Joyfully Weary

Big Buddy has moved on to three-digit numbers in his math book and it was suggested to get a Base-10 set . We debated purchasing one for awhile; having hands-on math counters has really helped Big Buddy, and our other children, grasp math facts. We have some  unifix cubes , an abacus , and we have made our own montessori bead bars  and 100 board tiles . The idea of spending almost $30 on another somewhat bulky math counter didn't seem like the wisest decision. I knew, however, that having counters would make learning how to add and subtract three digit numbers a lot more straightforward for Big Buddy. I debated making some more montessori number beads (see ours here ) when I ran across our colored matchsticks . We have used them for counting and building shapes before (as well as some crafts) and we still had plenty left make some 100 counters - at no cost! We grouped sets of tens together and secured them with some small rubber bands (from Dollar Tree). Once we had made...

I think in the future we will most likely take a break from school in the summer but since Big Buddy is so young and he is working on mastering so many new skills we've to decided this year to just work straight through. Things, however, will be a little looser with the main focus on retaining and strengthening skills. All my children are currently infatuated with insects and arachnids so as well as practicing our reading and math we'll be studying them in depth overt the next couple months. walked in on big buddy this week trying to scare a box elder bug with our plastic praying mantids; "he's going to tell all his friends there are giant predators!  We will probably add a few new activities as we learn more but for now the activities below are what I plan to rotate through our schoolroom. Language -  beginning sound spider webs (stick the bugs in the correct beginning sound web: br/bl, soft g/hard g,  soft c/hard c, sk/st) - i've made the pdf...

For the last couple weeks we've had a great deal of fun learning more about Saint Patrick's Day and it's traditions/legends. Here some of the activities * that have been keeping us busy. creating shamrocks with heart shape stamps  skills reinforced: fine motor, shape understanding, creativity, parts of a shamrock green play-dough with gold glitter skills reinforced: fine motor,  creativity. imagination  saint patrick's day sensory bin: green rice, ireland flags, leprechaun ducks skills reinforced: fine motor, creativity, imagination, sorting, counting color absorption science experiment skills reinforced: scientific method, color mixing, absorption, team work, *the kids really enjoyed this activity so we did it with a couple different colors magnetic build a rainbow skills reinforced: roygbiv order, colors, fine motor *i've made the printable available here tweezing  rainbow colored  pony beads s...

Last week the kids and I put our math and crafting skills to work and made Christmas trees out of ribbon.  Our Supplies:  foam board (construction paper would work just as well), green glitter paint, foam brushes, various green craft ribbon, rulers, scissors, glue, & brown markers Step 1: paint foam board with green glitter paint and let dry completely.  Step 2: use ruler to measure width of foam board Step 3: subtract 1" from foam board width and cut one piece of ribbon to that length. For example, our foam board was 10" so our 1st piece of ribbon was 9". Step 4: glue ribbon strip a couple inches from bottom of foam board.  Step 5: measure and cut the next strip of ribbon 1" smaller and glue it on top of the1st. Continue this step until you get to a 1" strip of ribbon.  one of our ribbons had silver balls so all the kids added 1 ball after their 1" strip - they thought it made a good star Step 6: dra...