Body Boggle Spelling

This is such a fun way to practice spelling. We used a Body Boggle game mat, which has all of the letters of the alphabet. For 4 and 5 letter words, the child would place hands and feet, and even a head on the correct letters in order, to spell the word. An alternative way to play or for longer words, have them jump from one letter to the next as they spell the word.


This game is available on eBay, or you could make your own with a shower curtain liner or large piece of vinyl.

Get Outside

 Get outside and let your children enjoy nature while they do their schoolwork. It's amazing what you can do when you're outside. Need to practice handwriting? Grab a stick and practice your letters in the sand or dirt. In the mood for art? Grab a paper and pencil, find a comfortable place to sit and draw what you see around you. Time to write? Nature is the perfect setting for getting those thoughts down on paper or describing the things you see or hear around you. 

 The artist at work.

 The writer in her realm.

These first three pictures show our older daughters when they were younger. The next pictures were taken of our younger daughters more recently.

Who says the you can only do your work on the computer at home? Take it outside and enjoy a change of scenery.

 Ever tried doing math on a swing? It's great fun.

 A picnic table or a camp chair provide 

interesting places to do schoolwork. 

So get outside and enjoy learning in the fresh air.

Painted Fraction Cookies

This is a fun way activity to do when learning about fractions. 

You will need:

• Sugar cookie dough that can be rolled into shapes. 
• Several colors of cookie paint (see recipe below) 
• Clean paint brushes to dip in the cookie paint (one brush for each color)

What you do:

1. Roll out the cookie dough into simple shapes like circles, hearts, and rectangles (some long and some short).
2. Before baking, use a pizza cutter or knife to press lines on the top of the unbaked cookie to divide it into sections to represent fractions (halves, thirds, fourths, fifths, and sixths). Then let the children paint the sections of the cookies to represent fractions. For example, if the fraction they are painting is 2/3, then two of the thirds of that cookie should be painted the same color.
3. If desired, sprinkle a little sugar (or add a little sugar to the paint first)

Cookie Paint Recipes

Egg-Yolk Paint

 • 1 egg yolk
 • 1/4 tsp water
 • food coloring

 • a little sugar, if desired

Egg-white Paint

Separate an egg and add lots of food coloring to egg white and stir with a fork until all the color is mixed in. Add a little sugar, if desired. This will be a more transparent paint than the egg yolk paint. 

Recommended song: 

I'm Just a Fraction by Sherri Boekweg


I'm Just a Fraction

Jello Geography

 This is a very fun and tasty way to learn geography. This is what we did. First we made some blue Jello and let it set in a clear glass 9x13 baking dish. Then we printed off an outline map of the United States. When the Jello was set, we taped the map face up onto the bottom of the dish so we could see it through the Jello. Then we used that as a guide to draw the outline of the map on the Jello with a cake decorating writing gel in a tube. Then we carefully filled in the outline with vanilla pudding. Then we used blue decorating gel to draw the major rivers and another color to label the oceans. We used something like brown sprinkles  for the mountains.

The finished product. 

Do you recognize the landforms?

Finger Writing Fun

One of the funnest ways we have practiced writing the letters is using fingers in flour, cornstarch, or pudding. All you need is a plate, cookie sheet or tray. Then add a little flour or cornstarch and let the fingers do the writing. The letters showed up really well when we used a colored plate. 


This is a fun activity for beginning writers, but it is also a fun way to practice cursive as they get a little older. It will be so much fun they will probably want to make other designs as well. 

Can you find the cursive letter Z
and the name "Lisa?"

We used pudding in this picture, and one daughter practiced cursive letters while the other practiced printed letters and even wrote her name. Anticipate a little mess as well as tasting if you use pudding. 

As you can see this is definitely a "hands-on" or "hands-in" activity.

Chocolate Chip Decimal Multiplication

This is a fun and edible way to practice multiplying decimals. I made a packet for each child containing chocolate chips, multiplication cards, and a pencil. You also need five or six 0-9 dice. I printed out the instructions so it could be a learning station.

Instructions
Take 3 chocolate chips to use for decimals. Shake the dice and fill in the squares in the top two lines. Place a chocolate chip as a decimal point in each number. The chocolate chips do not need to be lined up. Multiply the numbers and write the answer at the bottom. Count up the total number of digits after each chocolate chip and add them together. Then write that number at the top. Then use that number to determine where to place a chocolate chip in the answer. It should be the same as the number you wrote at the top. If the answer is correct, you may eat the chocolate chip.

Geography Race -- State Abbreviations and Capitals

This is a very active way to learn and review state abbreviations and capitals. First I printed up cards with the state capital on one side and the 2-letter abbreviation on the other side. Then we scattered the cards around the frontroom floor so the abbreviations were facing up. Then the girls would stand by the door, listen for the name of the state, then race to find the card. They had a blast, and it was a lot more fun than simply filling out a worksheet.


 

To practice the capitals, we did the same thing, but turned the cards over so the name of the capital was face up. Then we played the game the same way racing for the capitals.

Floor Geometry -- Yarn shapes, Length, Width and Side

This activity was an introduction to finding the area of rectangles, triangles, and squares. First, we had fun creating large shapes with yarn on the floor. Then we labeled the sides, width, and length of each shape. The label cards were colored differently. For example, the length cards were orange, the width cards were blue, and the side cards were red, for the square, and yellow, for the triangle. Then we traded the word cards for cards with the beginning letter of the word so the girls would get familiar with the letters used in the formulas for finding the area.

M & M Decimal Multiplication

We had fun multiplying decimals by using M&Ms as the decimal points. First, I gave each girl 3 M&Ms. They placed the M&Ms in the spot where the decimal goes in each of the decimals they were multiplying. Then, after they completed the multiplication, they had to place the third M&M in the correct place in the answer.

We played a dice game with decimals and M&Ms. The girls started with a blank M&M Decimal Multiplication worksheet (below), three M&Ms, and three dice. Here's what they did. They rolled the three dice and wrote the numbers down in the first row in any order they chose. Then they did the same for the second row. Then they placed an M&M in any position in the numbers in each row to create a decimal point. Then they completed the multiplication, writing the answers in the squares below. When they got the final answer, they counted up the decimal places of the two decimals they multiplied, and they counted over that many places in the answer and placed their third M&M in that spot to represent the decimal in the answer. If the answer was correct, they got to eat the M&M in the answer.Then they got another M&M so they started with three again, and they did it three more times, until the worksheet was completed.

Store Discount Math

Playing store is a fun way to review and practice figuring out discounts and sales tax.   First they set up the store by finding a few items to sell, 5 dice numbered 1-9 (1 white one and 4 colored ones), and a small dry-erase marker board with markers. They also decided to swipe pretend credit cards, rather than play money. The bench became the cash register. Here's what we did. The girls took turns being the cashier or shopper. The shopper found an item she wanted to buy and brought it to the cash register. Then she rolled the five dice to find the price of the item. She arranged the 4 colored dice to create a 4-digit money amount and told that amount to the cashier who wrote the four  digits on the marker board with the decimal after the 1st two numbers. Then the shopper told her the number on the white dice showed the percent discount by adding a zero on the end. So if she rolled a 4 the discount would be 40%. Then the cashier had to do the math by figuring out the discount. She did this by figuring out what was left after the discount to make 100%. Then they multiplied the money amount by that percent to get the discounted price. So if the discount was 40%, she multiplied the price by 60%, since 40% + 60% =100%. 

After doing the discount a few times, we changed the game so the white dice would show the sales tax percent instead of the discount. So instead of adding a zero, it would be whatever number was on the dice. So if they rolled a 6, then the sales tax would be 6%. The cashier would then write it as the decimal .06 and multiply that by the price to figure out what the sales tax would be. However, to find the full price including the decimal (percent increase), they simply added a 1 to the front of the decimal (1.06) and multiplied that by the price to show the price of the item.