Our calendar time

Since, I’m going to be writing about a “Day in Our Life” soon, I figured I might as well share about our calendar time first so I didn’t have to explain in great detail about it then.

I’ve gathered together calendar pages from all over, and I’ll include links to the ones I’ve used, and links to the ones I’ve found, but didn’t use at the bottom of the page.  There’s a lot of resources out there.

Their covers are very carefully and artfully drawn, which makes it easy to tell whose is whose.


The first two pages are a days of school chart and a tally mark chart for days of school found at Motherhood on a Dime.
Then is a chart for weather for all the months.

Next is the monthly section.  It starts off with a calendar page of the month.  Behind that is the “All About Me” skills page.  My kids need to work on writing their address and information, so once a month they will complete this page.  This comes from the Enchanted Homeschooling Mom’s Member’s Only site (review coming, highly recommend it).

After that is the weather.  We’re using the weather page from Our Aussie Homeschool (hers didn’t include snow, but many variations on sunny and rain).

The last two pages we’re still working our way up to filling out completely.  First is the 2nd Grade Daily Math activities.  It covers time, creating a money amount, and math problems.  This caught most of what I wanted to work on for daily math for the kids, but there was one other thing.  This is also at Enchanted Homeschooling Mom’s Members Only site, she has different pages covering similar material for kinder-3rd grade.  Second grade hit all the things I wanted, it’s designed great for calendar time for multiple ages, oh and large enough to be able to write on.

Last page is a correct the sentence page (which we haven’t done the top part yet), and daily number.  We’ve done the daily number part.  We roll two 10-sided dice and create our 2 digit number, then we go through figure out even/odd, expanded notation, number word (oh the complaints), 10 more, 10 less, 1 more, 1 less.  Printable found at The Teacher Wife.

The way to make sure we get this done more often?  We only fill in the days of school chart when we do this, and we’re going to have a party once we reach 100.  So that means they HAVE to remind me if they want the party.

I also know I won’t make this every day of the school week, so I didn’t include a full month’s worth behind each monthly calendar, I guess at a number based on what I know of each upcoming month.
Other places with Calendar Posts
Our Aussie Homeschool
Motherhood on a Dime
The Teacher Wife
Homeschool Creations
Mama Jenn
Fantastic Five
Royal Baloo

Review: Amoeba Math

Amoeba Math is one of those unexpected finds.  I was given this at the homeschool convention I went to after talking with the owner for almost an hour.  I bought their board game, Math Gym, but didn’t have the budget to buy Amoeba Math as well.  However he was nice enough to give me a review copy and one to give to ya’ll.  So, score for all of us!

 

I thought about waiting until Friday to post this, and continuing it as part of my Friday Games series, but didn’t want to.  First because I’ve been wanting to get this done forever, but hadn’t because I need pictures.  And second because it’s a computer game.  I’m focusing more on board games there.

Amoeba Math is a fun math review game.  The graphics are somewhat simplistic, but my kids thought they were hilarious.  Especially when their guy got hit by running into a wall, “he made funny sounds Mommy.”   (I need to clean my computer screen, it’s got so many fingerprints)

 

There are several different options to make it work best for you.

 

Game Difficulty- you can choose from Basic, Advanced, Expert, and Master.  Basic only uses single digits and gives the most time.  As you advance in difficulty it becomes and adds in negative numbers!

 

You can also choose what types of problems you want to do.  So far my kids have only done addition, but I’m planning on adding in subtraction soon.

 

 

What I like:

1.  I can choose types of problems and level of difficulty.

2.  It’s very user friendly and the company has easy to understand and use help center (I had problems installing and with their help figured it out).

3.  I can leave one of the boys playing it while I go work with another child, and not worry about their accidentally getting into something else.

 

What I dislike:

1.  Nothing really, it’s a fun game and easy to use.

2.  Not a problem for me, but it IS NOT MAC COMPATIBLE.  This could be a problem for some.  They are working on making it usable for Macs.

 

 

FINAL OPINIONS:

 

My boys are asking to use this for their math instead of their math curriculum, which they like a lot.  Princess is not a game fan like they are.  I’m thinking of making this at least a weekly game, if not more often during summertime.

 

TO BUY:

Amoeba Math is $29.95.  The big bonus: you can try it before you buy, there is a two week free trial.

 

WIN A FREE COPY OF AMOEBA MATH:

 

Super simple, leave a comment with a favorite way to practice math.  Make sure there is an email address included.

 

RULES: Open to US and International.  I’ll pick a winner on July 7 and email them.  If I don’t hear back I’ll pick a new winner.  Make sure I can email you.

 

DISCLOSURE:  I was given a copy of the game to review.  I almost bought it, but it wasn’t in the budget…….I bought the board game instead.

Quick easy math review game

I’m sure you’ve all done things like this.  Previously we’ve rolled giant dice and added the numbers then run to the chalk number on the floor.

Now, we’re practicing counting for money (nickels, dimes, quarters) using a ball.


Just throw it in a circle and count whatever it is you’re practicing.  Here we’re counting quarters.  The kids much prefer to count pennies.

As a side note, this ball is actually from when I was teaching.  You’re supposed to solve the math problem that is closest to your right thumb.  Good for practicing left and right, and hand eye coordination as you’re throwing it around.  My second graders loved it.

I’ve got similar ones for elements of story.  Those ask all sorts of reading questions.  I need to get them out for my kids.

THE Math game for the family

So, I started to write a post about going to a homeschool convention, but realized I didn’t have anything super helpful to say, and it was mainly going to be lots of hints of things to come.  I didn’t want to write that.

So (seriously I use that too much), Instead, I’ll just jump write in. 

Math Gym

Here’s the premise, you’re going around the board in either direction to whatever square you want.  You get there by building equations from the tiles you have.  Your numbers can be positive, negative, or exponents (we took out the exponents), and you get operation tiles as well.

I spent a good hour or so talking to the guy there because I didn’t believe him that my 5 year old could play this.  He convinced me, and I bought it.

He was right.

She’s not a huge fan, but she doesn’t like games in general.  The boys who are fans.  LOVE it!

Your goal is to earn money by either landing on squares that give you money or by landing on a workout square where you do math problems (more on that in a second).  Princess worked her way around the board going in a negative direction almost the entire time.  The boys went positive, negative, all over.



When you land on a workout square you grab a card based on your ability.  My kids are all white belts.  That’s first/second grade math.  It goes all the way up through early high school with Algebra 1 and 2.



Our first game took about an hour to play, but this was also my kids first exposure to negative numbers, and they grasped the concept fairly quickly and were making up math problems like aces.

It’s on sale right now for $50 (yes that is a lot, but I think it’s totally worth it).  Considering most of the strategy games we buy cost about the same, and I’m seeing years worth of math practice in this game.  It’s worth it to me.

I LOVE this game (and I’ll have a post up about some of the other games I bought later).  I wanted to talk about this one first because I’m going to have a giveaway coming up soon for their computer game.
Go, look at it, try the online version of it (there’s an online version of the board game), and then discover how cool it is.

PS: I was not paid for this, I did not get a free copy, I bought it and loved it, so that tells you how much I like it.

Quick tip: Calendar time

Use double sided calendar cards (or just use single-sided ones, but double sided have more interest), and when it actually reaches that day turn it around.
Okay for whatever reason this has really helped my kids with keeping what day it is straight and they really like turning the card around.

I’ve tried adding in the days as we reach it and since we’re not good about doing calendar every day (how was I so good at it when teaching and not now?) it rather confuses them.  This is BRILLIANT!  If I do say so myself.

New York: Measuring the Statue of Liberty

 

Just like we did for whales, we measured out how big the statue of liberty was.  We measured several different parts of her using information I got from the Statue of Liberty information site.  It is fascinating to see how big she is. 

 

 

I wish I could say the kids were suitable impressed, but there were more interested at that particular instant in running around like mad men and trying their very best to see who could be the silliest.

 

I am sure this news totally shocks you.

 

So, for me this activity was spent with lots of, “No, look over here!  No really, if you pay attention we’ll get done very quickly.”  At which point I imagined all sorts of ways I could glue them to the floor.  Which probably would not have been a good idea.

Instead I’ll leave you with our printable:

Statue of Liberty New York

Math: What equals nine

I started rummaging through my old teaching stuff and found this great game:

It’s from this book.  Back when I was teaching over the summer I spent hours and hours coloring all sorts of games and used up so many markers.

 

Before playing the game I set them to figuring out all of the ways they could make nine using two addends.  I put out the nine, and they happily set to it.

 

 

 

Eventually they had a small handful of equations that added up to 9.  Or, the boys did.  Princess on the other hand, sat there insisting she wasn’t able to do it until I showed her how it was done.  She’s going to be one I have to figure out what to do.  She’s capable but second guesses herself way too often.

 

Eventually we got down to playing the game.  It’s quite simple, you take off two numbers that add up to 9 and go around until all of the numbers have been taken.  The person with the most numbers wins.  YEAH!

 

I’m trying to think of some other fun ones like this, any theme suggestions for making it?

Favorite Resource this week: Education Cubes

Ages ago I won the chance to use Education Cubes, and I’ve mentioned it once or twice using them.  Well, we used them again a few weeks ago, and this is a great way to have fun and not totally forget what you learned this year.


1.  Write the material you want to cover all over your sidewalk using chalk.  We are reviewing simple addition and sight words.


2.  Everybody roll a different die (I had to make them change colors, otherwise each kid would review the same six things).  Than try to be the first one to your answer.


Repeat over and over and over again!

YEAH!

Back when I first wrote this post I did it partially to show off the Education cubes, and then I forgot to put in the link to the site for them.  My brain is dead sometimes.

Math monday: Green Eggs and Ham

Interesting fact I learned as I researched Massachusetts, not only does it have a state children’s book, it also has a state children’s author: Dr. Seuss.

 

I had found an interesting book about Dr. Seuss, but it was way too long to hold everyone’s interest.  When I read it to my kids I, we divided it into two nights reading.  But, for everyone getting together I wanted some kind of activity, and everything I could think of was either too involved or too simple for the entire group.

 

After some thinking, I remembered that “Green Eggs and Ham” had been written as a challenge to write a book using only 50 words.  So, I picked 10 random words from the book and we graphed 20 pages of it.

 

 

 

What intrigued me was watching the two teams (boys against girls) defend their answers.  There was one instance for each team where someone had the wrong number.  It was great for my kids to see everyone defend and come up with their answers.

 

All in all, a great exercise for everyone.

 

I’ll try and get the printable I made up, it’s just a simple table, but right now Scribd is being annoying.

Math Monday: using the aids available

I love this because Princess is remembering we have a 100s chart to help her figure out the answers.

 

She’s continuing to use the Preschool Packs over at Musings of Me to work on her counting about 10.  So, she takes her card over to the 100s chart and looks to see what the missing number is.

 

It’s such a nice simple way for her to work on her math.  I’m actually thinking of making each of my kids an office like I had for my students when I was teaching after listening to a talk about teaching distractable children.  Yes, yes that would be mine.  Mine are very distractable, not to the insane level of the kids she was talking about, but mine don’t concentrate super well.

 

If you want our hundreds chart, which is just printed on cardstock and cut out in rows.  Here’s the link:

hundreds chart.

Counting by 2s

Counting by 5s

Counting by 10s

I alternate which one I currently have in there and that’s the skill we work on each morning for counting (we count to 100 every morning, but which skip counting we do).

Math Box: Counting practice

Do your kids love Easter egg hunts?  Or just finding things?

 

Well, mine love it.  As soon as they had a valid excuse they got out the “Jesus Eggs” (also known as Resurrection Eggs, if you’re not in my family).

 

So, our math on Friday was to find the eggs and then solve the two different types of math problems:

1.  Putting the number in it’s place and gluing it down, which Superman is doing there.

and

2. Creating a math problem from the jelly beans in the egg.

 

Not too surprisingly the second one was wildly popular, but the first one was too.  So, now I need to remember to do the silly easy things more often, because it’s a great confidence booster for the boys and review of an easy skill, and good practice for the girl.

Math printable was found here.  She’s got great units for almost every holiday.

Math Monday: addition as a game

We’ve discovered the best way to practice Math Facts, here’s how:

 

1.  Join Education Cubes (totally worth it).  Print off the numbers and the addition files.  For added fun also print off the alphabet movement cards.

 

2.  Roll your first math problem.

 

 

3.  Head over to the table and write your problem and the answer with a dry erase marker.

 

After it’s confirmed correct erase it with your hand.  Very important, your hand, not your head, your sleeve, your fill in whatever blank you want.

4.  As congratulations for getting your problem right choose one of the alphabet movement dice to roll and act out.

 

And voila, you have my second most popular math lesson to date.  The most of course being this one (of course it’s candy).

Math Monday: fractions

 

This week we started studying about Pennsylvania.  One of the things I learned about it while I was researching the state is Hershey chocolates are from there.

 

 

Hello, yummy math time, right?

 

So, we went through and followed the directions in the book and learned about the different fractions in a chocolate bar. 

 

It amused the heck out of me to see Batman (I’m kind of assuming this is him, it certainly looks like him, but……) take the directions run with it, and create artwork in his fractions.

 

It was also amusing to me to watch as the chocolate pieces slowly got smaller and smaller as little kids licked their fingers.

 

The book was a little long for Princess’ attention span, towards the end she was really staring at the chocolate with complete fascination.  But, overall they did really well.

 

And then there was some very happy kiddos as they happily devoured lots and lots of chocolate.

Found a cool site for practicing math facts

You can click on it endlessly and get a new set of facts to do on most of the pages, how cool is that?

Cool math site

My kids have been loving this.

I'll link over to Joyful Learner later.  Just wanted to share it.

Math Monday: Sunflower math

Our math lesson for this week was tally marks, and I knew that if I made them do it using the text book they’d get all freaked out, so instead we just did it using our homemade dry erase boards and using all sorts of things to count.

And then we read some books on sunflowers and I had a brilliant idea.  Ages ago I made a seed sorting kit for the kiddos, and so I ran upstairs and unearthed it.

 

 

Then, I gave each kid a small pot and had them sort out the sunflower seeds and count how many they had using tally marks.

 

 

After we’d practiced with just the sunflower seeds all week, on the final day they had to count up how many total with tally marks for each group.  That was quite a challenge, but it made an otherwise boring subject fun.

 

This was also part of our newest state study, let’s see if anyone can guess what state……..

 

Now head on over to Joyful Learner to see some more fun math ideas and later this week The Nurture Store is hosting a math playing thing.

Math links: clocks

My kids have eagerly been looking forward to learning to tell time.  I told them they had to first learn to count by 5’s, and they’ve mostly mastered that, now we’re moving on to the telling time.

And of course, if you’re going to learn how, you need a clock!

Supplies: 2 different colors of fun foam, two circles of different sizes to trace, a brad, a marker


1.  From your two different colors of fun foam trace the two circles.  And let your kids have at the cutting out of the circles.  While they’re doing that trace two arrows for the clock.  Don’t forget to make one shorter than the other.


Oh, and am I the only one who has wondered why the hour which is longer is much shorter than the minute hand?  I did kind of figure it out when we were working on our clocks, I have a theory.  But, it’s something I’ve always wondered.


2.  Glue the smaller circle on top of the bigger circle, and then punch a hole in it with your nice pointy scissors or a knife.  Do the same for the arrows because your hole punch was broken by some overly excited hole punching by your child…….


Then on the small circle write your hours, this is to have yet another reminder that the hour hand is shorter.  Seriously I struggled with this for years.  And on the larger circle write the minutes by 5’s.  My kids thought this was super cool (I will add I wrote all of the numbers to not aggravate them and make this fun).

As you can tell, the clocks are wildly popular, and we’ve used them everyday since we made them.

Math Monday: graphing

We’ve done some graphing before, but not huge amounts.  Partially because our math curriculum doesn’t really cover graphing yet, and partially because I’m lazy.

And laziness was the gestalt for this activity.  Mainly, I didn’t want to fix the kids breakfast, and I remembered Phyllis over at All Things Beautiful writing a post about making snacks and using it to write a recipe.


Well, I knew my kids couldn’t write the recipe, so I made up a worksheet for them real fast.

And of course, right after I’d printed up our first recipe I realized that I hadn’t laid out those ingredients, so I made a second one.









No really, I made two different ones for this.  And even after we’d started I realized I’d forgotten to leave a place for M&M’s on the chart.

And if you’d like to use either one, just click on the picture and that will take you to the page to download.


Before I let them have at it I set up a few ground rules.  Mainly you had to have at least one scoop of each item, and whenever you did the scoops you had to then make sure to color in one square for each scoop.  That took some demonstrating, because as I said I haven’t done as many graphs as I should have.



What followed was a frenzied few minutes of happily getting as much food as they could fit into those little bowls. Hmph, it won’t let me watermark the other one without messing up the picture.

And yes, that is Princess wearing a tank top in the middle of January, I bought it for her earlier this week thinking “summer clothes, that I can fiddle with,” and she’s refused to take it off since I bought it.  That girl……..

And they happily munched on their breakfast all through school that day.

We did do some extension activities, of looking at which thing they had the most of, and what they had the least of.  Superman kept pointing out that he had “no jelly beans, because I don’t like jelly beans.”  He was very worried about this, but was quite happy to eat the other food.

Head on over to Joyful Learner to see some more fun math ideas.