Learning Games

Oh Happy Day! How are you doing today? The weekend was wonderful and the weather is right as it should be for Autumn. As I organize the classroom for a new tour post coming soon, I am finding so many things that I have yet to blog about but are already ready to move on to a new home. I have a small online resale shop that I sell items to locals and I know they are going to homes that will treasure them for the time being and then they too will pass them on. Even though most of the stuff I make is upcycled in some way, it still pains me to just toss it in the trash. Are you like that? Anyway, this was supposed to be Friday's post, but I got distracted by something else in the blogosphere, you know when you wish you could spin your own yarn like SouleMama or be as fashionable as TwoBirds or have the eye that the Goodwillista has or of course the shoe collection over at the Tote Trove...then you combine that with the emails that come to me wishing for similar traits...well I knew it was time to set people straight on the world of Bloggers, so that was FRIDAY and this is now Monday and my schedule is a mess as it should be Menu Plan Monday...which I will just have to reschedule for later today! Anyway...Above you will see the easiest playroom storage EVER that also looks so cute! Clear glass jars are perfect for small odds and ends that seem to always end up in the corners of the room!

Colors, Colors, Colors! This game was a simple one that the kids and I made up together with an old palette. I had them paint the palette in rainbow order, gather up some random color pegs and we raided our dice collection for one that was all about colors. Then I had them color blobs of color on cardstock flashcards and they were labeled. This can be played so many ways, that I hope it's a reminder of just what you can do when you look around your home! Learning toys do NOT have to be expensive and should not be limited to just 1 thing. I teach each subject to mastery and DO NOT only have 1 way of doing that. I figure if I change it up often, it will eventually catch on and be fun along the way!

Vacation is ALWAYS learning time, no matter where we go! My older 2 always have notebooks on them and are able to take notes on what is important or things that caught their eye. I hope that this is teaching them to keep their eyes always open and is giving them an eye for detail. My youngest is still in the wandering stage, which is quite alright and why I help him out with this worksheet. He knows what is on it and what to prepare for as we explore new places, but it does not require him to take notes. Get your own copy HERE! 

Clothespins! What can't you do with them? I always have several hundreds of these on hand, just like popsicle sticks, they are one of my go-to game makers. When flashcards lose their mates or their box begins to get warped, I know they need a new life NOT to see the end of their life. This simple game is a matching one that can be tossed in a pencil pouch and taken on the road. We are always waiting somewhere, are we not? Pulling out pouch games was how the children kept entertained!

Alphabet Soup was a longtime favorite and one the kids recently began playing again when I took it out to sell. They love the fun there is to the games, even if they already know and understand the material. This is all I ever want for my homeschool, to know that learning is fun. A bowl of magnetic alphabet uppercase letters and spoon are what draw the eye into the game. Use a dry erase marker on the recipe card and the kids are all set. The teacher/parent calls out a letter and the student/child must first circle it on the recipe card and then take a spoon full of soup out. They hunt for the matching uppercase letter through the soup and then continue on to the next letter and the next. This is great for learning letters and fine motor skills. Being as the letters are magnetic, they can also be used in many other ways! 

Isn't ^that the truth ^my friends? Remember to take the time to enjoy every minute!! We are off on a field trip of a firehouse!

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ABCs & 123s

It's so easy to want to sing the alphabet song and just keep repeating the numbers 1-10 and call it a day, but why not take a few extra steps to make learning FUN?! That is one thing I try to bring to our every day lessons. Smiles and giggles make a hard day so much easier!

Foam floor tiles with numbers on them can be a fun game when placed like hop scotch tiles and as the kids jump on each number they say what number it is. Put them in mixed order to change it up and then just take them all apart and have them around the room, tell the student to jump from tile to tile and say the number they are on. Make it grow with the child by having them jump from one to another and ADD the sum of the 2 numbers!

Take the learning outdoors with jumbo foam letters! Get that case of the ants in your pants outdoors with learning fun. Toss jumbo letters on the ground and have them put them in alphabetical order, spell their name, shout a letter and have them find that one, have them spell spelling words or sight words...the games are endless!! Remember, you can be creative for pennies!!

Clothespins are something that can always be found in my classroom! They are easily transitioned from the laundry room into the school room. In this game I have put the lower case letters on the clip and have them matched up to the upper case letters. This is an easy do, but also keep the kids entertained as they work. Have extra space? Hang rope in the room and make it a laundry line game, the kids will love it so much more, just place the flashcards in a basket and tell them to hang the laundry on the matching clip that is already on the line.

Enjoy every minute my friends!!!

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Rainy Day Counting Activity!

As the rain pelted down last week, we were stuck inside most of the afternoon (well, after we played outdoors for a bit!). My children always love the art box and one of their favorite activities is cutting. Since it was just my little guy and I at home, I quickly came up with a fun and super easy game to play. 

I printed out the umbrella page and then gave my son some scissors, a glue stick and a variety of dice to pick from. I made up this fun worksheet along with instructions, easy for you to print HERE! The general idea of the game is for the child to roll the dice and then cut out however many rain drops they rolled and paste them anywhere on the umbrella page. This is a great game for number recognition when they count the dots, identify the number and then they learn counting as the count each rain drop they create. Repetition is so very important at this age!

Of course it would not be a proper activity if it was not served with homemade cookies and milk! This gavbe us fuel to keep on going and going and going!

It's Marathon Monday....this means the countdown has officially begun as the marathon is on Sunday...THIS WEEK! OMG! I'm taking it as easy as I can and now just praying and knowing that all the training I had done this far is going to be enough to get me through!!

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Take The Learning Outside...Part 2

With the hot and fabulous weather, I was so tempted to pull out my laptop, a good book (I don't like to bring my Nook outside by the pool!) and a drink to enjoy the sunshine! That alone would have been fabulous, but we all know that little ones don't quite like being outside and sitting still, especially when we just opened up our pool for the Season! I decided, we could take our morning math lesson outside, have fun and stay cool all at once!

I just purchased Dive Sticks from the Great Escape, while we were there picking up a new pool vacuum and had just the right game in mind! These are perfect, with even numbers on the end, for math! I tossed them all into the pool before anyone dove in then told them the first game was to get as many as they each could!

Everyone jumped in and they were having blast searching for them. When they were all collected, we gathered together and each person took turns out loud adding up their total. The 2 big kids added their numbers as is, for the younger guy, we just used the first number (1+2 as opposed to 10 + 20). They had so much fun adding up each time, that they never realized we were working on math too! What fun to get out in the pool and PLAY, but LEARN too!!! 

How was your weekend??

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Sorting Fun

As you read in Monday's post, we are working with marshmallows this week! Today, we woke up to SNOW in the Midwest! Yup, we were wearing shorts last week and now it's back to Winter coats and sweaters underneath! YIKES! It was definitely an indoor learning day for the little tater tot!

You've seen him before, when he first learned how to use my craft punch! He had a blast just punching anything that was in the scrap bin! The circles were so cute and fun, I had to keep them for other projects!! We made some great stuff and I will continue to share them in future posts!

Materials:

We used a 1.5 inch punch, marker, plastic eggs and egg carton for this project.
I numbered each circle with 1 number 1-12.

We only used half of an egg in each of the holes and then put 1 circle in each one (yellow paper made them look like yolks!).

I handed him a bowl of marshmallows and told him to put the same amount of marshmallows in each numbered egg. It got tricky when it got to 8 and above, but it was still a lot of fun!!
Share your sorting activities in the comments!!

~Michelle!~

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