Making Homeschooling Hands-On, Engaging, Meaningful & Memorable! Be inspired by all the possibilities!! Check out our unit studies, packets and printables!
Here’s a picture of a bull ant that was on displayat the science museum (see the story aboutDD getting bit by these in the post below). Thisant is over an inch long! Here are some of the other displays — skeletons,mammals, snakes and lizards.
We have little jack-o-lanterns and some Halloween-themedbeads that we’ve used for math in various ways. Today, DDhad to choose four cards, count out that number of beadsand put them into the jack-o-lantern. It helps with one-to-one correspondence. For LD I’ve used these same items for addition and skipcounting practice (basic mulitiplication groupings). ED just likes to put the beads into the jack-o-lantern whichI let her do if I can sit...
For once, this is an activity that I thoughtup! Many people have talked about dyeingnoodles with rubbing alcohol. I didn’t likethat idea because ED puts everything in hermouth. So–I tried dyeing the noodles withvinegar and food coloring. I left them in thevinegar/coloring solution for about 3-5 minutes,then dried them overnight. I took a bunch of skewers and cut off the sharptips, put them together with a rubber band.Then I wove...
I made this with help from DD and LD a while back to useat Kindergym (we had a “Under the Sea” theme for a fewweeks). I’ve put this on the shelf for ED and added acovered tube to the smaller hole. She’s had fun puttingthe sea creatures into the box and retrieving them.
This was one of the last opportunities we’d have to gocamping for the weekend as the weather will soon betoo hot. Even as it was, temperatures ranged from 9 to 34Celsius (or 48 to 95Fahrenheit). It was COOOooooldat night (especially compared to our afternoon)! In the first picture you can see our campsite across on theother side of the dry river bed. (Click on the picture toenlarge it.) One little...
The kids enjoyed this little photo project a lot. Grandmaand Grandpa sent us this “Nature Print sun sensitivephoto paper” from Oriental Trading ($6.00US, for 12photo sheets). Here’s what we did: 1) The kids collected small nature items. 2) I used a cereal box and covered the photo paper overwith the other side of the box whenever they wereselecting their items. They arranged their nature objectsjust so. 3) Then we took...
We had a wonderful weekend camping and I’ll share more about that soon. Today is DD’s birthday, though, so I won’t spend much time on the computer today. Last night I needed a few more ideas for ED and checked out a website I really enjoy. It’s truly a wonderful resource if you have a toddler or young preschooler. This Mom shares a wonderful assortment of activities for her son...
This afternoon DD and I sat down together to put togethera new felt board scene. This is based on Five Little Pumpkins .DD and ED had fun making and remaking the jack-o-lanterns’faces. I read the story several times while DD acted itout on the felt board. I took the picture in the book display area I was mentioningin the post I wrote yesterday about reading (scroll down below). By the...
A while back I read about a family who put paint inziploc bags and had the kids jump on them. Nowthat the weather is warming up, we decided to giveit a try. Some of the bags we filled with paint andair; some of them we had paint, vinegar and bakingsoda (to expand the bag). LD was able to pop allthe bags (and the ones without vinegar/bs “lookednicer”), but DD and...
It’s obviously most interesting to post about the livelier things we do at the Homeschool Den. But to be honest, I really enjoy the quieter things we do as well. We read lots and lots of books together. I have a wooden napkin holder where I display 3-5 new picture books on the dining room table. I change this several times a week (as needed). Whenever we sit together at...
On Tuesdays, I volunteer to help with Kindergym. Wehelp set up. Even LD (who is technically too old for it) hasa good time because his buddy often stays home fromschool so they can play together. ED (20months) lovesall the equipment. Here are a few things that were in our workboxes for theafternoon — tangrams, the hundred’s board puzzle andskip counting 2 to 200 maze (which I laminated). I found the...
Here’s another number line recognition game I playedwith DD. We put the numbers in order from 0 to 13. Thenshe had to close her eyes while I switched two cards. Shehad to find and correct the switch. Then it was her turnto switch the cards while I closed my eyes. In the end,we switched lots of numbers and put them back in theright order. With the same set-up, we also...
