CVC Words Hunt

Those little consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words are a great way for kids to practice phonics, listening for beginning and ending sounds, early reading skills, and spelling.

I snapped some photos and made several cards for my son to hunt, sound out, and spell.

The words I used are:

hat

pot

pen

car

jar

box

map

can

Download the cards I made for free from Google Drive here.

How to Play

I cut the cards for four words and scattered the cards throughout our living room, using scotch tape to secure them to the tv cabinet, ottoman, fireplace mantel, etc.

Here's the instructions I gave our 5-year-old.

You'll be making four words. Each word has four cards, one of which is a photo. Find a photo first, then find the letters in the word by looking at the color on the cards.

Once you find four cards of the same color, try to put the letters in order to form the word for the object in the picture.

Listen to the beginning and ending sounds to put the letters in the correct order.

Note: The pink- and red-bordered cards may look similar, depending on how your printer ink. To avoid confusion, don't use those words together.

When my son was done, I gave him four of Trader Joe's sour gummies. Our kids rarely get candy so this was a special treat, and because the gummies come shaped like the letters T and J, they seemed to be the perfect prize for all his word work!

Walking Water (a Science and Art Experiment)

With three tumblers on the table, a measuring cup filled with water, paper towels, and food dye, I told my sons we were going to fill a cup with water without pouring a single drop in it.

"HOW?!?" they said.

"Let me show you!"

This experiment is simple. It did require patience, though. We prepared our cups in the afternoon and then watched throughout the evening and overnight.

How We Did It

Fill two identical drinking cups 2/3rds full of water. Put an empty cup of the same size between them. Squirt 8-10 drops of food coloring in the water-filled cups. We used yellow in one and blue in the other.

Now take a paper towel - we used a half sheet since we have the select-a-size rolls - and fold it the long way so the paper towel is about an inch wide. Do the same to another paper towel so you have two long flattened 1-inch wide rolls of paper towel. Fold them in the middle and put one end in the food dye, and the other in the empty cup.

Now observe what happens.

What Happens

The paper towel absorbs the water and in doing so, the colored water is transferred from one cup to another. When the two primary colors, yellow and blue combine, they make green.

Even more fascinating is how the water level ends up perfectly even among all three cups. The water has been evenly distributed! It took about 36 hours for our water to "walk" from each of the end cups to the middle and even distribute between the three cups. Have patience!

This great experiment came from Coffee Cups and Crayons. Stop there to see other color combinations!

After School Linky 6-29

Welcome to the party!

We're having SUCH a great summer. I hope y'all can say the same.

We're on vacation and I've unplugged while we're away. Unfortunately, that means no favorites from last week's party will be featured this week. I promise they'll be back next week, though!

The After School Linky is cohosted by

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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! 

Sight Word Hopscotch

It was a beautiful day so we took our sight word practice outside. All you need is some sidewalk chalk, a patch of driveway, and a rock. This activity has a short supply list but it's LOADS of fun.

I made a simple hopscotch and added a sight word to each square.

My son had to hop on each square (except the one where the rock landed) and read its word aloud as he jumped. 

Since we played this for quite awhile, I could tell the sight word work had helped when we settled down for before-bed reading. That night, he pointed out the word with in one of his books and didn't confuse it with the like usual.

We'll continue to work on sight words and when the weather allows (i.e. it's not scorching hot or pouring rain), make another hopscotch with new words.

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

I'm not sure my oldest son uses soap every time he showers. And I've seen our youngest son put soap on one hand and then instead of rubbing them together, stick the soapy hand immediately under the running water. Hopefully this simple, yet fun, experiment has convinced them of the merits of soap.

The experiment is meant to simulate how soap helps to get rid of germs.

What You Need

plate (or saucer) with a raised edge

water

ground black pepper

dishwashing liquid (we used Ms. Meyer's)

What to Do

Pour water onto the plate. You should use enough water to cover the whole bottom of the plate.

Sprinkle several pinches of ground black pepper onto the water. Explain that these specks of peppers represent germs.

Now squirt a dot of dishwashing liquid onto one of your index fingers. Rub it all around, completely covering the tip of the finger.

Lastly, put your soap-covered finger into the middle of the peppered water.

Be amazed. The soap seems to repel the pepper (aka the "germs").

Why it Works

This activity was discovered on Fantastic Fun and Learning. As explained by Shaunna, "When soap is added to the water it lowers the surface tension of the water causing the water molecules on the surface to scatter or pull away from the point where you added the soap."

What to Read

You can't go wrong with a Magic School Bus Book. We have rediscovered our love for all things Frizzle this summer. This book complemented the activity beautifully!