Homeschool Preschool Week 10

L and E are 39 months old.  This week's preschool time was less organized than usual due to Halloween and the fact that I have a nasty head cold.  Rather than our typical math and reading lessons, we spent most of the week trying on different costumes and going on imaginary adventures, rediscovering games that have been sitting in the closet for a while, building things, and playing miscellaneous logic/memory games that I made up...

Super Easy Game to Improve Memory

I try to fit in logic puzzles and memory games in our Homeschool Preschool every day.  My 3-year-olds always have a good time with them and I've seen great improvements in these skills over the past couple months.  Here's a simple game we play to improve memory.  All you need is a set of small objects, magnets, or flashcards.  There are two ways to play...

Homemade Tangram Puzzle Cards

I'm so proud of how neat these homemade Tangram puzzle cards turned out, that I just had to share.  They only took about half an hour to make (maybe less), and my girls (3 years old) absolutely LOVED playing with them all evening.  Can you guess how they were made?

Glitter Gourds Autumn Table Decoration

A little glitter goes a long way in making ordinary objects look more festive.  This autumn/Thanksgiving centerpiece is ridiculously easy to make, but really looks beautiful (I don't think the photos captured it well, so you'll have to take my word for it).  As a bonus, my 3-year-olds were able to create it pretty much by themselves.  Here's how it's done...

Montessori Monday - Visual Discrimination with Cans

One of the activities I set up for my girls (3 years old) last week was to sort various cylinder-shaped containers and cans from our pantry.  The challenge in this exercise lies in the fact that the containers vary in two different dimensions - height and base diameter, so they can actually be sorted in two different ways.  The kids had to focus on a single dimension to make their comparisons.

Baby School - Colors Theme

Baby H is 13 months old.  Although I try to always point out colors to H as we're playing, I thought I'd try a 'colors theme' for Baby School this week and focus on activities that will help him with color recognition.  I don't want my baby to learn things by staring at flashcards, but rather by touching, playing, and experiencing the world around him.  So that's what we did...

Homeschool Preschool - Week 9

L and E are 39 months old.  This was a really good week for us, but not without its ups and downs.  There were some days when the girls were begging for more and more learning activities, and other days where they were whining and fighting so much that it didn't feel like we got anything done.  That's fine - they're only 3..  Here's our weekly summary...

Flashcard Storytelling Game

I want to share a game that the girls have been asking for all week.  It reinforces both reading skills and creativity/imagination. All you need is a set of flashcards that have a word on one side and a picture of the object on the other side (I got ours for $1 at Target), or you could make your own with index cards.  Here's how we play..

Fun with... Toilet Paper?

We once bought toilet paper in bulk, and I don't mean 12 rolls at a time, I'm talking a linen-closet's worth of toilet paper.  It was a great deal.  And guess what - it was about as soft as sandpaper!  Now, 2 years later as we're getting through the last of our great purchase, I have no qualms about 'wasting' a roll on the kids.  One of the days last week we spent an entire afternoon playing with toilet paper.  I had a couple learning games in mind, but my kids (who were quite enthusiastic about playing with toilet paper) had their own ideas.  I'll share both...

Log Cabin Out of Paper Bags (Little House on the Prairie Craft)

Remember the colorful paper beads we made two weeks ago from magazine paper?  Well today the girls (3 years old) and I turned brown paper lunch bags into a log cabin using a similar technique.  My Little House on the Prairie enthusiasts had a great time with this project (and Mom had quite a bit of fun too).  We worked on it all throughout the day, but the mechanics of it are fairly simple.  Here are the instructions..

Pumpkin Delivery Math Game {Learning Place Value}

There is no game my girls (3 years old) like more than feeding their 'babies'.  Every math manipulative we've ever played with has become food for stuffed animals.  My kids were delighted when they woke up one morning last week and discovered that all their favorite stuffed animals (as well as Mom and Dad) had placed breakfast orders for miniature pumpkins.  This Pumpkin Delivery math game that I made up was such a big hit at our house at we ended up playing it every day for the entire week.  My kids had so much fun that they didn't realize they were practicing fine motor skills, counting, one-to-one correspondence, number recognition, reading, and even discovering the meaning of place value!  Here's how to play...

Welcome to Baby School

Baby H is 13 months old.  Most of H's day is spent observing his sisters playing, but I always try to fit in some new learning experiences that are geared just towards him (mostly sensory explorations and Montessori-inspired activities).  I figure that it's time for H to get his own Baby School weekly post showing all the neat things he has been discovering lately.  I didn't get a chance to capture all the cool activities we've been doing this week, but I'll share a handful of them..

Apple Theme Mini-Unit

I was planning on making apple pie this week with the kids, but hadn't gotten around to it yet.  When I saw how many apples we had lying around, I thought that I'd bring them out for a little counting/addition/subtraction practice for the twins.  We ended up doing a little mini-unit on the theme of apples.  It took zero preparation, which was nice for me, and the girls enjoyed doing a couple different activities with the apples.  Here's what we did..

Homeschool Preschool - Week 8

L and E are 38 months old.  Homeschool Preschool this week went fairly smoothly.  It seems that we were able to fit in a good number of learning activities every day.  I set up a routine for myself where I wake up early in the morning and get 2 hours of computer time in for myself before the kids get up, and then get another 2 hours during 'quiet time' in the afternoon.  The rest of the time, I made an effort to close my laptop and focus on working with the kids (or playing alongside them), which was fun for all of us.  Here's a summary of some of the things we did this week..

CVC Word Flip Books: 10 Games for Beginning to Advanced Readers

These early reading word books that I made for the twins (3 years old) have been a big hit in our house.  The concept is simple, and I think I've seen something similar used for learning word families, but making all three letters 'moveable' really adds to fun.  I came up with a number of games that can be played with these CVC Flip Pads for a variety of reading levels (even kids who are already proficient readers can benefit from games that let them play with words.  My kids are too little to play a lot of the more advanced games I came up with, but I wanted to include them in this blog so I have something to refer to later as my kids' reading skills improve...

Magic Number Cups: Six Math Games With Paper Cups

I think I've mentioned before on this blog that I love math manipulatives.  Our homeschool closet is piled high with a gazillion things (plastic bears, blocks, coins, beads, pom-poms, you name it) that can be counted, sorted, and used for learning mathematical concepts.  It seems, however, that my kids are just as enthralled when I take out the homemade manipulatives as the store-bought ones, and that they can be as simple as a bunch of paper cups labeled with numbers.  Now of course I didn't introduce these as "look at what your Mom made for you in less than a minute out of cheap stuff that was lying around the house", but rather as Magic Number Cups.  I quickly came up with a variety of activities to do with them...

What's in the Castle? - Sound Identification Game

"What's in the Castle?" is a Montessori-inspired sound-matching game which my 3-year-olds absolutely LOVE!  It challenges them to isolate their sense of hearing to identify sounds of various animals, objects, and musical instruments...

Homeschool Preschool Week 7

We were on vacation last week, so this week involved recovering from the vacation (laundry, cleaning, getting back on a routine).  We ended up doing a lot of learning activities, but most of them were ad-hoc things I came up with or games that we hadn't played with in a while.  Here are some of the things we did..

Halloween Sun-catchers Craft

Yesterday, the girls (3 years old) made some Halloween decorations for our window using contact paper and colored tissue paper.  We've been using this technique over the past year to make everything from fall leaves to spring flowers, but this time we gave it a Halloween twist.  These decorations look gorgeous in the sunlight and the girls were very proud of their work.  Here are the steps..

New Facebook Page for Learners in Bloom

Check out my new logo (designed by my husband).  I post all sorts of activities on this blog (art, music, dramatic play, science, etc..), but I have a soft spot in my heart for early math education, so I adore what he came up with.  I just created a new Facebook Page for Learners in Bloom, so be sure to "Like" it, if you haven't already.  I'll be posting a lot more fun things there.