After School Linky Party (3-31)

Welcome to the After School Linky Party!

It's almost April! YIPPEE!

I'm so glad you've stopped by. What follows is a small sampling of the great ideas and activities from last week's linky that I find inspiring. 

DIY Flying Whirly Copter Toy at Pink Stripey Socks

 Diego Rivera for Kids: Make your Own Mural at Kid World Citizen

 DIY Wind Car: Science Lesson & Fine Motor Fun at Stir the Wonder

 An Engineering Challenge for Kids- Build a Boat at Planet Smarty Pants

 Keepers of the Faith - Knot tying class at Growing in God's Grace

Reading Fluency Activity: Read and Record at Children's Books and Reading

Free Printables

3 Boys and a Dog: Dolch Sight Words Worksheets: Week Eleven

3 Dinosaurs: Free Spring Learning Pack!, Round Up of Spring Printables on 3 Dinosaurs

Bible Fun for Kids: Elijah & The Flaming Chariot to Heaven, I Have … Who Has? The 12 Tribes Game & Bulletin Board Printables

Creative Family Fun: Making Lists: After School Writing Practice

Crystal & Co.: Prescool Do a Dot Printables Spring

Every Star is Different: In the Kitchen Tot School, In the Kitchen Unit Part 2

Gift of Curiosity: Easter Sudoku Free Printables

Growing in God's Grace: Series: Bible in a Year with Your Kids week #25 Free Activity Packet

Living Montessori Now: Montessori Monday - Montessori-Inspired Life Cycle Activities

Living Worldsapart: Wheel School - S is for Submarine Printable Pack

Mess for Less: Make Your Own Comic Book - Free Printable Comic

Nova Frugal Family: Kids Wednesday: Learning about the Planets with Fun Books and Activities

The Connection We Share: Color & Pattern Matching Game for Kids

The Measured Mom: Free Easter File Folder Game, Free Printable Handwriting Worksheets for Preschool & Kindergarten, Free Easter Emergent Readers

This Reading Mama: Strategies for Reading Longer Words, Free Phonics Game for Spring (Word Bump!)

Written Reality: 5 Egg-celent Books for Easter (Free Printable Lesson Plans Included)

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Boy Mama Teacher Mama

Coffee Cups and Crayons

Little Wonders' Days

Mama Smiles

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

The Measured Mom

This Reading Mama

What We Do All Day

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventures that you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, home school, or on the weekend! 

When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up, you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks! 

Follow The Educators' Spin On It's board After School Activities & Adventures on Pinterest.

Paper Plate Dreamcatcher

Our oldest son spooks easily. He saw a commercial with zombies and has had trouble falling asleep every night since. Despite all the old tricks that worked with me when I was a young girl, nothing other than laying with him has worked.

I thought we'd try making a dreamcatcher.

Ours is not authentic, but we hoped it would have the same effect as the hoop and horsehair originals made the Native Americans.

Before we got crafty, my son and I read a great book by Audrey Osofsky that helped explain how dreamcatchers work.

"Out of the night swarm dark wings of bad dreams,

but the dream net guards the way.

Tangled in the net, dark dreams are caught

like flies in a spider's web."

When we finished the picture book, we got to work making our dream catcher. While most dream catchers are round, the only disposable plates we had were square. We decided to work with what we had, and since the plates were Spider-Man on one side, thought it fitting to use to make our bad-dream web catcher with.

To start, my son cut out the middle of the plate. Then he punched holes around the perimeter, as well as one at the top to hang it by, and three at the bottom to hang additional features from.

We tied yarn to one of the interior holes and he began weaving the yarn through the holes sometimes adding a bead, and wrapping it around another strand before tucking it through the next hole. Threading the beads was great practice for his fine motor skills. We he'd used up the long strand of yarn, I tied it to another hole.

Then he picked feathers and we tied them to three strands of yarn. We tied knots in the yarn to suspend beads that he then threaded.

When we tied these strands to the bottom three holes and made a loop to hang it, we were done.

Time for some sweet dreams, my son.

Super Suffixes Game

It's been far too long since we played a language arts game. This one works on suffixes, those endings that are added to a word or a root and change its meaning (e.g. high becomes highness, with the -ness suffix).

I made a simple game for my son and I to play. (Download a free 5-page PDF from Google Drive here.)

There are two sets of cards. The first is a full-sized set of 12 cards displaying different suffixes and their meaning.

The rest of the cards are smaller and contain words or roots.

When my 3rd grade son got home from school we reviewed what suffixes are with a little help from Robin Pulver's book Happy Endings. This fictional tale is chock full of suffixes. It's a language arts lesson built into a story, which ranks right up there as my favorite genre of children's books.

After we finished Pulver's book, we played Super Suffixes.

After shuffling both sets of cards, we flipped three of the large suffix cards over. Then each of us drew five cards from the word deck.

We looked at the words we'd drawn and tried to match them with any of the three suffixes. Each player earns a point for every suffix matched with a word. We made matches like happy and -ness, and disgrace and -ful. I could have named this game silly suffixes, because some of the words we tried with our suffixes were downright goofy. "Mom, is weightness a word?"

"I don't think so, son."

"Aww, man." (giggling)

A wild card can be played anywhere. When played, though, a player must come up with their own word (i.e. ANY word) using that suffix.

When we had matched all of the cards from our hand that we could, we kept any cards we were unable to match, drew enough cards from the word deck so we had 5 each again, and flipped over three new suffixes. We played four rounds and kept score to determine who won.

This game is a great way to boost a child's vocabulary, help them deduce the meaning of words with suffixes, and grasp a greater appreciation for the English language.

After School Linky Party (3-24)

Welcome to the After School Linky Party!

Are you ready to be inspired? If so, you've come to the right place.

Here are a few of my favorite activities and ideas from last week's party.

 Contact Paper Confetti Kite at Life Lesson Plans.

 Easter Game for Kids at Happily Ever Mom.

Hands-On Food Web Science for Kids at B-Inspired Mama.

 Hands-on Aztec History at Navigating by Joy.

DIY Mazes for Learning Nouns & Addition at School Time Snippets.

Free Printables

3 Dinosaurs: Free Spring Bucket Lists, Free Sight Word Read Write & Stamp

Bible Fun for Kids: Elijah & Naboth's Vineyard, I Have … Who Has? Books of the Bible Game

Buggy and Buddy: Science for Kids: Planting a Bulb with Free Printable, Science for Kids: Exploring How Water Travels Through Leaves

Education Possible: Hands-On Science: Raising Butterflies with FREE Study Download

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom: Charlotte's Web Storebook Decorations for Your Family Dinner Table

Every Star is Different: Reptiles & Amphibians, March Madness Basketball Unit

Inner Child Fun: Free Printable for Preschoolers: Bakery Play Mats

JDaniel4's Mom: Worksheet for Kindergarten-Writing Words on a Rainbow, Worksheets for Kindergarteners - Counting Leaps

KC Edventures: 70 Free Spring and Easter Printable Activities

Living Montessori Now: Free Easter Egg Printables and Montessori-Inspired Easter Egg Activities

Peace … But Not Quiet: Road Trip Journal Pages (free printable!)

This Reading Mama (at The Measured Mom): Learn How to Spell with a Word Family Dictionary

World for Learning: How to Start a Book Club for Kids

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Boy Mama Teacher Mama

Coffee Cups and Crayons

Little Wonders' Days

Mama Smiles

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

The Measured Mom

This Reading Mama

What We Do All Day

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventures that you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, home school, or on the weekend! 

When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up, you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks! 

Follow The Educators' Spin On It's board After School Activities & Adventures on Pinterest.

Watercolor Painting (Glue and Salt Effects)

I bought a pad of watercolor paper and a cheap set of watercolor paints after my preschooler declared, "I love ART!" out of the blue last week. Who knew?

The beauty of this project is that it's guaranteed to be frame-worthy and is appropriate for a variety of ages. The steps are simple, too!

Step 1

Paint the entire paper with a variety of colors. Watercolors are great to teach kids about color blending. Ask kids questions like, "What happens when the red paint overlaps the yellow? What happens when blue and yellow touch?"

Step 2

If your child hasn't applied the paint liberally (i.e. if there isn't puddles of paint) on the paper, take a brush and dip it in water and splatter it on the paper.

Step 3

Before the paint dries, sprinkle chunky sea salt over the painting, especially wherever the puddles are. The salt adds an amazing effect.

Step 4

Drizzle (or glob) school glue on the painting. When the glue dries clear, it appears to have removed the paint leaving ghosted lines on the paper. The effect is magical.

Step 5

Let it dry.

Step 6

Gently remove loose salt by tipping the painting over a waste basket.

Step 7

Hang and admire.

My son and I LOVED this. He was thrilled to paint and just about the time he was losing interest brushing on the watercolors, I offered up the salt. His attention was reignited. And when I handed him the bottle of glue, he was in heaven.

There's no right or wrong with this project. Making a mess results in extraordinary beauty!

This great project came from Sweet Happy Life. Stop on over there to see the final result from Ariela's family painting project!

Letter Dominoes (PreK Practice)

Working on letter recognition can be a bore. But it doesn't have to be. Why not play letter dominoes?

I made up two sets. One that consists of entirely uppercase letters and the other that contains upper and lower case letters. Download the free PDFs from Google Drive using the links in the previous sentence.

How I Made Them

I used six sheets of 6mm craft foam, foamies glue, and the PDFs printed on cardstock. After applying the glue to both the foam sheets and the back of the cardstock and letting it cure, I adhered them together, and using a straight edge and a craft knife, cut the dominoes apart atop a cutting board. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

How We Played

With all the dominoes in one big pile, I randomly picked one. I then asked my 4-year-old what letters were on the domino. When he'd identified them, I explained how we needed to find our next domino with one of those two letters. The hunt began. He was SO excited to find, match, and place the domino. One by one, we continued like this with him constructing a design of matching dominoes on the table. This was fun practice!

I can't take credit for this idea. It's my eight-year-old son's. When I told him that his little bro needed to work on his letters, this is what he suggested. Can you believe it? After nearly four years' worth of activities with my oldest boy, he now has the creativity and ingenuity to develop his own deceptively educational ideas! I love it!

Love dominoes? Check out our Word Dominoes to practice parts of speech, and these fun DIY dominoes made from ice cube trays and plaster of paris.

After School Linky Party (3-17)

Welcome to the After School Linky Party!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Sorry to be MIA during last week's linky. When my site's content was being plagiarizing, I pulled the blogging plug until the offender's site was down. To review all of the amazing ideas shared last week, simply visit one of my fellow co-host's blogs. 

Here are just a few of the extraordinary ideas and activities shared.

Pi Day Activity - Make Pi Day Bracelets at Pink Stripey Socks

Build a 3D Rainbow {measurement activity with free printable} at Gift of Curiosity

 Musical Sidewalk at Life with Moore Babies

Our LEGOs Store - 3 Differentiated Money Games at Learning is Messy

Learning the ABCs with an Alphabet Flower Garden Activity at Buggy and Buddy

Free Printables

3 Boys and a Dog: First 100 Dolch Sight Words Printables!, Saint Patrick's Day Printables: Sight Word Rainbow Coloring Sheet

3 Dinosaurs: Free Jack & the Beanstalk Pack

Bible Fun for Kids: Elijah: God vs. Baal

Blessed Beyond a Doubt: Freebie Rainbow Science Fun!

Every Star is Different: Fish, Animals Week 1: Mammals, In the Kitchen Unit Part I, St. Patrick's Day and So Much More

Gift of Curiosity: Build a 3D Rainbow {measurement activity with free printable}

Homeschool Survival: FREEbie: Shamrock Faux Stained Glass Craft

Lemon Lime Adventures: Checklists & Printables: Gardening with Kids

Living Words Apart: Wheel School - M is for Monster Truck

Moms & Munchkins: Planning a St. Patrick's Day Party for Kids

Teach Beside Me: Multiplication Facts for Kids - Free Printable!

The Kennedy Adventures: Saint Patrick Printables - Part of the Saints Unit Studies Series

The Measured Mom: Teach Kids to Read with these activities and Resources, Teach Kids to Read Color Words with this Rainbow Sight Word Game, Free St. Patrick's Day Spelling Activity for Any Word List, More Free Emergent Readers: The Sun, Moon, and Planets

Waddlee-ah-Chaa: 10 Activities for Teaching Day & Night

World for Learning: Shamrock Decoupage Luminary FREEbie & Saint Patrick's Day Recommended Reading List

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Boy Mama Teacher Mama

Coffee Cups and Crayons

Little Wonders' Days

Mama Smiles

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

The Measured Mom

This Reading Mama

What We Do All Day

We would love to have you link up your School-Age Post (Ages 5 and up) about your learning week after school including Crafts, Activities, Playtime and Adventures that you are doing to enrich your children's lives after their day at school, home school, or on the weekend! 

When linking up, please take a moment to comment on at least one post linked up before yours and grab our after school button to include a link on your post or site! By linking up, you're giving permission for us to share on our After School Pinterest Board and feature an image on our After School Party in the upcoming weeks! 

Pot of Gold Multiplication Game

It's almost St. Patrick's Day and in honor of that amazing holiday, I created a fun BINGO-like multiplication game to play with my 3rd grader.

What You Need

PDF of the Pot of Gold/Rainbow game cards

Multiplication Fact Flash Cards 1-10 (print some here if you don't already have a deck)

game pieces (use poker chips, glass baubles, buttons, etc.)

 

Download 6 pages of free game cards from Google Drive here.
Page 1 of this 7-page PDF is blank so you can adapt the game to practice other skills.

How to Play

Simply shuffle the flash cards and place them on the table face down. Turn the cards over one and by and solve the problem. Each player places a game piece on their Leprechaun pot/rainbow if the answer is noted there. The first player to fill their pot wins!

Variations

If your child is still struggling with multiplication, print a multiplication table available for them to check their answers. Also have players take turns drawing a card and answering the problem.

If your child is proficient in math and is playing with adults, have them solve all the problems and call them out.

This is a good game for siblings to play. The older sibling can solve the problem and the younger sibling can practice identifying large and small numbers.

My son had a fun with this, even using an auctioneer-like voice to call out the answers. We were neck-and-neck, but he filled his pot of gold before I did and was declared one very lucky winner!

Want another St. Patty's Day-inspired multiplication game? Check out Leprechaun's Luck!

Extended Math Fact Jack & the Beanstalk Game

Fee Fi Foe Fum, let's have some math fun!!

My son's 3rd grade class has been working on extended facts (e.g. 3 x 3 is 9 so 3 x 30 is 90, 3 x 300 is 900, 30 x 30 is 900, etc.). They've also been writing their own fairy tales.

To expand on what he's been learning at school, I made a fun fairy tale-inspired math facts game for him.

Want to make this game too?

What you Need

• 8 pages of white cardstock (or 6 pages of cardstock and 2 plain office paper)
• Beanstalk game board and extended facts playing cards (download the free PDF from Google Drive here)
• Paper trimmer or scissors
• tape
• small figure (aka "Jack") or bean to use as a game piece (we used a LEGO minifigure)

Print the PDF. I printed two copies of the playing cards on page 7. If your cardstock is in limited supply, use 6 sheets for the playing cards and print the beanstalk game board on plain office paper.

Tape the game board together and cut the cards apart. Voila! It's all ready for your child to play.

Before we played, my son watched a short online video that told the story of Jack & the Beanstalk.

How to Play

This is a 1-person game, but participation from an adult or older sibling is required to verify the answers are correct.

The objective is to see how fast the child can help Jack get to the top of the beanstalk. He or she will have to solve the extended fact math problems to help him advance up the tall vine.

Play is simple. The cards are shuffled and placed face down by the board. The child draws, answers, and if correct, "climbs" up the vine, by moving their game piece the number of zeroes in the answer. For example, if my son drew 30 x 30, he answered 900 and moved two spaces up the beanstalk. If the problem was 30 x 3, he answered 90 and only moved one space up.

Watch out, though! Jack can slip back down. If the player draws the "Oh no! Jack slipped back" card, they must retreat the number of spaces indicated inside the leaf on the card.

This is a simple game. Sometimes those are the best.

I kept the beanstalk generic so kids can use it to practice any number of skills. I'm planning to practice letter recognition with my preschooler using the same board. If you think of other clever ways to use it, please share!