Taronga Zoo, Sydney
The kids and I enjoyed a day at the Sydney Zoo. What a great view for those mountain goats!
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We’re Back! (And a few freebies on currclick)
We just returned from a wonderful holiday in Sydney and Canberra. We did a lot of really fantastic things and caught up with some friends. I feel rejuvenated and excited for the next term. I’m brimming with ideas!! It has been more than a year since we’ve been away as a family (we live in a very isolated town; 1200km to the nearest city!) I’ll be posting a few pictures...
A Few Useful Resources — Activity List, Writing Games, etc.
I found a really good resource for upper elementary aged students. It’s a list of homework ideas for students at a Montessori school. The list has suggestions in a whole range of categories from creative arts and language to science, math and sports. It’s about five pages long. It includes ideas such as knit, embroider, tie knots, learn to weave, learn how to use tools from an adult, start a...
Music in the Homeschool Den
Every now and then people ask each other on homeschoolgroups what kind of music they include in their homeschoolschedule. My kids all did Kindermusik (until the teacher started anew job). Now we do music classes with some friends.Currently we’re doing a class with ED’s little 20mo-old-friend. LD and DD decided they didn’t much like the “baby”class, though I hear DD singing all the songs we do (andshe usually joins us...
Math Addition Fact Activities
LD has been working on his addition facts. Here are some of the activities we’ve done in the past few months. We often do two or three different math activities (not necessarily all addition related) and/or our math curriculum, Right Start Math. Right Start Math has some wonderful games; I recommend their math card games set; You can check it out at http://www.activitiesforlearning.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID;=12 if you’re interested. Pictured below is a...
More Math Addition Activities — 2
Math balance from Right Start Math — my kids love to play with this http://www.activitiesforlearning.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID;=53 LD was SO excited when he saw it out today. “Hey Mom, it checks my answers!” By the way, our dining room table is always covered in stuff… sigh… DD just loves doing math when LD has math time. She literally comes running down the hall if LD and I are going to do another...
Math Addition Activities -3
Egg carton toss — They threw two pom-poms into the egg carton and added the numbers together. They could use the abacus if they wanted. Math Monster– (ie. Freeze Tag!) Give the child the ANSWER and spread the equations around the back yard. You are the Monster trying to freeze them before they get the correct answer. If you tag them and they think they have the right answer, they...
Math Addition Activity – 4
I made these cards up — I think there is an official name for them like math wraps or something. Someone described them once and so this is what I came up with.
Addition Activities 5 — Addition Strip Board
Here’s yet another activity LD uses for practicing addition…it’s called an addition strip board and I printed it out for free from here: http://www.montessorimaterials.org/Math/AdditionStripBoard.pdf You’re supposed to take a blue number and a red number, place them on the board and find the sum.
Math Addition Activities – 6
We played “War” with some addition cards we had on hand. Whoever has the highest sum wins the round.
Math Addition Activities – 7
I’m not sure this exactly qualifies as addition (it’s also logic, strategy and so forth), but LD got this award winning card game for his birthday and LOVES it. It is called Rat-a-tat-Cat The premise is that you have to get rid of your rats (the high cards like 7, 8, 9) and try to get only low cards. You can not look at your face down card unless you...
Copy Me — Preschool Symmetry Activity
To introduce the concept of symmetry to my preschoolerwe played the “copy me game.” (That’s what I called it.)First I put down an object and she had to put one in it’smirror image (I showed her how if I folded the paper overit would be right in that spot where the paper touchedon the other side.) Then she had to put down an objectand I had to copy her. We...
Apple Unit
DD did a unit on apples these past couple of weeks. Hereare some of the things she did. First picture: The apple picking game — Each of us hadour own apple picking sheet from kidssoup.com. (You have to pay a yearly fee to join this site, but I’ve gotten a lot of great ideas from there.) We took turns rolling the dice and placing that many apples(round red magnets) onto...
Apple Muffins
DD, ED and I made apple muffins. They were AMAZINGLY good! (U.S. Measurements) INGREDIENTS: 2 cups unbleached flour3/4 cup sugar1 Tblsp b powder3/4 teaspoon baking soda1 tsp cinnamon1/4 tsp nutmeg1/4 tsp ground allspice1/4 tsp ground cloves (I didn’t have any so used pumpkin pie spice)1/4 tsp salt1/2 cup walnuts (I didn’t have any walnuts or pecans so just added an extra 1/2 cup of apples)2 large eggs4 Tblsp unsalted, melted...
