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Grammar Practice: Possessive Nouns and Pronouns

A couple of days ago I went over possessive nouns and pronouns with the kids. This is a practice sheet I made for them. The second page has a couple of interesting tidbits about Australian wildlife that I thought the kids wouldn’t remember (the kids were all born in Australia). I shared a little bit about termite mounds, the cane toad and quolls… all critters you don’t hear that much...

2

Minerals — Our Hands Activities, Seeing the BIGGEST Diamond in the World and more!

We finished up our close look at the three types of rocks and moved on to minerals. Last summer I bought a couple extra bags to pan for rocks and minerals when we were at an amusement park.  I saved it just for this unit and the kids loved it!!  It was a bit chilly out, so we had to use a big plastic bin in the bathroom rather than...

7

My Awesome 1/2 Marathon Weekend in Washington DC

While last weekend was terrific because of all the things I accomplished inside the house, this weekend was wonderful because I reached a big personal goal… I ran a half-marathon down in Washington D.C. It was SO fun!  Plus, the family did some fun (educational) sight-seeing. I ran the Rock-n-Roll 1/2 marathon.  It was jam packed with people and music and had bands and cheering people all along the course...

6

Being Realistic about Spring Cleaning – Chores and Organizing

This past week we’ve done a heap of fun activities, but I’ve been spending most of my spare time — not blogging — but doing some spring cleaning and organizing.  I was in the mood to put some music on and clean… but to be honest, I get overwhelmed by those long, long, looonnnnngg spring cleaning lists.  To make sure I’m feeling good about the process I make sure I...

4

Metamorphic Rock Activities

We brought the rock portion of our unit to a close with a look at metamorphic rocks.  The kids had a tough time deciding which rock sample was marble and which was quartzite. We also did the melted-crayon version to show how metamorphic rocks form under heat and pressure. Okay, so really we just made rainbow crayons, but the kids *said* they understood how the rocks can change because of...

11

Learning about the New Catholic Pope

I felt it was important to talk to the kids a bit about the newly elected pope, Pope Francis. We’ve been listening to the news and talking about it a bit, but I wanted to go into a little more detail tomorrow morning and made some pages for them to add to their history notebook. We are not Catholic, but Grandma is. My Mom died a couple of years before LD...

1

Preschool Math Activities (K4) – Montessori Math and More

It has been ages and ages since I’ve written about ED’s math activities.  A lot of ED’s math happens naturally over the course of the day — counting objects in a picture book, counting by 2s, 5s and 10s when we brush teeth and do dental floss, counting money together, looking at numbers at the store, in books, etc.  Numbers are a part of daily life and we take advantage...

0

St. Patrick’s Day Preschool Math Game

I made these game boards for ED.  It’s a race to 50 (or a race to 100). Print out one game board for each player.  The players take turns rolling the die (use a 20-sided die in the race to 100) and covering the squares on their game board with tokens. The first to cover their entire game board wins the game. You can download these free: St Patricks Day...

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St. Patrick’s Day Activities

This activity was a huge hit with ED this past week.  I chose some words from ED’s phonics readers and wrote them out on some shamrocks and taped them on popcycle sticks.  I covered an empty cereal box with construction paper and wrote the words out on the box as well and used a knife to create a slit for the Popsicle sticks. I sat with ED each time she...

4

Sedimentary Rock Activities

Another day we read about sedimentary rocks in our books and filled in a bit of information in the  boxes on the sedimentary rock page, Three Types of Rocks Packet.  I brought out our rock collection. We had several different types of sedimentary rocks and the kids had to determine whether they were sandstone, limestone or shale by feeling the rock and grains.  We also filled in the next parts of...

Did Every Parent Do This Today? 1

Did Every Parent Do This Today?

With the storm that rolled across the US the past day or two, I wonder how many yards are decorated with snowmen, snow forts and snow angels?!! The kids spent lots of time sledding down our steep hill: The entire family pitched in to make this huge snow fort (it looks more like a snow volcano, doesn’t it?!!): And here are the snowman and snowpets under construction! It sure was...

0

The Secret Clubhouse

Did you have a secret clubhouse? I remember mine… it was up at the top of a tall tree in our front yard.  I was around 11 or 12 and I even built a wooden hinged box to place up in the top of the tree to hold my treasures. Yesterday the girls woke me up with breakfast in bed (water, bread and a banana!) and then asked me to...

4

Igneous Rock Activities

This past week, we spent a lot of time delving into the three different types of rocks.  The first day we looked closely at some of the different igneous rocks. We started by reading about igneous rocks from a couple of books and filling in the boxes on our chart. (More about that free packet at this post about the Three Types of Rocks.) We then pulled out a rock...

0

St. Patrick’s Day Multiplication Pack

I think DD’s going to love this one!  She’s working hard to memorize her multiplication facts and I put together different types of practice pages for the next couple of weeks.  There are 8 pages. As always, it is free to download. St Patricks Day Multiplication Pack   Other Free St. Patrick’s Day Materials: St. Patrick’s Day Number Word Activities St. Patrick’s Day Addition Game Boards   St. Patrick’s Day...