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Spelling Match-Up

Jun. 23, 2008 • 10:26 AM

Here is a FUN game you can easily put together for some random spelling practice. Even if they are just random words (not on your weekly spelling list , etc.), it is still a great and fun way to review spelling. Even within simple words, the children see how vowel sounds work together, blends, etc. They like matching up the word cards with the items. My children (of all ages) enjoy doing this when I pull it out!

Now.. go and rummage through your toy box and see what little things you can find.  If you have a daughter with barbie things, you can find all sorts of great realistic little things there! The cards are simply index cards with the words neatly written on. I keep everything in a $1 Store tub with lid and keep it in our schoolroom closet. It only comes out from time to time so they enjoy it when I pull it out for them! So SIMPLE yet a Fun way to practice spelling!

 If you don't find many small things, you could use pictures from magazines and glue them on index cards as well but I really think the kids like finding the little trinket toy to place on the card!

Have you posted some fun yet educational (homemade) games? Let me know! I'd love to visit your blog and check out your ideas! Making learning fun is so worth the efforts because the kids learn and love it!

File Folder Games: Money & US States

Jun. 11, 2008 • 8:54 AM

Here are two more great file folder games. They help the kids learn and practice these facts so ell because they are FUN!!

The Money Game:

To make this one, use money stickers or print out realistic clipart of coins and a few dollar bills. (I use some with the heads side up and others of the coin with tails side up. This allows them to recognize the coins both front and back!)

Make a starting circle and the end could be at a piggy bank!

To play: Allow the children to choose a playing piece. Different colored pigs would be cute if you can find them.

Each child also needs a pice of paper and sharpened pencil. A dice is also needed.

Roll to see who goes first. The first player rolls the dice and moves his playing piece that many spaces. Whatever piece of money he lands on, he must recognize what coin it is and its value, then write that amount on this paper. The next player(s) go in like manner. On the player's second turn (and continuing turns) They roll and move, identifying the coin. This time the amount goes below the previous amount and they get added together. Continue adding the amounts as your turns continue. The first person to the end gets a real quarter. The person with the highest amount also wins (we give them a quarter). You can set your own prizes. This game is great for MONEY and ADDITION Skills!

Another great education file folder game we use is to learn and study the location of the United States!

For this one you wouldn't necessary need to place in a file folder but I think it is easiest. I can stick the cards in a bag and place them inside hen putting away.

You just need a blank map of the United States.

Here is where you can find the State postage stamp cards to color. Change the state in the address to get another state's car. (Thanks cec4310a for the link!)

The shuffled cards lay up-side down in a stack. The child(ren) pick the top card and locate it on the map. (If you are using information cards, they could also read fun facts about that state). This game can be used for independant review by one student or turned into a game format by taking turns.

If you have ideas for file folder games and they are posted somewhere, let me know. I'd love to see or hear about them.  I have many more if anyone would like to see more.

Aren't games great learning tools!

Homemade File Folder Games

Jun. 10, 2008 • 10:55 PM

I made these learning game boards awhile back. They are simple to do and a great way for the kids to have fun together while practicing their school lessons.

We will be doing these throughout the summer to keep "feeding our brains"!

Here are a few basic boards with specific themed spaces. For these I used the round colored stickers (often used for yard sale pricing) and other stickers within the theme I wanted to do.

Here is the bug board:

 If you land on a bug and answer the question correctly you get an extra point. If you land on the red "Ouch" circles, you've been bitten and you lose a turn.

Here is a Mickey & Minnie Mouse themed board:

Here is a different board idea:

It is a travel theme. It has a slide pattern. It reinforces the concept of how you read from left to right then come back and again go left to right.

A few more things you need: Player pieces and dice

The player pieces can be almost anything. I often try to have some themed ones as well. The kids like to choose their character. The pink sea animals are hard plastic and came from the Dollar Store. (I got three whole sets of characters for $1.00. The top animals are pencil toppers. You can also use shaped erasers or small toys that sit/ stand well on their own.

Then we keep everything in here (a plastic file folder tub): including the question cards!

I keep Brain Quest Questions (at various grade levels) with our games. We got all these inexpensively at yard sales & thrift stores. (One or two were gifts). These are great because all children can play at their level. Whichever set of questions is at their levels, these are the questions asked to them. You could also make up your own question cards per child. I can also make up questions from a unit we just studied for the children to review things in a fun way! I usually make up two different colored cards. One color is for the older children while the other color is set for the younger children. (you could use a specific color card per child) to tailor questions just for that child.

Try making some at home with your children. They are great reviews for the summer months especially when your children get bored and want something different to do.

If you make some and post about them, let me know! I'd love to see them and will stop by (your blog) for a visit!

Here is one more game: This is one they really like!

I again used the slide pattern for moving the player's pieces. I thought it appropriate since this reinforces some parts of speech in sentences/ reading.

Using stickers, just randomly run letter stickers in rows. At the end of each row, draw a line with rounded corners taking you back to the left again to start another row of letters. (This line is easy to make using a ruler, then just round the edges.)

Then make up about 10-15 of each card: noun, adjective, and verb. (You could use others if you wish)

The player rolls the dice and moves their piece that many spaces. Then picks a card (That are shuffled and plced face down on the table nearby). Whatever the card says they must come up with a word that starts with the letter they are on and is also what the card says. For example: if you would get the letter F and pick the adjective card, you could say "Fun"!

Have a Fun summer everyone!

Our lessons are lighter but the learning never ends!

Odds-N-Ends: Happenings in our Home

May. 14, 2008 • 7:25 AM

Here are a few things from last week:

My girls finished another great sewing project at their sewing lessons. My oldest daughter "Panda" recently sewed her brother "Pilgrim" a birthday present, a bag with pockets for him to use to carry schoolwork when we are out at lessons/appointments and it can also hold some Webkinz! Then she helped her sister with this:

They sewed their younger sister "Precious" a birthday gift too.

"Princess" sewed the dress and "Panda" helped by sewing a slip dress for underneath that had an adorable dainty ruffle at the bottom! Great job, girls! Your little sis looks so adorable in your creation! I am so thankful you both think of your siblings and make them things at your lessons!

Here is "Precious" wearing her new outfit!

Then... with my son "Pilgrim's" schooling, we studied magnets! It was a fun activitiy and everyone enjoyed watching.

We put down the specific magnet type and covered it with a sheet of paper and then sprinkle iron shavings on top of the paper. THe magnet made the shaving go into a particular pattern depending on the magnets magnetic fields!

Here is a latch magnet:

A circle magnet:

A horse-shoe magnet:

A bar magnet:

Then he drew them on his worksheet

It was fun! Magnets are cool! (and we got to teach them never to place magnets near the computers. The magnet's forces can mess up the computer!)

Then.. here is the garden box my wonderful hubby made for me. Now we just have to add dirt and plants. (It's been raining too much here lately to go get dirt.) It's looking nicer now so I will soon have our vegetable garden started! Yay! Fresh salads all summer long!

Potter Party!

Mar. 11, 2008 • 3:25 PM

Recently we had a Potter Party...and NO! not Harry Potter but Miss (Beatrix) Potter!

Isn't it great when the Lord gives you little surprises. He put together a whole little mini-unit for us that was so great. I heard some recommendations for the movie Miss Potter. I thought that I'd try to get that movie soon for our family to watch!

In the meantime...

We have a really wonderful Bargain Outlet in our town. They get odd lots and sell them at discount prices. They must have a Christian distributor because their books are so awesome there including Bibles, Tommy Nelson and children's books, cookbooks, etc. We love this store and we even usually have a 10% or 15%off coupon ontop of the great deals. Well recently I purchased both of these books there. Together they cost less than $10 (usually the scrapbook type book costs $24.00). They are both GREAT books!

The true story of Peter Rabbit tells how Beatrix Potter wrote this story as a letter to a young boy. The journal is full of awesome illustrations and is a replica of her own scrapbook/journal. Here's a peek:

It has flaps and pockets and photographs and of course,... illustrations and sketches!

Then we rented the movie. It was really a good movie (drama)! I recommend it.

It was a great story but I especially liked it because I like art. It gave us all (my girls and I especially) the "itch" to go and sketch! I haven't sketched since I was in art school some 15 years ago. Here is the sketch I did!

I recently bought bound sketchbooks for us all and we hope to start sketching more soon (especially nature).

Here are some great sites to visit:

World of Peter Rabbit

The Movie Preview

Peter Rabbit Activity Center

Colonial FUN FACTS

Feb. 7, 2008 • 3:14 PM

Here are the Colonaial FUN FACTS we used in our oral presentation at our History Fair. These were just some things we found interesting when we did our unit on the Colonial time period! Did you know all these?

Did you know...

Great History Curriculum- Colonial Unit

Feb. 4, 2008 • 6:17 PM

We have been using a great History curriculum CD for our Colonial Unit. We bought the CD at Homeschool in the Woods.

When I placed the order I decided to change something with the order. I e-mailed and then called, ending up speaking right to the homeschooling mother who created this great line of school products. She explained their journey to creating their products. We have really enjoyed our unit thanks to this great CD. It is complete with all you need for a great educational experience. We only added a few books/stories to this. All the craft projects are on the CD. You just need to print them out and they are high-quality patterns!

We worked on this unit for quite awhile and really enjoyed it! We had our co-op's History Fair a week ago. We had a great turn-out. All the kids did such a GREAT job!

Here is some of what we did!

We first read about Roanoke:

 The Mystery in History! Here's the book we read! This is very interesting! We then moved on to study

Jamestown. We read the Adventures in Colonial America

Book on Jamestown , by James E. Knight (Scholastic)

We made a Jamestown village replica! Very neat!

The photo also shows the pop-out pictures we made of the 4 examples of colonial homes!

You can download and print out your own Jamestown settlement for free here!

A few more things that were part of this unit study (CD) were...

The Colonial Clothing Overlays. These were printed out and made by layering. The clear overhead sheets are what were used. We really like this project! We learned how Colonial people usually only had 2 outfits and it took a whole year to make an outfit. We learn how they made their clothing starting with either fax or wool It was a long process just to make the material/fabric. We also read about how they dyed the colors into the yarns and fabrics so they could have colorful clohing. 

We learned how to weave. We used a loom we got one year for Christmas. The CD instructs you how to do this though if you don't have a loom. This let them see what it might have been like to operate one of the large looms and what a process it was!

My girls made their own colonial dresses and aprons with their sewing teacher! Didn't they turn out great?

"Precious" wore this for our History Fair. I thought she was so cute in it. (even though in true colonial times she would still just wear the baby gowns.)

Also...

We made a sample of a Colonial Rope bed during the unit about the Colonial Home.

We had a unit on Colonial Food also and we made homemade butter. This was very neat and so simple. We are still enjoying our homemade butter!

To do this, you simply pour some heavy whipping cream in a clean Mason jar. Only fill about 1/4 of the way full. SHAKE, shake and shake some more! Eventually the fat separates from the milk as the picture shows. The butter come out o the jar and buttermilk is what is left!

  We also made colonial gingerbread. We made this along with a box mix gingerbread from our store's today for our History Fair table. We did a taste test to see which one more people liked best. The majority liked the old-fashioned molasses gingerbread better.( I personally liked the store bought better though! Ugh!) We put our homemde butter on it!

There was A LOT more with this CD unit but this is a sampling of it! Here are some photos of our table at the history Fair!

 Happy Homeschooling!

Happy Birthday Johnny Appleseed!

Sep. 26, 2007 • 8:14 AM

Self Portraits

Sep. 3, 2007 • 5:22 PM

At the beginning of each schoolyear, we make self-portraits. Here are my children's self portraits. I think they are great. (The bottom right photo was done by my youngest son. He just turned three years old. He really likes his picture.)

These are great pages to start their school notebooks off with!

What do you think?