When the kids come inside from playing in the snow, I always let them have some hot cocoa to help them warm up. I decided to sneak a tiny bit of learning in on a day when it was too yucky to go outside! We practiced “marshmallow math” at the kitchen table. Marshmallow counting was perfect for a preschooler. Marshmallow addition (and subtraction) keeps my older child busy.
Continue readingOne of the favorite things my kids love to cook is pancakes, of course! I believe it was one of the first things I actively encouraged my kids to take part of in the kitchen, simply because it’s fun to help stir, it’s exciting to watch the pancakes sizzle and flip, and it’s delicious to pile the toppings on. There are many ways to learn with pancakes. Here are some of the great activities we’ve done in the past years.
It was time to review some basic subtraction practice using a number of fun subtraction activities just perfect for the Valentine’s Day season.
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In pondering ways to make learning kinetic for my active one, I decided to use the idea of a Christmas tree number hop, with a Christmas tree outlined on the floor. Our simple Christmas tree only needed ornaments with the numbers on them. I made our number recognition practice into a Christmas dance party! When the music stops, it is not “musical chairs” but rather a preschool gross motor activity, a Christmas number hop! Our Christmas Tree Number Hop is a great gross motor activity to get moving, even while still practicing number recognition in a fun activity.
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Multiplication is my third grader’s nemesis this year. I remember the dreaded weekly multiplication tests from my own third-grade year. So, any way we can make practicing the times tables into a game, the better!
Raisin actually helped me figure out how to make this baseball multiplication game. We use the ten-sided die and baseball equations to practice solidifying our multiplication facts.
The King is up at bat, with two outs! Will he get a home run this time?
Continue readingMy son has struggled with area and perimeter so we decided to make it hands on. I gave Raisin a challenge this morning: find the area and perimeter of his bedroom. Further, I asked him to build a bedroom model to go along with his answer.
Then, I gave him a measuring tape and graphing paper and told him he could use LEGO bricks if he wanted. He was delighted to get to work in making a bedroom model, and was especially excited once I mentioned LEGO bricks!
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My son had some difficulty comprehending the values of fractions without seeing them visually. Comparing and contrasting fractions is difficult! So I spruced up my Pizza Fractions activity pack to give him some more review that he needed. We also found some other activities to be helpful. Continue reading
Twelve mini plastic eggs, a marker, and some pennies made a fun game for my preschooler in her beginning effort to understand basic number concepts and numerical values.
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We found some rubber duckys at the Dollar Store the other day. My daughter was very excited to play with them! We had to stock up on a lot of them.
Of course, rubber ducks are a fun friend for the bathtub. But we decided to make a game so we could play and count with duckies anytime. Here are some ducky counting mats for rubber ducky fun outside of the bath!
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I have noticed that my toddler, Strawberry, does not recognize shapes: she knows heart, moon, and star, but not the basics like circle and square. She calls ovals “footballs” and gets excited when she sees them though! I have been thinking for weeks that we needed to focus on learning the shapes.
When I saw that Krista’s Math Madness Wednesdays this week is about shapes, I thought it was time to put some ideas into action.
