Sign Language Sight Word Decoding (free printables)

I'm not sure how it happened but the other night I explained to my boys about Koko and how they'd taught the gorilla to communicate with sign language. We watched a YouTube video which captured all of our attention.

To expose my sons a little more to American Sign Language, I made some fun printables (the boys were my hand models). Click on the links in the list below to download the free PDFs from Google Drive.

1. A-Z alphabet cards
2. 1-page American Sign Language Alphabet cheat sheet (on the same PDF as the cards)
3. Sight word cards spelled with sign language for decoding

I gave my six year old son the last two of these three printables (with the cards cut apart) and explained to him that he needed to decode the sign language letters to figure out what the sight word was and read it to me. 

He enjoyed the challenge, especially because many letters resemble a fast, just with different finger formations.

To go with the activity, we read two great fiction books that provided some context for our activity. 

After School Linky Party (1-25)

Welcome to the party!

Wow. Last week's party was AH-MAZE-ING. Did you check out all the creative ideas, printables, and experiments that were shared? If not, you MUST!

Here is just a snapshot of some of the brilliance shared at last week's party.

 Area and Perimeter with LEGO Duplos from School Time Snippets

 Blends Card Game (cr, cl, fr, gl, gr) at Boy Mama Teacher Mama

 Teaching Coin Recognition and Coin Value at Mosswood Connections

Nerf Gun Math from There's Just One Mommy

 Ancient Greek Vases Art Study from Royal Little Lambs

Wiggle to 100 from You've Got This

Free Printable Spanish Numbers & Colors Game from PK1 Homeschool Fun

20 Adorable Homemade Valentines for Classmates at The Educators' Spin on It

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Creative Family Fun

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

This Reading Mama

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.

Fraction, Decimal, and Percent Puzzles (free printable)

Good golly, converting fractions to decimals and percents can be a challenge. To help our 10-year-old memorize some of the most common ones, I created a series of 3-piece puzzles that are self checking.

Download the 4-page PDF of the puzzles for free from Google Drive here.

Construction

I wanted my pieces to be thick so they'd stay together. In order to do this, I glued the printed puzzles onto thin sheets of craft foam (I recommend FOAMIES glue). I then glued various scrapbooking papers (a different design for each puzzle) on the back. Lastly, I used a exacto craft knife to cut the pieces out once the pieces were totally dried.

Truthfully, it was a pain. While I achieved my objective, if I had it to do all over again, I'd skip the craft foam and just glue the scrapbooking papers to the backs of the puzzles and maybe laminate (for durability). Cutting them out would be MUCH easier.

Play = Practice

I dumped them all number side up in front of my son and let him work through finding each 3-piece puzzle, matching 0.5, 1/2, and 50%, for example. When he thought he had all three pieces of a puzzle found, he turned them over to check that they all had the same paper on the back. Voila! That's the self-checking part.

The papers are necessary because not all the puzzles have different shaped pieces.

My son really loved this challenge!

After School Linky Party (1-18)

Welcome to the party!

Thanks for stopping by.

Here are some of last week's amazing ideas in case you missed the party!

 12 Hands On Science Activities for Year-Round Fun and Learning at The Science Kiddo

 FREE Snowflake Number Cards (1-10) at Boy Mama Teacher Mama

 Fire House Place Value Chart at JDaniel4's Mom

 Football Themed Addition Game {FREE!} at Math Geek Mama

 Saturday Science Experiment: Exploring Shadows and the Groundhog at Share It Science

Super Fun Math Activity for Kinesthetic Learners at There's Just One Mommy

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Creative Family Fun

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

This Reading Mama

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.

How to Make Paper Flowers Bloom (Art + Science)

There are no flowers blooming here in the Midwest in January, unless you're at the florist. A thick blanket of crusty snow covers everything and temperatures are so frigid, only the very brave can be outside for more than 10 minutes.

To bring a little spring into our winter, I thought we'd try this fun experiment. It combines art and science in a truly awe-inspiring experiment.

Prep
I created a template of paper flowers for us to use. (Download it free from Google Drive here.)

Create
Once printed on heavyweight card stock and cut out, we used permanent markers to decorate our flowers.

When our buds were beautiful and bright, we put down the markers and folded each of the petals in to the center of the flower, making a nice neat little square.

Experiment
With a shallow bowl of water nearby, we carefully dropped our squares into the water (folded petals face up). Now, behold!

Within about 30 seconds, each of the paper flowers will open to display the beautiful colors added inside!

How Does It Work
As the paper begins to absorb the water, its fibers expand, forcing the paper petals to unfold.

This great activity came from 175 Science Experiments to Amuse and Amaze Your Friends by Brenda Walpole. It's loaded with fun and fascinating hands-on learning ideas! 

After School Linky Party 1-11

Welcome to the party!

What a great new year it's already been. I hope you're enjoying 2016!

Here are just a few of the great ideas shared at last week's link-up.

 5 Things Kids Need to Put in a Thank You Note at JDaniel4's Mom

 Activities for Kids: Making a Straw Weaving Loom at Mama Smiles

 Civil Rights Movement Books for 4th Grade and MLK Day at Pragmatic Mom

 Hockey Science at Creative Family Fun

 Paper Football Sight Words at Sugar Aunts

101+ Penguin Activities and Penguin Crafts for Busy Parents and Teachers at The Educators' Spin on It

Snowflake lacing cards printable at One Mama's Daily Drama

The After School Linky is cohosted by

Creative Family Fun

Planet Smarty Pants

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Educators' Spin on It

This Reading Mama

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.

Alphabet Trace Race (free printable handwriting game)

Our six-year-old son is doing a great job learning to read. His writing, though, well ... that's another story. He frequently writes letters backwards, which his teacher assures me is pretty common at his age. To give him lots of practice writing letters the RIGHT way, I wanted a game that was vastly more fun than handwriting worksheets.

Alphabet Trace Race was born.

The game is simple. To make it, simply download my free PDF from Google Drive here. 

Print all the pages on heavyweight cardstock. You'll need to print multiple copies of the Alphabet Trace Race game card, one for each player. We printed two sets of the letter cards as well.

To reuse the game again and again, either laminate the game cards or slip them into a plastic sheet protector. Dry-erase markers work wonderfully with either of these options.

Once the cards are cut and shuffled well, place them face down between players. Each player takes turns drawing a card. 

They then say the letter on the card and trace it on their game card. The opponent(s) does the same. Because some letters have more cards, it's a race to see which player will complete the race by tracing EVERY letter on their card first. 

If a player draws a card with a letter already traced, their turn is over.

You may need to reshuffle the game cards throughout play. Print more than one set to reduce the number of times you will shuffle.

Top 15 of 2015: Deceptively Educational's Most Popular Activities

What a year it's been! I published 77 deceptively educational activities, games, and ideas in 2015. Here are the 15 most popular.

No. 1
Equivalent Fractions Missing Numerator Game

No. 2

Roll and Make Whole - Adding Fractions Board Game

No. 3

Color Theory for Kids (free printable color book)

No. 4

Button it Up - Beginning Addition Practice

No. 5

Climbing Mountain Climbers (Learning about Everest)

No. 6

Mean-Median Match-Up (free printable game)

No. 7

Simple Machines: DIY Pulley

No. 8

DIY Parachutes (and the Science Behind How they Work)

No. 9

DIY "Cave Paintings" (a Lesson on Lascaux)

No. 10

Why You Need to Use Soap (a Germs Simulation Experiment)

No. 11

Complete-a-Caterpillar (Phonics Game)

No. 12

Butterfly Garden (a Comparing Fractions Game)

No. 13

Egg Drop Experiment (Newton's First Law of Motion)

No. 14

Magic Linking Chain (the Science of Force)

No. 15

Beginning and Ending Sounds Word Elimination

I can't wait to see what deceptively educational ideas and activities await us in 2016!

Thanks to all who continue to follow our journey!