Math Games ~ K to 3rd Grade

The Math Program we use is Math-U-See and I LOVE this program because it is no nonsense program. It is clean and clear and the concepts build easily on one another making it easy to learn the next thing. Many people do not like this program, they think it is not "enough" or boring but I honestly love that I am not wasting time doing never ending drill sheets. It is one sheet a day, and your done. THIS leave us with time to do books like Life of Fred or games and activities to better connect math to our real life! 

Above- Aaron and Ethan are doing an activity, where they roll a 6 or 9 sided dice, (just depends on what multiplication tables they have learned Ethan has learned them all, but Aaron has not yet so Ethan helps with with the ones he does not know). Then they roll it again. The numbers they roll are side 1 and side 2 of a building. They are to draw the building and then find the area. They are working to gather to make a city "map" It was super fun to listen to them talk and have fun together, they put our house, Lowe's, Walmart, and of course the Lego store!

This game was an estimation game, they have different bins of items, they were to close there eyes, grab some and estimate how many of that item they had. Then count and chart their estimation with the actual result.

This is a little Lego game board I got off Pinterest, we use it all the time to practice adding or whatever it is very useful.

This game (and the estimation game) I got from THIS book called Family Math. We have only done a few games out of it so far, but I really love the book and I have the book all tabbed up with plans to do more games. This game  each person has a number line 1-9 then you roll the dice, for example I rolled an 9 then you want to cover you number line with any numbers that add up to nine, or just cover the 9. The goal to fill  your line up first, if you can't cover your line because the numbers are covered your turn is over.

This game is called Fill the Cup, another great Pinterest Idea find. We used jars instead of cups because we have a lot of jars around here. So you roll the dice, then add that many to your jar. We keep track on the white board. Then the other person rolls, and records there number then you roll and add that to your last roll, keeping a record of each turn adding more and more each time until the jar is full whom ever fills it first wins. Now this was a preschool game but I added the keeping track so Ryan could practice his addition.

Well those are all the games I remembered to take pictures of until next time- happy math day!

Preschool Activities

Dallin usually Tags along with what every Ryan is doing if he can. I have been horrible about not being more creative and spending time with him. I in no way feel is it vital to his education or stopping his learning at all, but I do feel that it is very important for me to spend time with him too. These are just a few activities that he likes to do. Here we are using high lighters to trace d and b 

We made a shape Pizza and talked about colors and shapes which he new but I knew he would like the activity anyway.

Letter fishing, always a favorite. I got this pole at target I think almost 8 years ago, it keeps getting broken but I refuse to throw it away we love it. (Unless I can get another one- we had two at first but the other broke behyond repair).

I searched and found a ton of fun things to do with blocks but he does not care this is what he likes best. Quick race builds. Then we talk about who's is the tallest? who's is the widest? who has the most blocks used? etc. lots of fun.

Dallin like to make letters, Ryan does his reading words, the older boys love to practice spelling no matter who you are they love it when the sand try comes out. I am not a huge fan  of the mess but every once in a while I pull it out.

making patters. I will make a bunch of patterns then me will need to match or continue the patter. Fun for him to do right by me when I am doing math with Ryan,

I do not have dates but these were all done sometime from September to October of 2014

France

I might have gone a little over board, with France but then I get on pinterest and see what real over board people do then I feel better about myself. 

One day this week we had Crepes I love then so do the kids so we had to have them.

I have NEVER made croissants before. I really wanted to do it, but you know I do the whole healthy thing, so I found some good you tube videos and gave it a go. Even with whole wheat. The kids LOVED IT!

I figured this is a must because FOOD is ART if France!

For Aaron's project this week he created a menu for a French High end Cafe. I was inspired by his work and decided to make that the theme for the end of the week party. I did create all the signs and the Eiffel Tower I pained after tracing the image projected on the huge screen. (came with the house we are renting) We also decorated it with Monte's Art work, since we studies him this week. I happened to pick a calendar of his works new it would come in handy.

Funny Story: as we were setting things up Aaron said he was the owner, he said I was the Head Chef (so honored) Ethan Sous Chef, and Ryan the waiter. Dallin said "what about me what can I be?" I said "You can be the food critic." He looked at me with a puzzled look on his face and said "A food cricket?" HA HA HA! so I tried to explain and he was happy that meant he got to eat the food, and he got to decide if it was good or not. He took his job seriously, and made sure to eat everything.

For Dinner we started with a light French  Salad with eggs, tomatoes, bacon (I used ham) and blue cheese. with a honey Dijon mustard, with that french whole wheat bread and a cheese platter. With Brie herbed cheese, blue cheese, we also had another smoked French Cheese I can't remember the name but it was heavenly and I have never paid so much money for a little wedge of cheese but it was amazing and I am go glad the commissary carries ethnic stuff like cheese from France! 

Next course was our sea food Bisque with french bread, it was yummy.

last but not least at all was our dessert fresh fruit and then Croissants, I thought they were pretty good for a first time at making them, everyone was super happy with them, they ask for more, but I say nope. To much time, and to much butter. But oh-so good!

The other activity they wanted to do was bike rides, and races this is in honor of the largest bike race in the world that happens in France, and our kids are little obsessed with bike ridding, even little Dallin holds his own really well begged for his training wheels to come off when we moved here and learned in day how to do it. He has crashed but it has not slowed that boy down one bid.

Ethan requested we wear mustaches and when I found these at hobby lobby I knew they would be perfect. Such a wonderful bunch of handsome men.

Such a FUN night! "au revoir"

now more then ever we all want to do to France someday. For movie night the next Night we watched Ratatouille the LOVED IT!!!

Spain

Spain was a lot of fun, we learned about Picasso and he did weird art, (well in his latter years, the more he aged the more wired it seemed to get) so we did weird art with melted crayons kids thought this was a lot of fun. 

They would hold the crayon over the cancel and then it would heat up then they would draw with it. The wax did drip and would put it out so I was always pouring out the melted wax but it was fun.

For our Spanish Fiesta we had a Tomato Fight since they have a Tomato Fight festival every year. I was not going to do this, but when we talked about what we wanted to do, they kept asking, never thinking I would say yes. But I bought cans of whole tomatoes so they could throw them at each other and it was a blast. The first Tomato Fight was in 1945 and was an accident but not it is planed every year and a big deal to read the history click HERE

The Spanish culture when it comes to food is super good taste but not great on the eye, if you want pretty food to to France. The Spanish love seafood  and we had one of the most common meals Pealla There are about a million different ways to make it but usually all have shrimp and muscles. I was nervous I have never had muscles, and I was not sure if the kids would eat it but they said they wanted to try and, and everyone liked them, but was not super excited to eat them again. Texture was just weird. But the rice mixture was super good.

Ethan for his report he did a diagram telling a story (that he wrote) about life in Spain.

Then afterwards we did Bull Fighting. This was another "must" activity planed by the boys.

For dessert we had a sweet Almond cake, called Tarta de Santiago they do not put fruit on it but I had to, because I love it that way.

It was been almost a month and the kids still talk about bull fighting and tomato flights, I think they had fun. Note: we always do the festivals Friday night when dad is home.

Science - Heart, Blood, & Circulatory System

I am very limited in what I can handle in a week and I have learned I can not teach all subjects every day, or even every week, so we rotate. That is part of the amazing thing about an living education is that you remember it well, NO meaning less, needles reviews win win for everyone! 

every two or three weeks we take a week off from our Travels and for science we are studying Anatomy the boys have been asking for some time and I thought it fit well since we are studying people, around the world why not study our bodies in science. I have LOVED it and have learned a TON I never new. This week the Heart! we read books and listened to each others heart beat.

On another day we made a model showing how the heart pumps blood.

On the next day we made play bough heart models and labels the parts and they kids narrated their functions, and what they do.

Ethan at work

Aaron at work

We also learned about the blood and what it does- so fascinating! We watched THIS amazing song and sang it each day. I saw this super cool activity making a model (super big) of the blood. And I wanted to do it, but what I thought was red water beads ended up being pink, (oops) and you were suppose to use white ping pong balls but I forgot and was not making a trip to the store just for that so I used clear water beads, then purple for the hormones (not accurate size) but I wanted them to remember that the blood is a message delivery service too! water for the platelets and they remembered that the blood also takes out the garbage too.

We did this on Friday, and they narrated everything they learned about heart and blood as they played with this. Loved it.

this was one of my favorite science weeks so far, I learned a ton!