FREEBIE Friday: Autumn Math Center!

I forgot to post this a few weeks ago, but better late than never, right? I have a fun math freebie to share for your little ones! The provided mat is optional, but you can use it if you are working on greater than, less than, and equal amounts. If not, you can use this as a memory match game or as counting cards.

You can also use the cards with a movable alphabet for K & 1st kids. I highly recommend getting a wooden set if you can, as we use ours all the time, but if it's not in the budget for you, check out these ideas for cheap and DIY movable alphabets.

You can download the file for free here:

Enjoy!

a few free homeschooling resources

I LOVE this site: http://www.worksheetworks.com/

Free, highly-customizable worksheets? What could be better? So many of the activities are really fun. H always requests more worksheets from this site. I always figured we would use worksheets infrequently, but these worksheets are so well-liked, they aren't "work" at all!

H working on roman numerals, which he loves for some reason.

F working on an odd/even sums maze.

Need spelling lists? Check out K12 Reader - it has them for 1st-5th grades, as well as reading comprehension sheets. Great resource! For handwriting, I go to this site; it is worth navigating around the ads to get the worksheets, which you can tailor for everyone from pre-readers on up. I have used this site for copy work in the past, by typing out a few sentences from a favorite story and having the kids trace the words.

Have fun teaching is another site I've been using lately, and it looks like they do giveaways on their site and have a Teachers Pay Teachers store for some of their stuff, too. Khan Academy is another one that is getting more and more use (and giggles; H thinks it is hilarious!) on our end. Another math site I've used with success is Homeschool Math. What are your favorite free homeschooling resources?

noun game, adjective game

I made a word game for each of the boys today: a pre-reading noun matching game for F, and an adjective game for H. We've played the noun game before but I couldn't find the cards I had made so I made a new sheet:

Feel free to print and add your own in the blank boxes.

This game was very well received! I stuck with mostly cvc words but if you can do more difficult words as well if you are beyond the beginning reading stages.

The game objects

Working out the words

 I made an adjective game for H for reading practice and to reinforce the concept of describing words.

I had him cut out the words, read them, and then find objects in the house that matched. Blank cards are to write in your own adjectives or to have your child come up with some on their own. Active, hands-on learning seems to work really well for my boys - they keep their bodies moving and have fun!

memory noun game

After playing with the noun cards I printed out last week, the kids wanted to sort them again, but as they were sorting them I thought we could instead use them to play a game. I grabbed a couple of the wooden cubes in my craft stash (the same used in color resemblance sorting) and some stickers I had from a yard sale. H and F made their own dice with the stickers, and then I put a different colored sticker on each of the noun categories. We turned all the noun cards face down, and then they took turns rolling their die and turning over two cards at a time trying to match the category. When they found a match, they placed it in their pile. Great for learning about nouns as well as for memory.

Color coded noun categories.

Noun game die.

Game setup.

if you give a mouse a cookie activities

I stumbled across these cute word cards to go with Laura Numeroff's If You Give A Mouse A Cookie (the collection is worth having; it even has an audio cd so you can listen to the stories on the go). There are also some domino cards and other activities listed there, but I thought since all of the words are things commonly found in homes, it would be fun to have a scavenger hunt. Pretending to be the mouse means you won't have to go looking for any mice (unless you're into that, then go for it, but they make me squeal and jump up on chairs). The word cards have both words and pictures so this is great for readers and pre-readers alike. To make it more challenging for your older child, have them try to find the items in alphabetical order!

Other activities to do with this book:

• make some cookies! while they are baking,
• get out some brooms and sweep up, or mop! and then,
• draw a picture of your family and hang it on the refrigerator  

Enjoy! 

We put the word cards in little bag and pulled them out one at a time.

F finds a broom.

 

noun sorting

We have been talking about nouns for a few days and so I searched for some person, place, and thing printables to make a sorting game.

Two sets good for pre-readers are here and here; there are both pictures and words on the cards (I printed 4 sheets per page since there are so many pages).

Montessori for Everyone has a great printable with words only, excellent for those kids that have already started reading. They are also grouped so that the person, place, and thing all relate to each other (astronaut, outer space, space shuttle).

Print these out on card stock and let the sorting begin!

you've got mail!

I cannot understand how this wins out over other games and toys consistently, but it is one of the top three things we do with a box when we get one from our overworked UPS guy. If you activate your imagination mode, it is basically this but cheaper and more fun because you make it yourself! You can make a new one each month, when your next Amazon subscription of something kid/baby-related comes.

It can be summed up in a few simple steps:

1. Cut a slot (or two) in a box.

2. Put your mail in that box.

3. Make them open the box...and that's the way you do it!

Take everything out and repeat. Vary the sizes of the mail so they have to sort it and figure out where it goes. I sometimes give them real mail that is unimportant, or stickers to decorate the cardboard "postcards." For older kids who are reading or learning to read, you can label them with "Kitchen," "Living Room," etc. or other rooms and have them deliver the mail.  If you have two kids, you can have one deliver and one collect and they will madly run around your home like they are trapped in some M.C. Escher drawing.

See, it is basically the same thing!

matching game variations

Matching is a favorite game for many kids, but you don't need to buy a memory game and you can certainly have more fun than using a deck of cards. Find a decent number of matching cups (like dixie cups or other cups that are opaque - someone was giving Tassimo cups away and we were happy to receive them for crafting/games). Here are some of our favorites:

pompoms

crayon rocks

Other things we've used:
nuts/bolts/washers
foam squares with stickers on them
magnetic letters/numbers

For older kids who are reading or pre-reading, you can split the game into two halves - one side with letters and the other side with objects and have them try to match up animals to the letter that animal starts with. This is a current favorite in our house! The kids had gotten tubes of small animals in their Christmas stockings and they are the perfect size for this game. You could also do this with number magnets in one half, and pompoms in the other, but you'd probably want to limit it to 3-4 pompoms max!

Anyone want to play?