; for example, three and four, fiveand two, etc. Once the two cards were flipped (showing the Shut the Boxgraphic), he rolled the two dice again, continuing to flip over cards until herolled a sum that could not be made with the existing cards. Play stopped andthe remaining numbers were added together for his round 1 score.

Now it was my turn. We flipped over the cards so all the numbers were face up. I played until the sum I rolled could notbe made with the remaining cards, added the numbers face-up, and we determinedwho won round 1. (He had a lower score than me.) We played three rounds and have played several times sincethat day.

We have yet to Shutthe Box (getting ALL the cards turned over in one round). It sure is fun trying, though!

Click here for a 3-page PDF of the Shut the Box cards I made. Print pages 1-2; flip the pages over and print two copies of page 3 on the backs.

Snappy the Syllable Turtle [Board Game]

2011-10-28T07:08:00.000-05:00

Now that my son has banged out some funky beats on his syllable drum, I thought he’d enjoy playing a syllableboard game.

After seeing the most adorable snapping alligators peoplewere making and sharing on the Internet (find one example here),I thought I’d try my hand at making a snapping turtle.

We affectionately named him Snappy.

How to Make aSnapping Syllable Turtle

Salvage some corrugated cardboard from your recycling bin (Iused an empty box of diapers). You only need a small piece. Fold it in half anddraw a turtle shape with the rear of the turtle shell on the fold. My turtlewas nothing more than an oval with a smaller circle peeking out from one end.Cut it out.

Next glue two metal bottle caps on each side of the turtle inside so that when you pinch the turtle together it makes a snapping sound. I usedsuper glue and held the caps in place with rubber bands until the glue haddried.

Next, decorate your turtle however you desire. My son paintedhis in a combination of greens and brown. I used a hair dryer to speed up thedrying time and then added some details to the shell with a permanent marker;lastly, my son glued on some googly eyes.

Read

While this activity is really about word work, I wanted tosneak in some science. We read two books to learn about turtles, one of themost interesting amphibians. I read the first book. My son read the second.

Play the Board Game

Download and print the game board (pictured below) and playing cards I made here.

Use something small as chips to move around the board (we used twodifferent colored buttons). This two-player game is easy. Each player draws onecard when it’s their turn, reads the word, and uses Snappy to snap the numberof syllables in the word. Then they move their chip the same number as the syllablesthey counted. Play continues until one player finally reaches the finish andsuccessfully helps Snappy return to his home in the lake.

Snapping the syllables with our homemade snapping turtle wasso much fun for my son, he often did it for me when it was my turn!

Making a Picasso-inspired Guitar

2011-10-26T07:03:00.000-05:00

To teach my son about Pablo Picasso, I decided not to focuson his role in the cubism movement, but rather on his remarkable painting The Old Guitarist.

Since our last fine art lesson (on Van Gogh) taught us about the connection between color and emotion, this piece from Picasso's Blue Period was a nice segue.

To start, I gave my son a coloring page that I’d made based on the painting andasked him to follow the directions at the top of the page, considering what the man might be feeling/thinking and using colors to reflect that. (Download the coloring page I made here.)

Kids have THE best interpretations of art. My son thought the old man was thinking about his boy and imagining the two guitars he was going to make for him; that’s why his eyes were closed! The old man was excited aboutthe project. I asked my son what color would show his excitement and he selectedgreen.

When he was done coloring, we figured out how many years agothe original painting was made. Then, I showed him a print-out of Picasso’s The Old Guitarist, and shared thefollowing:

For three years between 1901 and 1904, Pablo Picasso usedmostly blue in his paintings. I asked, “Why do you think he used so much blue?” He was sad.
When a close friend of Pablo’s died, he painted LOTS of sadthings like people who had no friends or money or were sick.
The Old Guitaristis a painting of an old blind man who has no money.

Then, my son made his own guitar.

Here’s the supply list: an empty tissue box, a paper towel tube, brown postal mailing paper, sixrubberbands, a small piece of cardboard, and six brads. I traced the sides ofthe box onto the brown paper and my son cut them out. Then we glued them to thebox (1).

Next I cut out a circle at the top of the box where theguitar’s neck would be attached (2). I used a glue gun to apply glue on the circle’sedge and we wedged the tube tightly in the cut-out hole (3). Then my son cut two slitsin the top of the tube opposite each other (4) and we slid a trapezoid-shaped flat pieceof cardboard into the slits. I applied a little glue to hold it in place.

My son added six rubberbands to the base of the guitar (5) andslid the brads into the cardboard edges of the trapezoid top (6).

When the guitar was made, I showed my son the two picturesof The Old Guitarist – his and Picasso’s.I asked him what kind of music he thought the two men were playing (was it fastor slow?) and had my son play his instrument the way they might.

When we were done, my son didn’t put his new guitar down fora whole hour. He even held it while watching a movie we rented. Maybe I’ve gota budding musician on my hands!

Unlocking the Keys to Simple Addition

2011-10-24T07:18:00.000-05:00

Math might come pretty easily to my son but that doesn’tmean he doesn’t need the practice. There are two main principles that guidedthe creation of this activity; I wanted:

to make a math game that could be changed with moredifficult problems as my son’s proficiency grows.
a way that he could check his answers independently.

The result was Lock-and-Key Math.

You need 4 supplies for this activity:

Cardstock (print my 4-page PDF on it)

Thirteen 3” x 4” toploading trading card sleeves

Lamination

dry-erase marker

Cut out the gray key silhouettes. Cut out each of the keys(yes, it’s a pain, but TOTALLY worth it). Take the keys to an office/copy shopto be laminated. Use thick lamination sheets and space the keys widely. Once laminated, line upthe keys with each corresponding silhouette, using them as a guidefor where to cut the lamination so the final result is a rectangle shapewith the key floating inside it.

Put the silhouettes (or locks) inside the thirteentrading-card sleeves. Add addition problems to the keys with a fine-tipdry-erase marker. On the back of each key’s corresponding lock, write theanswer on the sleeve with the marker.

Before my son played the Lock-and-Key Math game, we readLoreen Leedy’s Mission Addition. (Ilove Leedy’s books.) Because the book explains how to add numbers when they arestacked vertically (as opposed to 3 + 4 =), all the Lock-and-Key problemswere written that way.

It’s time to play!

I put all the keys is a jumbled pile on the table and laidthe locks face-down so the answers were visible. One by one my son picked akey, solved the addition problem, and found the sleeve with the answer. Then heflipped over the sleeve and slid the key into the lock. If he was right, the silhouettematched the key perfectly.

My son patiently and quietly worked through all 13 problems,matching each key to its respective lock. While I planned for him to play thegame independently, I failed to consider how excited he’d be with each correctmatch!

Keyboard Codes (Spelling Practice with a Homemade Laptop)

2011-10-21T07:24:00.000-05:00

My son LOVES the computer, so I’m constantly in search ofgreat online (educational) games for him to play. When I saw Joyful Mama’s poston the feltlaptop she made for her daughter, Sweatpea, it jumpstarted my creativejuices.

Since we’re still working on spelling those word-wall words myson is bringing home from school (check out Roll & Write for some historyon that), I thought a DIY laptop would be perfect!

I knew, though, that if I put a pretend laptop in front ofmy son and asked him to type the words he would lose interest quickly. Toprevent that from happening, I created ciphers (each was a sight word fromschool) for him to decode using the keyboard. This was SO MUCH fun!

1. Make a DIY Laptop

Use a large flat, rectangular piece of corrugated cardboard(mine was the packaging that came with a 16x20 picture frame I boughtrecently). Score in the middle so you can fold your laptop. Cut the holes offof an 8 ½ x 11 plastic sheet protector. Use a glue gun to adhere the sleeveabove the fold for your laptop’s monitor.

Download and print the keyboard I made (click here). Glue itto your cardboard laptop below the fold. If you want, draw a rectangle belowthe spacebar for a touchpad.

Next cut another piece of cardboard to make a kickstand to keep yourlaptop’s monitor from flopping over. Attach to the back of the “monitor” usinga glue gun.

2. Read

I love to pair a great book with every activity, so for this one we read Doreen Cronin's Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type. It's hilarious!

3. Help Your Child Decipher KeyboardCodes

Pages 2-4 of the keyboard download have sight-word keyboardcodes. Give one of these pages to your child along with the laptop.

The two-digitcodes are numerical with the first number indicating the row and the secondnumber representing the number of keys in that row that a child will count(from the left). For example, if the code is 33, a child will count down threerows and over three keys; hence, the letter is D.

4. Have Them Type the Sight Words

This was a lot of word work for my son. Once he completeddecoding all 12 words from the first worksheet, I told him to find one2-letter, 3-letter, and 4-letter word and circle each. Then I slipped hiscompleted keyboard codes paper into the monitor’s plastic sleeve and he typedeach of those three words.

When this was done, my son had loads of fun playing with hisnew “toy.” Since I had all the supplies for this activity on hand, I have nodoubt that this is the cheapest computer I will ever buy him.

Making a Syllable Drum

2011-10-19T07:11:00.000-05:00

Have I shared how much I love activities that combinemultiple disciplines?!? This activity is all about music and language arts.

There are two parts of this activity: 1) making a drum and2) reading and banging out the beats (aka syllables) on the instrument we'd crafted.

The drum can be made out of any recycled cylinder - thesturdier the better (I used an empty raisin container). Cut a piece of paper to fit around the drum’s exterior andask your child to decorate it however they like. Use double-sided tape to attach.

Then cut two circles from any non-fraying material (I usedvinyl leftover from a cowboy vest I made for Halloween a few years ago). Thecircles should be about ¾-inch wider all the way around your cylinder. We used a small bowl to trace the circle shape before cutting it out.

Use a paper punch to make holes in the circles about a ¼-inchin from the edge, roughly 1 ½ inches apart. Make sure both circles have thesame number of punched holes.

Place one circle right-side down on the table. Add a bead ofhot glue around the edge of the cylinder to hold it in place. Put the cylinder ontop and add glue to the top of the cylinder, placing the other fabric circle over it. Now use a ridiculously long piece of yarn or other string to threadup and down through the holes, working your way around the drum. When you getback to where you began, tie the strings together. (NOTE: We neglected to use glue and our circles were constantlyslipping as we threaded the yarn.)

With our drum made, it was time to read. Steve Webb’s Tanka Tanka Skunk is an awesome book forteaching syllables. An Amazon.com reviewer shared this little nugget and you know what? They wereright.

Two lovable characters (Tanka, the elephant, and Skunka, theskunk) bang on their drums, drumming thebeats of animal words (e.g. kan-ga-roo has 3 beats and cat-er-pil-lar has 4beats). As I read the book, my son banged out the beats of the animal names onhis new drum.

When he got confused (for example, trying to make fox intotwo beats), I reminded him that each syllable has just one vowel sound. Since thereis only one vowel sound in fox, it has only one beat, or syllable.

This was SO MUCH fun! When he finished Webb’s book, hepracticed lots of other words like the names of EVERYONE in our family and his teacher's name too. Then he asked if he could wear the drum; I tied a long ribbon aroundit so he could sling it over his shoulder and drum all over the house. Mylittle drummer boy is learning syllables and drumming up some funky beats atthe same time!

Now that’s music to my ears!

DIY Checkers (with Addition and Subtraction)

2011-10-17T07:08:00.000-05:00

When my son’s math summer camp ended, the teacher told meabout the games they had played in class. Games? Really? He showed me the games and explained how each of them taught math skills – even strategy.I had no idea that chess was a math game, but apparently it is.

Since neither my husband nor I know how to play chess or,truthfully, really want to learn, I thought checkers might be a more agreeablegame for our family. To prove that playing checkers truly was educational, Idid what every person does when they have an unanswered question – I Googledit.

According to MistyKaram on LoveToKnow.com, checkers can teach important pre-math skills likesorting by color, directions (e.g. forward, backward, and diagonal), cause/effect,logical thinking, and reasoning. Cool, huh?

What you need:

24 plastic bottle caps (or 12 of one kind, and 12 of another;it helps if the lids will nest inside one another when stacked)
Plain colored cardstock in two colors (if you plan to add math problems to your checkers board, make sure one of the papers is a light enough color that dry-erase ink will be legible)
1 sheet of posterboard measuring 14-inches square (or larger)
1 sheet of sticker paper (optional) or stickers
Dry-Erase markers (optional, if you laminate your board)

To make our checkers board, I used my Fiskars paper cutterand cut out 32 squares (measuring 1 ¾-inches) in one color paper and 32 squaresof the same size from another color of paper. Then one by one my son and Iglued these down, alternating the colors, onto a 14-inch square piece ofposterboard. (You’ll end up with an 8 by 8 grid of squares.) Then I took the “board”to a local office paper/copy shop to be laminated.

Since I had plans to work some addition and subtraction practice intoour checkers game, I designed circular plus and minus stickers to print onsticker paper and cut them out with my Martha Stewart Punch All Over the Page™ 1 ½-inch circle punch.These fit perfectly on the 24 plastic Gatorade bottle lids I’d saved during thesummer. (You can download my lid stickers here. Truthfully, though, you don’tneed these stickers or a fancy punch.Simply add 12 of the same stickers to the tops of half the lids so that you candistinguish between the two opponents’ checkers.)

Before we started toplay, I added some subtraction and addition problems with a dry-erase marker to the game board on coloredsquares we’d be playing on (on our board, we play on the gray squares). Everytime that my son jumped one of my checkers, he had to answer the math problemunderneath. (Need a refresher on how to play checkers? I did. Go here.)

My son has playedthis game every day since we made it. He even wrote and illustrated his own checkersrule book (his own idea!). The kid is goingcrazy for this game, which makes saving the lids and gluing all those squarestotally worth it in my book!