Zoo BINGO (2 Ways to Play)

Are you rolling your eyes? I know what you're thinking: another bingo game? Really?

Yes.

My oldest son loves them and until he stops, I'm going to keep on making them to sneak in some learning. 

You've heard that old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," right?

I made two versions of Zoo BINGO, one for each of my sons based on their abilities. I printed, cut in half, and attached them to mini clipboards.

A freshly sharpened pencil for each and we were ready to have a roarin' good time at the zoo.

Download a 4-page PDF file here that contains four game cards for each type of Zoo BINGO game.

Pre-Reader Zoo BINGO

Since our 4-year-old can't read, his card was entirely pictures. Our little guy is still struggling with learning to hold a pencil right and needed help x-ing through the animals we found. His BINGO game became a collaborative mother-son project. (Let's just say, I didn't mind one bit.)

Zoo BINGO for proficient readers

The BINGO card I made for our 8-year-old was entirely words, with each box containing an animal characteristic. To try and get a BINGO, my son had to either use his knowledge of animals or read the exhibit signs to learn about them.

There was only one simple rule for my oldest son: you can only check one box off your BINGO card for each animal. For example, you could not check both the "African animal" and "animal with stripes" boxes when you see the tiger.

It took no time at all before he had a BINGO. Did he stop checking off the boxes then? Nope. When our trip to the zoo came to an end, he had a total of four BINGOs on his card. Not quite black-out, but still quite an accomplishment.

Other visitors at the zoo caught wind of the boys' BINGO games and offered help! Because both boys had done so well, we made a stop at the gift shop on our way out. 

Mean, Median, Mode, & Range Game

When I saw a few questions on my son's Everyday Math homework about median, I was psyched.

Creating a game to practice calculating mean, median, mode, and range was a snap. And, boy oh boy, was it fun to play!

Kids practice SO many skills with these calculations - ordering numbers for median, addition and division for mean, and subtraction for range!

Before we got started, we reviewed how to calculate each. He read the following rhyme that I'd found on Pinterest (genius, isn't it?!):

Hey, diddle diddle,

the median’s in the middle;

you add and divide for the mean.

The mode is the one that appears the most,

and the range is the difference between.

Prep

You can print our game here. The 4-page PDF contains 3 sets of numbered cards (1-10), a spinner to make, and a scorecard.

To make the spinner, I printed the template onto a piece of sticker paper. (Don't have any? Use a glue stick instead.) I stuck it to the brown side of a recycled cardboard cereal box. Then I cut it out, punched a hole in the middle of the spinner and the arrow, threaded a brad through both and loosely (so it spins freely) separated the prongs on the brad at the back of the spinner.

I printed 6 sets of numbered cards (2 copies of the two pages in the PDF) onto heavyweight cardstock; truthfully, I only needed five sets, but since I'd designed the layout to feature 3 sets on two pages, printing extra was inevitable.

Want to save some printer ink? Forego this download and grab a deck of cards. Use aces as 1s, and eliminate the kings, queens, jacks, and jokers. Instead of a spinner, decide which you'll calculate for each round (mean, median, etc.) and use scratch paper for score keeping!

Play

I dealt five piles of five cards each face down in front of my son and I (i.e. we both had 25 cards in front of us in five even piles).

For each round, we took turns flicking the arrow on the spinner. Next, we turned the cards on top of each of our piles over. If the arrow pointed to mean, we each figured out the mean (he used a calculator).

We checked the box on our scorecard to indicate that Round 1 was mean, wrote down our two scores (the number resulting from our calculations), and removed the cards from our piles, setting them aside, so we could prepare for Round 2.

After five rounds of play, we totaled our scores. The player with the highest number wins!

After School Linky Party (9/2)

Welcome to the After School Linky!

Our linky party is growing! Yowza! Not only did we have a whopping 75 blog posts

shared last week, but we have some truly amazing new co-hosts.

Our community is getting bigger and bigger and I am on cloud nine.

Here are just a few of the activities and ideas you missed last week.

Visiting India the Virtual Way {Family on the Loose} by Multicultural Kid Blogs.

(It turns out you can take your kids halfway around the world without ever leaving your own community. E. Ashley Steel proves it. I love her ideas, like starting the day with chai tea, trying henna, watching Indian movies, and eating at an Indian restaurant.)

Make Your Own Number Trail Mix at Playdough to Plato.

(Kids will love this counting practice. To challenge older kiddos, you could add division problems in the muffin cups [e.g. 15 divided by 3], with the answer being the number of a certain ingredient to add [e.g. 5 pretzels]. This is tasty math practice!)

Aunt Lou's Cockatoo Board Game at Stories and Children.

(This free printable board game may be the funnest way to practice odd and even numbers that I've ever seen. Kids roll and depending on whether the number on the dice is an odd or even number move the game piece toward Aunt Lou or the cockatoo. FUN!)

Mini Magnet Maze at Science Sparks.

(Kids will love learning about magnetism with this fun DIY maze. Simple construction with everyday supplies make this a must-do!)

Ocean in a Bag at Gift of Curiosity.

(Bring all the wonder of the ocean into your child's hands by orchestrating this simple craft! Sand, hair gel, liquid watercolors, plastic fish and a ziploc bag is all you need.)

Learn about the Solar System at School Time Snippets.

(With some cardboard tubes, pin-pricked foil, and constellation cards, kids can view and match up night-sky formations!)

Cohosted By

The Educators' Spin On It 

Afterschool for Smarty Pants 

Boy Mama Teacher Mama

Coffee Cups and Crayons 

Little Wonders' Days 

Mama Smiles 

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational

The Measured Mom 

This Reading Mama

What Do 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, homeschool, 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 or Feature on our After School Party next week! Don't forget to follow along and join our After School Enrichment Community.

Link up your After School Activities, Crafts and Adventures! We'd love to see them!

Aliens on Vacation [Printable Multiplication Game]

When my son finished math camp, he came home toting a notebook filled with math problems and two ziploc bags of flash cards. One was marked in bold Sharpie "needs to work on."

There was nothing subliminal about it. My son had mastered many of the facts but a little more than a dozen multiplication problems continued to stump him.

Rather than quiz him with the flash cards, I got busy making a fun board game with the problems he was struggling with, and the rest of the fearsome fifteen that kids often miss.

I call the game "Aliens on Vacation."

Here's the backstory.

Several families of aliens went on vacation, but they're having trouble finding their way home. Help them return to their home planet (in the center of the board) by helping them maneuver along the space rocks in orbit.

What You Need

Game board (print this 4-page PDF, trim, align and tape together)

Die

Alien game pieces (3 for each player in like colors)

Multiplication table (optional)

Our alien game pieces were inspired by the space invaders game. We recreated them using perler beads. This was an excellent fine-motor art project! 

Not crazy about perler beads? What about making some pom pom aliens? Check out an example here.

How to Play

Three like-colored aliens are placed on the UFOs of the corresponding colors. Each player takes turns rolling the die. When a player rolls a six, their alien can leave the UFO and begin traveling along the orbiting rocks.

The alien is moved to the rock immediately in front of the UFO, but only if the player can answer the multiplication problem correctly. Play moves to the next player who rolls, answers the problem on the rock that number of spaces away, and moves their alien . Each time a player rolls a six, a new alien can move out of the UFO. 

Players must answer correctly to move their alien. Stumped? Use a multiplication table!

If a player rolls and lands on the same rock as an opponent, that player can send their alien back to the UFO.

When the aliens have orbited once around, they must roll the precise number of rocks left to get their alien up to their home planet. For example, if there are three rocks left to get their alien back to the home planet; the player must roll a 1, 2, or 3. If the player rolls a 4, 5, or 6, they can either move another one of the aliens in play or they forfeit their turn, leaving the alien in place. Once the player answers the last rock, their alien can go home!

The first player to get all of their aliens home wins!

Love this game but want to practice OTHER skills (sight words, addition problems, etc.)? Download a blank game board here and write on the rocks!

Popcorn Letters (Pre-K and Elementary Spelling)

I've been working hard to feed our boys healthier snacks and lately, there's no snack requested more than popcorn. I even whipped up some tasty cinnamon-glazed popcorn this weekend (MMMMmmm).

So when I saw Mrs. Jones's popcorn words, I was excited.

Instead of word work, though, I thought we could do some spelling practice.

I made an alphabet of letters on popcorn pieces.

I printed four sets of the popcorn alphabet, cut apart the letters, and grabbed a few popcorn buckets.

Now it was time for both of my boys to play!

Download a free 3-page PDF of the popcorn alphabet here.

LEARNING THE LETTERS IN MY NAME Popcorn Game (PreK)

For my just-turned-four-year-old son, learning the letters in his name has been a struggle. I've been itching to find ways to help make this fun. I took a piece of 8 1/2 by 11-inch office paper and cut it the long way, taping the short ends together so I had one long strip of paper.

Then, I wrote the letters in his name leaving a generous amount of space between each. Now, I grabbed only the popcorn letters that make up his name, wadded them up a little, and tossed them into a popcorn cup.

It was his job to pull them out, say each letter out loud (he repeated after me), and match the popcorn's letter with the letter in his name, placing the popcorn letters in piles on top of the handwritten name banner I made. He really enjoyed this game and the two books we read to go along with it as well.

SPELLING PRACTICE Popcorn Game (Elementary)

My oldest son toted home his first spelling list this week (the 2nd week of 3rd grade). While the list is shockingly easy compared to last year (they're implementing a new literacy program), I wanted him to get in the habit of studying spelling. The popcorn letters were the perfect spelling manipulative.

For his activity, I used a BIG popcorn bowl we had on hand and all the letters from four sets of the popcorn alphabet.

I wrote a handful of the words in his notebook and told him to pull the pieces out, trying to find the letters to spell each of the words.

Each word got a score - the number of extra popcorn letters that were pulled out before the entire word was spelled. One word only had 15, another 62! My son had fun counting and recording each word's score.

When he was done, we read The Popcorn Book. WOWZERS, there sure is a lot to learn about popcorn!