Bead & Magnet Writing, and Math Games

November 14-21st, 2013

We tried this game called "Outside, Inside" for math, but it wasn't as big of a hit as I was hoping. Maybe next time I can make it more dramatic with a drop from a higher height. Either way, Seth got some practice with addition and writing equations. 

We also reviewed what we've learned about money and played another store game. This time instead of using amounts that directly corresponded to a coin (.01 for a penny), I used different amounts so Seth would have to add different coins together. He was confused at first but quickly caught on and even surprised me with his ability to break the amounts down into different coin amounts. 

We also had some fun doing some writing with magnets. Seth wrote this all by himself. It says, "I can go to gymnastics." 

This one says "The ball bounced."

(stupid sideways Blogger again)

"Gab lix to play with me"= "Gabe likes to play with me"

I love seeing Seth figure things out for himself!

Making Change

August 7th, 2013

We played another money game (which also involved counting to 100).

First, Seth counted out 100 pennies:

Then he counted out 20 nickels and swapped me his pennies for the nickels: 

Then he counted out ten dimes and swapped me nickels for dimes.

Eventually he ended up with 4 quarters, which he swapped me for one dollar bill.

If nothing else, he got the idea that some coins were worth a lot more than others!

Money Games

June 18-19th, 2013

Still working on our money identification! I thought Seth would like this coin sorting game I found on Pinterest: he had four bags, labelled A, B, C and D, and had to sort and count the coins in each bag:

An accurate summary of his feelings: Seth is not impressed.

Probably because it involved writing...

After some re-evaluating, I ditched the worksheets and came up with a game for Seth to play. Once he heard there were cars involved, he was VERY excited for school to start. 

The game was very simple: One of us was the car salesman, the other was someone trying to buy a car.

The salesman would put a label by each car (we used labels both with the names ("penny") as well as the money amount ("1 cent")). Once the "salesroom" was all set up, the customer would come with a bucket of coins to try to buy cars.

He loved being the salesman, so I would be the customer and pretend I was confused about what coin I needed. That way he still got to practice identifying coins, plus feel like he was smarter than me. And what kid doesn't like that? 

This was one of his favorite school activities ever--he's actually requested it several times since then! 

Coin Sorting Game--Mining

June 11th, 2013

 It took all of three days before Seth announced, "I hate school!" It's a rough transition from complete free time to mandated structure (as loose as that structure may be). But in an effort to make school more fun, I came up with a game that ended up being a big hit.

Anything with automobiles gets Seth excited, so I came up with a way to involve a dump truck into his money sorting.

I told him he was working in a mine. He had to drive the truck over and mine all the pennies (put them in the dump truck), then drive over to the containers and put them in the correct spots.

"Mining" the coins--distinguishing by sight

Containers with labels (he can't read these, but he can figure it out by the first letter--I help if he needs it)

Dumping the pennies into the penny container

I didn't get a picture of this, but after all the coins were sorted, I had him use the sorting cards from the game I made up to match the coin value to each container. 

Catherine also got in on the sorting action. I was skeptical this would hold her attention, but I was wrong! 

First Day of Kindergarten!

June 3rd, 2013

Here's what we did on Seth's first day of kindergarten!

We started by putting his phonics flashcards into alphabetical order. No issues here besides the classic mistake of thinking "LMNO" is all one letter (note to self: work on that one):

Then we played one of his awesome Happy Phonics games: I Can Spell!

(This is my favorite learn-to-read program ever. HIGHLY recommended).

This was the original plan:

Pick a picture, use the cards to spell the word.

(Sorry for the weird stretchiness--Blogger is being stupid at the moment).

But he decided that was too much effort and took to writing the words instead.

No complaints here:

And since we were already writing, I threw in some lines for practicing writing on:

Not bad for a boy who hates writing because it "makes my hands hot."

Then it was on to money identification!

(I found the money posters here, and the poem here--I edited the poem slightly to fit my needs)

I also made up my own little sorting game, where he had to use the posters (now up on the wall) to sort the coins correctly by name. Once he had sorted them all, he had to match the cards with the correct values to each pile. He had to check the posters several times, but he seemed to enjoy the whole thing!

After a short break, we headed outside to practice writing upper-case letters in the sandbox. We made it through half the alphabet. He still needs some work on B, D, F, G, I, J, K, but he's in much better shape than I expected.  

Then it was on to piano practicing (which he can't do independently--I sit by him and give him a mini-lesson every time). For the record, Seth was the one who wanted to start lessons. I would have waited another couple of years! 

We ended the day by having Seth read aloud some BOB Books, and then listening to me read some books about children around the world (social studies) and magnets (science--we'll be playing with magnets later in the week).

He would still rather play with cars all day, but I'm hoping to help him understand that school is not optional now. I'm just glad I've done enough research on teaching little people (especially boys) to realize that he needs to take breaks from school in order to process everything. 

Day one, done!