Skip counting by 2's

We kicked off the school year with skip counting by 2's. Here is a little activity to help the kids to get familiar with the new way of counting.

Use permanent marker to write the numbers on the bottom of an egg carton. The little kids are learning letter M this week so we used M&Ms for this activity, but you can use rocks, marbles or any other similar object you have around your house.

Have the kids place two objects in each spot and have them skip count while doing it.

When they finished, we emptied the egg carton and did it again. This time, when they filled the spot, they started skip counting from the beginning only to the last filled spot. And when they filled the next spot, they started counting again.

 At the end they all got a little M&M treat!

Fun video for all homeschoolers

We are slowly returning back to our routine and with that our posts are coming back as well. We have been working on few of them in the past couple of days and will schedule their publishing very soon. In a mean time, we thank you for your patience and here is a fun video to amuse you during your wait.

Painting with ice cubes

What a fun activity for a hot day! We used it as an art project for "The Letter I" but this is still something the kids like to come back to and I have to reload my ice cube trays with more paint very often.

You will need:

ice cube tray

washable paint

water

card stock paper

You have to prepare the trays night before. Pick colors and dilute them with water. Pour them into the tray and place into a freezer for overnight.

 

Take them out immediately before kids are ready to use them because they melt fairly quickly in this weather.  Squeeze the paint out of the tray and have kids paint away.

 

Because it is hot right now, kids appreciate the cold ice in their hands and don't complain!

 

Mix colors, smudge them, share them - have fun!

 

 These are the results! Unplanned effect? The table surface pattern showed up on our pictures! It looked really cool!

Jelly Bean math

Including some sweet props into our daily learning always motivates the kids. Letter J is for jelly beans and so they found their way into our math today. 

We were focusing on learning how to count till five and we included some color sorting in this activity as well.
You can download free copy here.

It is also very good for the kids to pick up small objects such as jelly beans in order to exercise their fine motor skills!

Another free download you can get here is a "J is for Jelly Bean" counting puzzle. Simply print it out, cut up the paper on the marked lines, and if you wish you can laminate it. Printing it on card stock paper also works great.

Mix the strips up and have the kids put them in order creating a picture. The kids should say the numbers out loud. 

Jump the rope for letter J

We jump for letter J! During the week of letter J, we took the kids outside and had them jump over the jump rope.

To make it more interesting, you can say different words one after another and have them jump every time you say a word that starts with the letter J. Another idea is to say different letters and have the kids jump every time you say the letter J.

Painting a Jar

For our art activity for letter J, we painted some jars that we decided to use as candle holders and decorate our porch with it.

You will need:

glass jars

acrylic paint

paint brushes

newspaper

This art activity is fairly simple, just have the kids pick out 3 colors tops (more colors will cause the paint mix into brown) and place them on a palette.

Then have the kids paint the jar they picked. You might want to place newspaper underneath the jar in order to keep the surface from getting dirty.

We got some cute jars that decorate my porch table now. I am using them as candle holders!

Summer Reading Program

Does anyone have the best library in the world? We sure think our library is the best and we love our helpful librarians for being so friendly and helpful to us and our kids! Every summer they put together a Summer Reading Program, to encourage the youth to keep up the reading and maybe even sharpen up their reading skills over their summer break.

Check your local library if they offer the same program.  

 

As a kick off to the program, the librarians threw us all an awesome party, where we got delicious ice cream...

 

... the kids got to participate in some crafts, such as wet chalk and crayon drawing on a black paper...

...or recreating "The Starry Night" by Van Gogh using paint. 

We also got to sign up for the program right on spot, which was very helpful too. Way to start the summer break!!! Happy reading!