Retro Learning

Ok, I'm showing my age here, but does anyone else remember these totally rad bell charms from the 80's?

I had a bunch when I was a kid and I recently found more on Ebay. :) They bring back such fun memories - I remember my friends and I use to bring them to birthday parties and trade them. Collecting as many as possible and filling up an entire plastic chain was the goal. They were a must-have accessory for 80's preteens!

Fast forward 20 some years and they are still a must-have for me. True I don't/won't wear them as an accessory, but these little lovelies just make me smile. Of course I'll pass them on to Juliet when she's old enough and hopefully she'll pass them along to her children thus keeping the 80's forever alive. :) But what do I do with them in the meantime?

Turn them into learning tools, of course! I came up with a list of 13 different ways to use these charms for learning. Here are just a few:

~I Spy~

You know the game, "I spy with my little eye...". I've written a list of all of the charm in the above photo on a separate card. James will go down the list and check them off as he finds them.

~Sorting By Type~

I threw this together in order to get a photo, but when James does it he'll have 6 little baskets to sort in to. There's the possibility of a bit of crossover with a few of the charms, but ultimately each charm really only belongs to one category.

~Clipping~

I couldn't think of a better title for this activity. :) Basically it's just clipping each charm onto a notch on the chain necklace. I'm not sure if it's because these little charms are nearly 30 years old, but they require a steady hand and some focus in order to attach them to the chain. Excellent fine motor activity.

~Spelling~

James is quite good at spelling, and he enjoys it too, so I know this one will be a huge hit. We're using our Moveable Alphabet to accompany this activity.

~Measuring~

It's surprising how large some of these charms are! I image we all looked pretty ridiculous, little as we were, carrying around this mass amount of giant plastic charms around our necks! Their varying size make for a good measuring activity, though. :)

The rest of my learning activity list includes:
:: arithmetic
:: mystery bag
:: counting - skip/ordinals/rote
:: more sorting - by color/exact type (I have many duplicates)
:: transferring - tweezing/pouring/tonging
:: shadow matching
:: bingo
:: pretend play

If any of you can think of more learning activities, let me know! I'll gift one charm to the first 5 people who comment on this post with an idea! :D

~Thank you for your comments!~

Money Match Activity

It's been a while since we worked with money and I realized James needed a refresher, so I pulled out our jumbo paper coins and the nomenclature cards I made last year. I also decided to put together this "Money Match" activity.

It's just a basic coin/denomination recognition activity, but it's proved to be very useful and James really enjoyed it. I printed off two copies of each sheet onto cardstock and cut one of each sheet, using the cut pieces to work with any of the other sheets. Does that make sense? Basically this activity can be used in a number of ways just by mixing and matching the sheets and by using real coins as well - see (the very dark photo - yikes, sorry!) below for examples:

I'm sharing these with you in the hopes they'll be useful to one of your kiddos!

Click here for US coins only, and here for Bermuda AND US coins.

Please keep in mind that I format these myself, so they're not perfect, but they'll certainly get the job done. : ) Also, as with all of my printables, these are for your personal use only - please do not sell or offer them in a giveaway. Thank you and enjoy!

~Thank you for your comments!~

Pattering With Paper Clips

I heard about these links and patterning cards and went around the island in search of them, but not surprisingly I came up empty handed. That's one fun benefit of living in a place where resources and selection is limited - you're forced to become inventive!

I realized the links are really nothing more than paperclips without the clip. :) The point is the link and you can certainly do that with paperclips! And the cards were easy enough to create (in Word). James will use the them as a guide to create various patterns (ABAB, AABB, etc.).

I'm making these cards available to you - just click this link to download. As with all of my printables, these are for your personal use only. Please do not sell or offer them in a giveaway. Thank you!

Oh and here's another paperclip activity James came up with. He began creating letter and number shapes with the clips, so I dug out these jumbo cardboard numbers for him to use as a template. BIG hit! (FYI, I *think* the cardboard numbers were found at Michael's Crafts.)

~Thank you for your comments!~

Felt Fractions

These have been on my "must-make" list for over a year and it wasn't until I saw them on Pinterest that I moved them to the very top of the list and finally put them together.

I love tactile ways of teaching math. I've said time and again that I would probably have had better luck with math in school had I been taught with Montessori math materials and other hands on materials such as these. It's great to be able to FEEL math when you're one of those that just can't wrap your brain around it!

These were very easy to make. I used two layers of regular ol' eco-fi felt, fabric paint and a blanket stitch around the edges. I didn't use any particular template to make the circles, I just outline the bottom of a bowl and then eyeballed the segments. Easy-peasy!

~Thank you for your comments!~

Our Reward System - The In-Home Store

Now that James is 4 he's become really quite helpful around the house. Some of his "chores" include assisting with the laundry, feeding the cats, making his bed, cleaning his room, and distributing toys and other mislaid items back to where they belong in the house. Once the baby comes we've explained to him that we'll be expecting him to help out even more (he is SO excited about this new responsibility!). His endless energy and cheerful desire to help has been greatly appreciated by this very pregnant mama. I can't tell you how much waddling around the house he's saved me from doing!

We decided to reward James' contributions by giving him a quarter each time he helps out in a big way. He doesn't get a quarter for EACH thing he does since we want him to understand that things like making his bed and cleaning his room are his responsibility and things he simply must do as a member of this household.

My husband bequeathed to James a very special wallet that he himself made as a child. It's in this wallet that James saves his coins and up until now they've just been collecting there. Initially I told him we could go to the store someday and he could choose something to buy. Thanks to our recent Money Matters lesson, he now understands the concept of money and buying things.

Then I saw this idea on The Idea Room and was totally inspired. I set to work slightly modifying it to create a version that will work for us. Here's what I came up with....

~our in-home store~

Inside of this basket are various items which James can buy with his quarters. I opted to include very few food items (I'm just so wary about using food as a reward) and what edibles I did chose are healthy. I found just about everything you see at our local dollar store. Some of it is from my own stash as I've long been in the habit of keeping books, stickers and other simple items on hand for those rainy days or those 'I-completely-forgot-to-buy-something-for-so-and-so's-birthday' days. : )

All of the items are color coded with star stickers. This tag is attached to the basket as a price key. I priced things in such a way that James can choose to buy something straight away after receiving a quarter or he can choose to save up for a more expensive item. I think this will give him a great introduction to saving since there are actually very few items that are just a quarter.

The options for what to include in an in-home store are limitless! For those interested, here's a list of what's inside our store:
:: Go Fish card game
:: Various sticker sheets
:: Grow capsules
:: Paint your own wooden snake kit
:: Cat pencil
:: A book
:: Markers
:: A die cast airplane
:: A bag of unpopped popcorn
:: Welch's fruit snacks (large and small bags)
:: ABC silly bandz
:: Super balls
:: Stretchy bugs
:: Set of 5 small frogs
:: Game of Jacks
:: Mickey Mouse keychain
:: Mini tubs of playdough
:: A bottle of bubbles
:: Ping pong balls
:: Paper clips with magnetic container (James is SO into magnets right now)
:: Alphabet stencils
:: A glow stick (in orange, James' favorite color!)
:: Mini play scene
:: Mickey Mouse stationary set
:: Individual balloons

We'll replenish only once all of the items have been purchased. I'm curious to see how this system will work out and which of the things James really likes.

One final thought: I know to some this looks like just a big basket of "junk" and others may even think that rewarding a child in such a way is wrong. To that I say: "To each his own". I'll admit I'm not a big fan of plasticy toys and knick knacks, but I chose items that I knew would be interesting to James and my intent is for him to learn about responsibility, helping others, and money matters in the process. And I should also note that we are always sure to thank James for his efforts with hugs and praise. :)

~Thank you for your comments!~

On Our Shelves - July & August

This is my last "On Our Shelves" post for a few months. The baby is due is just 5 weeks (!) and I'm now shifting my focus toward preparing for her arrival.

Our theme is summer. Keeping the theme broad like this really allowed me to put pretty much anything on our shelves, so long as it looked summery! :) As always, there are a few activities that aren't theme related. Click here and here to see what was on our shelves last summer.

Practical Life
Water Transfer. When James is ready to do this work he'll need to fill the bowl of little sponges with a bit of water. Then he'll place one sponge square into the garlic press and squeeze the water into one section of the ice cube tray. Oops - I now realize I need to add another bowl to the tray for the squeezed sponge squares. To remove the water from the ice tray, James will simply put the squeezed sponges back into the section to absorb the water and then transfer them back to the bowl.

Pencil Sharpening.

Pouring Sand. This is sand from one of our local beaches. I added a funnel to make this work a little more exciting. :) The bottle on the left is in a basket to keep it from falling off of the tray. James is really careful about transporting his work to the rug or table, but this tray just isn't that great.

Paper Punching. This is something new for us and I think James will really like it. The blue container (from Mexico) holds small paper squares of various colors, textures and weight. The silver container will hold the punches.

Tweezing & Transferring. We've done something similar to this several times before, so this is nothing really new, but I know James will enjoy it. The mason jar is what I think he will find most interesting - there are two parts to the lid and they have to go on in a certain way in order for them to fit properly.

Sensorial

Sensory Tubs. We have two available right now: Pond & Transportation

Sandy Playdough. Same as last year. :)

Creating Polygons. These colored popsicle sticks have been used for so many activities in our classroom! I printed out this chart from the internet and James will use it as a guide to create some basic polygons. I provided a control of error by using a single color for each polygon.

Still on our shelves: Knobbed & Knobless Cylinders, and The Pink Tower.

Language
Poetry Basket. I found this poem online and modified it a bit. I needled-felted the water and grass, and knitted the little fruits in the basket.

Summer Bingo. I made this myself using graphics from here. The small bingo cards are in the little box, and the colored shells will be used as card markers. (Btw, I did not color the shells - I found a bag of them at our local thrift store.)

Sequencing. These stars are filled with water (meant to be reusable ice cubes). We'll use them to create various patterns.

Tracing. James finds worksheets a bit boring, so I try to liven this kind of work up by adding fun writing utensils to the tray. You'd be surprised how often this works to entice him. These printables came from abcteach. (Btw, since a few people have asked, yes I do have a membership to this site and yes I do find it well worth the price - I use it quite often).

Moveable Alphabet. I collected a bunch of images from Google and made these cards to accompany our moveable alphabet. James will spell out the name of image. In the case of the card shown in the photo, he can opt to spell either 'shovel' or 'pail'.

Memory Game. This is one from last year when we focused on Independence Day.

Books. On The Seashore by Anna Millbourne, The Sun Egg by Elsa Beskow, Bermuda 123 by Dana Cooper, Summer (Series) by Nuria Roca, America a Patriotic Primer by Lynne Cheney, L is for Liberty by Wendy Cheyette Lewison, Coral Reef by Marcus Phister, The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller, Swimmy by Leo Lionni.

Still on our shelves: Dry Erase Spelling, and the Grammar Farm.

Math
Buying Water Balloons. Put on your creative hat, go into the dollar store and you'll be amazed at what you turn into a learning activity! In the past, I would have made a simple sorting/matching activity with these balloons, but since that's a bit old hat for James, I decided to go this route instead. James will need to "buy" these balloons for a penny a piece/25 cents for the lot. I provided various coins that equal that amount and it'll be up to him to decide which combination of coins to use. This activity falls in line with our recent Money Matters lesson.

Cards & Counters. It's true we're a bit past this kind of work, too, but if I've said it once I've said it a million times - repetition is a good thing. Plus, I have a bazillion of these fruit counters and I've been dying to use them. :) I bought them at a garage sale a few months ago, but I think you can buy them from Lakeshore Learning.

Less Than/More Than/Equal To. I chose sea glass for this work and I think James will really like the look and feel of it. The less than/more than/equal symbols come from this magnetic set.

Lego Math. You can read more about this here.

Skip Counting. I made these bead bars out of pipe cleaners and pony beds. Super easy. The tiles come from our Hundreds Board.

Still on our shelves: Telling Time, and Sandpaper Numerals.

Science & Culture
Discovery Tray. It's been a while since I created a discovery tray for our shelves. This one is full of ocean treasures - shells, coral, sea glass, and bits of pottery washed up after a hurricane a couple of years ago.

Examining Sand. My husband found the idea for this activity here. We'll put some sand on the white paper and make note of what colors and particles we see. We'll do the same with the black paper and see if we notice anything different. We'll use the jumbo magnet to see if any iron-rich minerals stick to it. We'll also talk about why Bermuda sand is pink!

Still on our shelves: (Parts of) the Africa Continent Bag.

Water Experiments - coming soon!

Art & Music

Composer of the Month: Verdi. I often get asked what exactly we do with our COM. Right now I'm keeping it really simple - I download that composer's music onto my iPod and we listen to those songs during our schooltime for the entire month. I also print out a photo of the composer. At some point we'll likely spend more time learning about the composer and the style of music, but for now it's just not something James is interested in.

Coloring Book. I printed this mini coloring book from abcteach.

Circle Time Songs. I can make these available, just let me know if you're interested.

Line Art. The idea here is simple - James can use the ruler to create lines in various lengths and angles. He can color the shapes in if he wishes to.

Happy summer!

~Thank you for your comments!~

Lego Math & Other Activties

We are Lego fanatics. I mean, what's not to love about Legos, honestly?! Aside from building and creating, there are SO many things you can do with them. Recently, while playing with James, I had a sudden brainstorm...

Lego Math!

I created this lego "worksheet" which has several basic addition/subtraction equations on it. James will need to find the sum in the little silver bucket and click it onto the worksheet. For the symbols I used flat, "bumpless" Lego pieces and simply drew symbols on them with a permanent marker. For the sum of zero I did something similar - I used a flat piece stuck to another Lego.

To provide a control of error I made sure each equation had the same color. The thing I like most about this activity is that it has a sensory aspect to it. The little bumps on the pieces have such a pleasant feel to them when traced with a finger. I'm all about tactile learning and I love that it helps to cement concepts into the brain.

We've used Legos in our learning time in the past. Here are some other fun and educational things you can do with Legos:

:: Sorting by color, size, shape/type, number of bumps, etc.
:: Measuring
:: A mystery bag - here you'd place several different kinds of Legos in a bag and have a matching set available on a tray. Have your child close their eyes and reach their hands in and feel one of the pieces. They'll need to match it to one of the pieces on the tray.
:: Painting/stamping
:: Graphing
:: Music Theory
:: ABC/123 - simply build jumbo letters and numbers. We did this for James when he was first learning his name.
:: Bingo - there's a free printable for this!
:: "Spinny" Speller - I've seen this idea all over the web, but here's a great example.
:: Picture matching

:: Organizing! Ok, so this may not be fun to everyone, but this is my idea of a really good time - I purchased these containers and blissfully entertained myself for hours!

For even more ideas, hop on over to Pinterest and enter "Legos" into your search - holy Lego mania, Batman!

~Thank you for your comments!~

Money Matters: An Intro to Money & Shopping

We're starting to learn about money over here. James likes playing with coins and has been asking what each one is and what it's for, so I created some nomenclature cards and we had a fun lesson about money last week.

First we matched some jumbo coin cut-outs I found at the local teacher's supply store. Then we matched real coins to the cards. We also talked a little about the images on each coin.

Next I talked about how different countries use different kinds of money and then I introduced and we matched some Bermuda cards and coins.

Then I talked a bit about why we use money. I explained how each coin is worth a certain amount and that the things we buy cost a certain amount and that we must use money to buy those things.

Next we played "store". I found a bunch of random items and I labeled them with stickers. Each sticker had a value on it. I gave James some coins and a basket and he excitedly "shopped" for things. :) When he selected the items he wanted, he brought them to me (aka the cashier) and "purchased" them. To keep it very simple, we addressed each item individually - I would take the sticker off the item, show him the amount and he would select the appropriate coin from his loot. He did a great job and gave me the correct coin each time, which I thought was great considering he was working with two types of currency!

This was such a fun game for both of us! James was so funny about shopping - he's a lot like me in that he takes forever to make a decision about whether or not a certain item is worth the purchase. He was saying things like, "Well, I already have one of those, so I really don't need it." Ha!

~a happy customer~

If you'd like to download my money cards, click here. Note there is also Bermuda currency included in this file. Since we use both US and Bermuda currency here on the island (it's 1:1), I wanted James to be familiar with both. Fun tip: you could always print out the Bermuda cards and add them to your North America continent box/bag! :)

As always, my printables are for your personal use only - please do not sell or offer them in a giveaway. Thank you!

~Thank you for your comments!~

On Our Shelves - June

Our theme this month is dinosaurs! Truth be told, James is neither here nor there when it comes to dinos, but I thought we'd give it a go anyway. We finished up our farm theme at the end of last week, so tomorrow is our first day with the dinosaurs.

Oh, btw, how many of you knew that the beloved Brontosaurus has been declared "scientifically redundant" and now has a slightly different appearance and goes by the new name, Apatosaurus?! I'm sure I'm the last to know about this. Sheesh, first Pluto is stripped of its planet status (I know, I know, it's a dwarf planet now... but still) and now I hear about the Bronto losing its place in the dino world. How will my inner child reconcile this information? Was my entire elementary education flawed?! :D

Ok, moving on...

Practical Life
Washing a Dinosaur. I think James will get a kick out of this, especially because it involves a cute little scrub brush.

Scooping Dinosaur Eggs. Ok, so this looks a bit like an Easter activity. You just have to imagine these are dinosaur eggs. :)

Folding. There are 2 sets of 3 different sized pieces of dinosaur material in this basket. James will fold them and match them by size.

Pin Poking. These sheets are from Montessori Print Shop. James will use the jumbo thumbtack to poke tiny holes all around the images thus separating the image from the background. We did this last fall and it was a favorite.

We'll also continue our Grace & Courtesy lessons in table manners.

Sensorial
Dinosaur Sensory Tub. What has made this tub a hit is the fact that it has water in it. Kids + water = guaranteed fun.

Mystery Bag. Inside the dinosaur bag are two sets of the same dinosaur. There's another set in the basket, which James will lay out on the mat and use as a guide for what he's feeling from inside the bag. There's no peeking with this activity - James has to really tune in to his sense of touch to determine which dinosaur he's feeling before he pulls it out of the bag. Of course this can be done with any number of objects and can be as simple or as complicated as you like. This activity is fun with toddlers and is great for teaching basic shapes.

Binomal Cube. This is a traditional Montessori material and you can read more about it here. I purchased our cube from Kid Advance.

Still on our shelves: Knobbed and Knobbless Cylinders, and The Pink Tower.

Language
Dinosaur Bingo. I made this myself using clip art from abcteach. I'd share it as a PDF, but I believe the images are copyrighted.

Worksheets & Activity Book. Skills involved: dot-to-dot (by letters), tracing, and reading/following basic directions. I printed the sheets off from KidsSoup and abcteach.

Spelling. Same idea as last month only this time I'm using these magnetic numbers.

Books. I was astonished to find only 3 dinosaur books at our library. THREE. Which is just as well, I suppose, since we're only allowed to check out four at a time. The rest are from the local thrift shop.

Not sure if I'll do a poetry basket for this month as I cannot for the life of me find a decent poem about dinosaurs. Guess dinos aren't very poetical. :)

Reading. As if by magic, James can read just about anything now and very rarely has to sound anything out. In just a couple of months he went from sounding out basic three and four letter words to flat-out reading words with 5+ letters without hesitation. I couldn't tell you how this happened, it just did and I know I had very little to do with it. I guess something just sort of "clicked" with him. Anyway, because I'm still wary of how well he actually knows some of the reading "rules", I want to continue forward with the last bit of the green series. I also purchased some basic readers. I found this series at a local shop (Kit-N-Caboodle, for my fellow islanders). The stories aren't award winning by any means, but they get the job done and most importantly James LOVES reading them.

Still on our shelves: Green Sandpaper Phonograms and The Grammar Farm.

Math
Measuring Dinosaurs. We did a similar activity in December when we measured strips of ribbon. James enjoys measuring things (seriously, anything with numbers - he loves it). He'll need to write his results on the index cards.

Understanding More & Less. Still working on this concept. It's interesting, James definitely understands what's more than something else, but when you ask him which is less, he freezes up. I thought maybe the use of the sections in the ice tray would help him to visualize the concept a bit better. He'll need to place the little ball next to the correct answer.

Addition with "Dinosaurs Bones". Aka popsicle sticks. :) Pretty straight-forward, for example I will lay out a set of 3 bones and a set of 5 bones and place the '+' sign in between them and the '=' sign after them and ask James to add them together and show me the sum with another set of bones from the cup.

Skip Counting. Like reading, James just sort of 'gets' skip counting. I started with counting by 2's and the next thing I knew he was counting by 5's and 10's all on his own. This activity is just to reinforce the concept visually. James will use these tiles (from our Hundred Board) and put them in numerical order by 5's up to 100.

Worksheets. Skills involved: dot-to-dot (by numbers), quantity matching, determining differences, and addition. Printed off from KidsSoup and abcteach.

Still on our shelves: Ladybug Math, Telling Time, and Sandpaper Numerals.

Science & Culture
Studying Africa, Tray 1: Places. As I've mentioned before, I've opted to remove certain aspects of our continent bags and put them on trays instead of just plopping the entire bag on the shelf. James (like most kids, I think) is more interested in an activity if he can see what it is. By putting a few items on a tray not only can he see what's available, he's also not bombarded with the full extent of materials inside of our continent bags.

Studying Africa, Tray 2: Animals. I must give a shout out to my good friend, Ann, who very sweetly gave us that beaded lizard, which is from South Africa. Not pictured, but also on these shelves are a few African flags. I always display the flags of whichever continent we're studying.

Dinosaur Cards. These are from Montessori Print Shop and they are great! I love the information cards - they have just the right amount of data on them. I only wish a few of the more common dinosaurs (Stegosaurus, Pterodactyl, Dimetrodon, Plesiosaurus, Brontosaurus - er, I mean Apatosaurus) were included in the sets.

Matching & "Feeding" Dinosaurs. This is a two part activity: James will match up the plastic dinosaurs to those on the cards and then use the information section to determine if they were plant eaters or meat eaters. The little bucket in the above photo has some leaves and little squares of red felt (i.e. meat) that James can "feed" to the appropriate dinosaur.

Build-a-Dino. Just like it sounds - the skeleton comes in a handful of pieces and you simply put it all together. Another local find (Daisy & Mac).

Excavating Dinosaurs. This photo is from a couple of summers ago when we did this same project. We'll be doing it again next week - it's a great outdoor activity for summer!

Art & Music
Composer of the Month: J.S. Bach. I often get asked what exactly we do with our COM. Right now I'm keeping it really simple - I download that composer's music onto my iPod and we listen to those songs during our schooltime for the entire month. I also print out a photo of the composer. At some point we'll likely spend more time learning about the composer and the style of music, but for now it's just not something James is interested in.

Circle Time Songs. You can get the PDF here.

Buddha Board. I love this thing! I wrote a short post about it here. It's been a long while since we've used this and I think James will be really happy to see it again.

Coloring Pages. KidsSoup has a great dino set.

Scissor Practice. These strips are a bit different than usual - I used stickers, as I usually do, but this time I drew various kinds of lines in between the stickers. James is used to cutting straight across, so I think this will provide a bit of a challenge for him.

Stamping. I found this great Melissa & Doug set locally (People's) and I know it's going to be a hit with James.

Later this month we're going to try to make some dinosaur eggs. Fun!

Happy June, everyone!

~Thank you for your comments!~