Balloon Animals and YouTube

Hi everyone!  How is your summer going?  We have been very busy this past week with Vacation Bible School and gearing up for more fun this week.  On the 4th of July we celebrate E's 11th birthday, which means a trip to the water park and on the 5th it is my husband's birthday, so this is always a go, go, go time of the summer for us.  However, among the hustle and bustle the children still need some suggestions of what to do when we are home in the afternoon (especially when I have pulled the t.v. and all devices).  So out came the balloons.

We started with a package of animal balloons and the book Crazy Balloon Modeling.

It was so interesting to watch the children attack this project.  E got right to work making a dog for herself and then for B our youngest. K wanted a ladybug which proved to be too much for her and for me.  (If you follow me on Facebook, you saw my post "It's official, "I suck at balloon animals!"  AJ took a long, long time to decide on what to make.

Poor little K was so frustrated about her lack of abilities but then she got creative,  She scrapped the book and just followed her own ideas and made a few hats and balloons.  I was so proud of her.  She gets frustrated then can go into a very negative mode but she pulled herself out and moved forward.

E is a get to it kind of gal and she helped B participate by making him a dog and a humming bird.

Then we moved on to YouTube. Is there no end to the self and home education that can be done through that website?  If you want to make balloon animals just search "easy balloon animals" and you will be overwhelmed with choices.  AJ watched and watched then finally made a sword and a dog.

Watching a YouTube tutorial.

E is making a heart she saw on YouTube.

After the animal balloons, out came the party balloons for games of all kinds.

So, don't ever underestimate the fun that balloons can be on a hot summer afternoon.  I think I will also add this to our list of winter activity ideas.

I also wanted to tell you how fabulous rocket balloons are.  I don't have any pictures but if you haven't tried them yet, you should.  Once you pump them up they travel a long distance with a great noise.

And just in case you wanted to know what I did to help in this fun, since I was a complete failure at making animals, well I was the official balloon tie-er.

Today is Montessori Monday and I am linking up!

Games for Learning and Fun

I don't know about you, but do your children always want lessons to be fun?  Mine do, just even this morning E prayed that school would be fun.  I remember a high school teacher who taught geography and economics, going off one day about children expecting learning to be fun and entertaining.  "Fun" is a pet peeve of mine.  Yes, I want my children to be excited about their learning and engaged with each topic, but "fun" is not always possible or beneficial.  Since the beginning of time we were placed on this Earth to work.  Remember after all, God gave Adam a garden to tend.  I have read many books, blogs and articles in an effort to bring interest and fun to our learning but never the less, boredom (there has even been boredom to tears), disinterest and negative attitudes sometimes prevail.  I have given up, sometimes learning is not fun and just has to be done.  "Boring" lessons is where character training begins and for me that is the hardest thing about homeschooling.  The character training never goes away, whether in the home, out of the home, during lessons or not during lessons, these people, myself included, need to be trained to persevere even when they have a job that is not fun.

All that being said, here is a look a some of my attempts to bringing "fun" to our learning.

Math Games

Money Exchange game from The Education of Ours.

Pizza Fraction Game from Lakeshore Learning.  A great game to practice recognizing fractions.

Fraction Contraption  from Lakeshore Learning (sorry, I couldn't find the link).  This game teaches fraction equivalents.

Geography Games

A fun U.S. Geography game from Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational.  This is my favorite blog for free game printables and ideas.

I would love to add Sequence Stated and Capitals to our game collection.

So dust off the games and try bringing some "fun" to your home learning day.  Our fun for the day--watching Drive Thru History: Greece and the World and maybe a bit of file folder games.

I'm linking up with Montessori Monday.

Learning with Centers and File Folder Games

I have been a long time fan of File Folder Games and Take It To Your Seat Centers and over the years I have made and collected quite a number of books, folder sets and websites.  Yet, I found myself not being able to fit them into our schedule but this year I decided to dedicate one morning a week to these great learning tools.  I think Centers and Folders are great tools for learning both new material and reviewing old lessons.

The children know that Wednesday mornings are folder and center mornings.  Each child has their own box full of appropriate materials to work on.  The children are required to pick one folder or center from each of these subject areas: Language Arts, Math, Geography and Science.  They are to complete their selections and call me over to check them before they clean-up.  At this point, all the children have to do is complete the folders but in our winter term I am going to ask them to also record in their learning journals what they have worked on.  For Example, in this picture E is working on a Science Layers of the Earth Folder and I would ask her to make a  notebook page for her journal.

I also think having a folders and centers morning breaks up our week, so we don't get bored or run down in our daily lesson routine.  The folders and centers also meets my goal for providing as many hands on learning experiences as possible and cultivates independent learning.

Here are a couple Math examples of folders:

Martian Multiplication

Turkey Feather Addition with an added number line. (It has been so long but I think both this folder and the one above are from File Folder Fun, a site full of free folder games.)

And a couple of Geography Examples:

World Continents from Take it To your Seat Geography Centers.

Land Forms--also from Take It To You Seat Geography Centers.

Here are a few of the Take it to Your Seat Centers we use:

Take it to Your Seat Phonics Centers
Take it to Your Seat Science Centers
Take it to Your Seat Geography Centers
Take it to Your Seat Math Centers
Take it to Your Seat Writing Centers

The Take it to Your Seats come in many grade levels so I did not include them all so be sure to look for the level that is appropriate for you child.

We also use a variety of folder games from Lakeshore Learning:


Science File Folder Fun
Fractions, Decimals and Percents Elementary Folder Games
Puzzle Fun Math Cards

Again, a lot of these folder kits come in a variety of age and subject areas, so be sure to take some time and see if what you are looking for is available.

It is Monday so I am linking up with Montessori Monday.

Have a great week!

Games for Language Arts

I have always loved games and was so excited when our children could finally play. Sorry, Go Fish, Memory and Clue were amongst my childhood favorites and  when I met Jay we spent long hours sipping tea and playing games like Gin and Cribbage.  Will you play a game with me?"  is a common question around here especially in the evening.  Games are not just recreational entertainment but a wonderful way to introduce a new topic, practice new skills or review previously learned materials.  Here are three games we use in the area of Language Arts:

Snap It Up Word Families-- Snap It UP is a fun game to practice word families, spelling skills and quick thinking. Each player is given consonant cards and word ending cards in which to build words.  The first player to build 3 words wins.

This is a great game for A because he needs a lot of reading practice and it gives him another way to build and read his own words.  Often, after we have a winner we just continue building as many words as we can until the deck runs out.

E is a great reader but needs a lot of spelling help, she often misspells words because she is in such a hurry to be done with her lessons.  Snap It Up causes her to take the time to think and sound out words.

Word Family Activity Wheel--This is a fun game for both our older and younger children.  E and A get spelling and writing practice and the little ones are entertained and exposed to early learning as they spin the wheel. This set is from Lakeshore Learning and came with an activity guide and 20 reproducible activity cards. I tried to link to the game but is appears they no longer have the game available.

The activity cards include things like bingo, charades, rhymes and drawing.

Bananagrams- Another fun word building and spelling game.  This one is a real challenge to build a crossword type puzzle using all of one's tiles.  I have watched the children sound out both real words and nonsense words in order to win the game. E has gotten good at doing her own spelling and A still needs help.

A grid that E built.

A sounding out words and building his puzzle.

A's finished grid.

I try to reserve Friday's for game playing and any wrapping up that needs to be done.  We have also taken a week and called it "Game Week". And sometimes we even pick a game to play for a month at a time, designating it to a certain day of the week.  I don't know, maybe it's just me, but games can really re-energize myself and the children and change the whole course of the day from just another school day to "the best day ever."

If you have never checked out Deb's Montessori Monday Posts check it out here, I am linking up every Monday to update our educational happenings for both our older and younger children.

A Quick Heart Game

I made this game for K's Tot School with a Valentine's theme but you could make it with any theme you need.

Supplies:
dollar store stickers
blank business cards




Take 2 cards and adhere the same sticker on each card and presto you have cards to play matching games --try Go Fish or Memory. I made 10 pairs but make as few or as many as you would like. You could also turn this into a File Folder Game by attaching one set of cards to the inside of a folder and have your tot match them up.



Enjoy!