The boys and I have been reading several titles in the Hello Math Reader series. This somewhat older series combines learning to read and math stories, and each book has several pages of suggested follow-up activities to try. As with any series, some titles and activities have interested us more than others. Today’s activities went [...]
The last couple days have been a bit of a write-off, as we got the last of the renos done to put the basement back together after the sewage back-up last September. Bang! Pound! Bang! as the new underlay and carpet were installed. We LOVE the new carpet—its much softer on the feet than the [...]
I tried a couple activities with Gareth this morning from Peggy Kaye’s classic Games for Reading (Canada) (US). I love her books, as they are full of simple learning games and activities for the pre-K to grade 3 crowd, though I have successfully adapted many of her games for older kids when I tutored junior [...]
Yesterday I wrote about some introductory math activities we did with a deck of playing cards and the book Dealing With Addition (Canada) (US) by Lynette Long. After getting comfortable with adding playing cards in different combinations, Daegan and I tried a couple rounds of the game she includes in the back of the book. It’s [...]
This morning the boys and I did some activities and played a fun new math game a found in the book Dealing With Addition (Canada) (US) by Lynette Long. The book begins with a general introduction to playing cards, which I quickly went through with the boys, laying out the same cards from a deck I [...]
I mentioned that last week we got some new board games, like Sum Swamp. The other day, the boys had a chance to try the Animalogic (US) game. It’s a series of logic puzzles, in which you need to get the animals across the river, one at a time (via the teeny bridge): Any animal not [...]
This afternoon the boys and I tried a new game that had just arrived in the post: Sum Swamp: Addition and Subtraction Game. (US) In this game, players move their animal piece (yellow frog, blue turtle, green snake, or red snail) through a swamp by rolling three dice: two number dice (1-6), and an operations die [...]
Today the boys pulled out the Mighty Mind (US) visual puzzles, similar to tangrams and getting progressively harder as you move through the numbered cards. The cards start out ridiculously easy (i.e., can you make two semi-circles form a circle?), but get moderately challenging fairly quickly. The first 18 (of 30) cards give you a [...]
Another of my homeschool goals for the year is to incorporate more games. I loved playing games as a kid, and am convinced that my strong skills in math, logic and reasoning come in large part from the countless hours of cribbage, canasta, Yahtzee and other games I played with friends and family. We want [...]
On Friday I set up another phonics game for Gareth to try, using cards I made from this site. It was a perfect fit for the his reading level right now, and he seemed to enjoy himself. We played it as a simple matching game, like concentration / memory, though the cards could be used [...]