Find The Match

Here's another simple activity I did with Peanut this week. I chose a selection of things that I had two of from around the schoolroom, trying to vary the shapes, sizes, and textures of the objects. I put one of each item into a fabric bag, and laid their matches out on the table. I would choose an item, then Peanut would put her hand in the bag and try to find the match just by feeling for it. We have done this game several times now and Peanut just loves to play it.

Here are just a few things to consider about this activity:

1) If Peanut was having trouble finding the item I showed her, I would have her pick an item up in her hand, feel it, and then tell me which item on the table matched what was in her hand before she pulled it out to look. We both found this to be a little easier for her to play this way.

2) The possibilities for this game are endless since you can really chose anything from around your house. You could do all things from the kitchen, all things that start with a particular letter, a holiday theme etc... The only requirements are that you have two of each item, and that they fit in the bag.

Schooling & Sewing Superhero Style

We started out our school week last week doing some Presidents Day activities, but for the rest of the week, I did a Superhero theme with Petie. He had a lot of fun with this one. We used the Batman Preschool Pack from 1+1+1=1 for the bulk of our activities. I also printed up some simple words for Petie to read and make Superhero sentences. Here he is sounding out See Doctor Octopus cut the power lines. For the harder words like Doctor Octopus and power lines I would use pictures for him to fill in the blanks with.

Other examples of sentences we did were:

Get the net to nab ______.

_______ is a bad man.

Go the the ______ at six.

For filling in the blanks I found images online and used them for words like Spiderman, Superman, The Penguin, Batcave, Batmobile, Bridge, etc... I had tons of simple words, so there were numerous sentence combinations. Petie does not get excited when I bring out his reading book to read, but he loved this hands on way of practicing reading.

I also made him a reversible cape using this tutorial. He has had so much fun rescuing every person and stuffed animal in the house from impending danger.

And then there's this little monkey who thinks she has superhero abilities as well. As long as she's doing this off the arm of the couch and not the top of the bunk bed, I think I'm ok with it.

We had a discussion about superheroes and the different powers each one had and so on. I then asked Petie who was the most powerful, super protector he could think of. Patty suggested God as the answer (the answer I was looking for of course), but Petie promptly ruled Him out suggesting that God couldn't be a superhero because He doesn't have a cape. I try, I really do.

School Post: The One Where Things Erupted

I have to say, I'm not really a big fan of messy projects. Or rather, I'm not a big fan of messy projects in the hands of my kids, since they have the ability to make an already messy project about 10x messier. So, for this history lesson I really had to relax a little and just have fun.

We've been using The Story Of The World: Ancient Times for our history this year, and I really am enjoying it. I enjoy it a lot more when I actually take the time to do the projects that go along with each chapter. This chapter we discussed life in early Crete and talked about the volcano that erupted on the island of Thera. The kids had a lot of fun building and then erupting our volcano. I may just have to let my hair down and get messy a little more often.

Science Fair

Last night Patty was able to participate in the local homeschool science fair. She and the Professor worked on a project about the best way to grow sugar crystals. Her division was the K-2nd grade group and she won a trophy for Best Use of the Scientific Method. We're so proud of her and can't wait to see what she comes up with for next year.

Smart Thinking, But....

I think it may be time to get the kids some roller skates. There's only so much improvising you can do.

100 Days and Counting

A little over a week ago we celebrated our 100th day of school. The kids did lots of activities all week to celebrate, including making these 100 day crowns. I printed them from here.

I think I should have made one that says I SURVIVED the first 100 days.

Gimme Five

Here's a simple activity we did this week that I adapted from a game on the site Toddler, Toddler. In the original game you would just call out a color and your toddler would go give a hand of that color a high-five. I knew this would be too easy for my kiddos, so I added a little more of a challenge to it. I put some letters I've been working on with Peanut on some of the hands, as well as the numbers 1-5, and some shapes. For Peanut, my instructions were very straightforward such as "Go give a high-five to the number 3". For Petie I would say something like "Go give a high-five to the letter that starts the word dog". And with Patty I tried to make it even more challenging and give instructions like "Give a high-five to the number that equals 2+3". Patty enjoyed playing, but wasn't very challenged when the highest number was 5. I'll probably add in some higher numbers and more difficult shapes next time we do this to give her a bit more of a challenge.