Search Results for: sight word

Earth Day Math Activities – Recycling Bin Counting with Printables

April 17, 2017 By Deirdre

$Earth Day Math Activities - Recycling Bin Counting with Printables$

You probably have a collection of small lids, caps, bread tags, and other small treasures that could have been put in your recycling bin, but kept them to use later. Here are some Earth Day math activities that give you the opportunity to use them. Each of them uses a set of Recycling Bin Counting Number Printables and your collection of treasures.

$Earth Day Math Activities - Recycling Bin Counting with Printables- Exploring Four$

If your children are not familiar with Earth Day or recycling, you will want to read them the book The EARTH Book or one of the other books listed at the end of this post. They will give them some background on both topics.

Earth Day Math Activities

$Earth Day Math Activities - Recycling Bin Counting with Printables- Seven Mat and Counting Supplies$

Getting Ready

Before you start the Earth Day math activities you will need to print out the Recycling Bin Counting Number Printables and search for small items that your children can use to count with. If you have small lids, corks, bread tags or other small treasure, they would be great to use. If you don’t small pom-poms, buttons or bead would be fine to use.

Doing the Earth Day Math Activities

$Earth Day Math Activities - Recycling Bin Counting with Printables - Exploring Seven$

Number Correspondence

Young children will need to start with one on one number correspondence. They will simply place the number of objects needed to match the number of each mat. You may want to put out just a few numbers at a time.

Number Order

You can put out all the mats in numerical order. Your children can move down the number line and add the right number of objects to each mat.

Find the Number

You can place the numbers around a room. Then you or your children can select a number to find. When they have found the number, they can place the correct number objects on it.

Earth Day Themed Books

Happy Earth Day!

This Class Can Save the Planet

The Adventures of a Plastic Bottle

Earth Day Themed Toys and Activities

Recycling Truck

Mr. Potato Head Goes Green

Respect the Earth Puzzle

This post the Virtual Book Club’s celebration of the Earth. Here are some more Earth activities for kids:

Preschool Science Growing Grass

Earth Themed Letter Learning Bin

35 Ways to Be an Eco-Friendly Family

Take the Eco-Friendly Family Pledge

Earth Day Sight Word Color by Code

Recycled K-Cup Earth Craft

$Earth Day Math Activities -Recycling Bin Counting with Printables : Kids will love exploring numbers with small counters.$

Let’s Build Snowflake Designs with Printables

January 2, 2017 By Deirdre

The links below are affiliate links.

I remember my mom reading my sister’s and I the book The Snowy Day. The boy in the book seemed to enjoy doing the same things we did in the snow. If you haven’t read them the book, you will want to look for it at the library. After reading the book to or with them, I thought your children might want to explore snowflake designs.

Did you know that snowflakes have six points and/or six sides like a hexagon? Did you know that snowflake designs are symmetrical? As your children explore building snowflake designs of their own, you will may want to share these fun facts with them. (My son seemed to soak up words like hexagon and symmetry when he was little.)

Snowflake Designs

I have created three different outlines of snowflake designs and placed them in a PDF for you to use with your children. They can place a variety of objects on top of the designs to create fun snowflake designs or creations.

Snowflake Design One

Snowflake Design Two

Snowflake Design Three

Let me show you some of the snowflakes designs that we created with objects we found around our house.

Let's Build Snowflake Designs with Printables - It is fun to build snowflakes with items you probably have at home like lids and beads.

My son designed a snowflake with lids and beads.

Let's Build Snowflake Designs with Printables - It is fun to build snowflakes with items you probably have at home like sticks, beads and erasers.

This snowflake was built with erasers, sticks and beads.

Building Material List

Sticks (Popsicle sticks or sticks from a branch)
Bread tags
Erasers
Beads
Lids
Cotton Swabs
Buttons

If you like my activities based on The Snowy Day, I think you will like these activities based on the book too.

SNOW THEMED LITERACY ACTIVITIES

Snowflake Swat Letter Learning Game from Preschool Powol Packets
Snowball Sight Words on a Sticky Table from Views From a Step Stool
Snowy Day Inspired Alphabet Writing Tray from School Time Snippets
Icicle Prewriting Activity from Mama Smiles

SNOW THEMED SCIENCE ACTIVITIES

Easy Colorful Paper Towel Snowflakes from Toddler Approved
Why We Salt Roads Science Investigation from Rainy Day Mum
Melting Snowball Estimations from My Storytime Corner

SENSORY SNOW ACTIVITIES

Snow Tea Party from Teach Beside Me
Pre-Writing Sensory Tray from Growing Book by Book
Puffy Paint Snowman from Messy Little Monster
Indoor Snow Sensory Play from Mama Smiles

ACTIVE SNOW ACTIVITIES

Outdoor Snow Play Ideas for Kids from Mama Smiles

Christmas Snacks – Decorated Cheese Trees

December 2, 2016 By Deirdre

We were asked to bring an appetizer or Christmas snack to JDaniel’s December den meeting. While I could have just brought chips and dip, I thought it would be more fun to make decorated cheese trees instead.

If you are looking for healthy Christmas snacks to take to an event or serve at home, these cheese trees would be great to make.

Christmas Snacks Recipe

Ingredients

3 wheels of soft cheese wedges
Celery
Carrots

Creating These Christmas Snacks

You will start by taking the cheese wedges out of their coverings. Then set them on a plastic dish or tray.

Next, you will cut the celery into small thin matchstick size pieces. You will need to cute enough celery pieces to cover the top of the each of the cheese wedges.

Then you will cut small trunks out of the carrots. If you use baby carrots to create your trunks, you can cut them in half vertically. Next, you will cut the halves in half horizontally.

Once you have the carrots and celery ready, you can assemble your Christmas snack. You will simply place a few of the celery pieces horizontally on top of the cheese wedge. Then place a trunk at the bottom of each of the trees.

Finally, you will chill the wedges a bit before arranging them on a decorative holiday tray. Chilling the wedges will make them less sticky and easier to move.

If you like these Christmas snacks, here are some other snack ideas you will want to make with and for your kids.

Applesauce Toppings Bar
Easy Sight Word Snacks
4th of July Sundae

You will also find a number of wonderful Christmas snacks and other snack ideas on my Food Creations board on Pinterest. Please take a few minutes to check them out. Feel free to pin your favorite snack ideas to try later.

LEGO Building- Exploring Inertia with a Moving Platform

June 3, 2016 By Deirdre

This challenge has two distinct tasks. The first is to use your LEGO building skills to build a simple platform on wheels. We are calling this task “Building a Moving Platform”. The second task is to use the cart and a few household items to explore just how inertia works.

Let me start by explaining inertia:

Inertia -a property of matter by which something that is not moving remains still and something that is moving goes at the same speed and in the same direction until another thing or force affects it. (This definition comes from Merriam-Webster.)

LEGO Building Challenge

The challenge is to build a moving platform that is large enough to hold a small plastic storage container.

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Supplies

Four sets of LEGO wheels
2×4 bricks both thick and thin to mount the wheels on
10×10 LEGO building plate
40-50 LEGO bricks (1×2, 1×3, 1×4, or 1×8)

Directions

Start by building a wall around the perimeter of the base plate. You can make it taller than the three brick height we did if you want to.

Place the wheels underneath the base plate near each of the base plate’s corners mounted on 2×4 bricks.

Exploring Inertia

Supplies

Moving platform from the LEGO building challenge
Marbles
Plastic storage container

Directions

Place the storage container inside the wall on your moving platform from the LEGO challenge.
Place the marbles inside the plastic storage container. Try to spread them apart.
Push the moving platform gently and notice what happens.
Stop the moving platform by pulling it towards you and take a moment to think about what happened.

What did you see?

Did the marbles stay in place until the back of the container tapped them?

Did the marbles keep moving when the moving platform stopped?

If you like this LEGO building and science experiment, here are some more activities you might like:

Graphing Ocean Animals with LEGO

Making LEGO Man Sink and Float

Awesome LEGO Brick Ice Excavation

Ocean Life Building Directions and Ocean Mat

Magnetic LEGO Travel Tray with Challenge Cards

LEGO Sight Word Sensory Bottle

Build LEGO Mini Star Wars Ships

Mini Figure Coloring Pages

Valentine Ideas – Graphing with Candy Hearts and LEGO

LEGO Owl Building Directions

LEGO Count and Move ( Free Printable)

100 Fun and Easy Learning Games for Kids

May 30, 2016 By Deirdre

I try to activities I plan for my son to do that tie into things he is interested in. Right now he is into LEGO! (They are currently LEGO all over our living room floor. ) When I came across an amazing sight word sensory bottle activity in a terrific book called 100 Fun & Easy Learning Games for Kids: Teach Reading, Writing, Math and More With Fun Activities, I decided I needed to make a LEGO sight word sensory bottle. It would give JDaniel the opportunity to work on breaking down and sounding out high interest words. A number of them have the r sound we are working on.

You are going to love Kim and Amanda of The Educator’s Spin on It’s terrific book called 100 Fun & Easy Learning Games for Kids: Teach Reading, Writing, Math and More With Fun Activities. The sight word sensory bottle activity I adapted is totally based on theirs. We will be doing a number of their activities this summer. This book shares activities that young children can do along with rising third graders like JDaniel. I just love that we can used them review and learn new concepts this summer in fun ways.

Here are the Directions for the Sight Word Sensory Bottle:

Materials

Empty, clean 2-liter soda bottle
Tiny filler items such as rice, beads, sequins or bells
Small foam rectangles
Black permanent marker
One-minute sand timer

Directions to Make

Fill the bottle halfway with tiny fillers of your choosing.

Write five chosen sight words on the foam rectangles. Sample sight words: I, the, and, see, it.

Add the words to the bottle.

Close the lid tightly and shake until the words and fillers mix.

Directions to Play

Set the timer for 1 minute.

Roll the bottle and read.

See if you can find all five words before the time ends.

You can find more information about 100 Fun & Easy Learning games over at The Educators’s Spin On It.

LEGO Sight Word Sensory Bottle

Supplies

Plastic Bottle
LEGO
LEGO Sight Words* (I typed them into a table on the computer and printed them out.)

Sight Words We Used:

bricks, hub, axle, studs, tiles, diorama, vignette, inventory, tube, slope, curve

*I found these words on several online LEGO glossaries and dictionaries.

Directions for Creation and Play

We followed the creation directions from the book. We also followed their directions for how to play the game.

You are going to love seeking and finding fantastic activities for your kids in 100 Fun & Easy Learning Games for Kids: Teach Reading, Writing, Math and More With Fun Activities by Kim Vij and Amanda Boyarshinov.

You find more LEGO learning activities on right here on JDaniel4’s Mom and on my LEGO Learning Activities board on Pinterest.

Disclaimer: This activity has been shared with permission from the publisher of the book 100 FUN & EASY LEARNING GAMES FOR KIDS. I received a free copy of the book from the publisher so we could share it with you! All opinions are mine!

Open Ended Printable Math Worksheets

May 23, 2016 By Deirdre

$Open Ended Printable Math Worksheets$

This is the first in a series of printable math worksheets I will be sharing with you this summer. It is an open ended game board with jellyfish and coral graphics. We have been using it to work on addition facts, but it could be used for a number of math games to review number and facts. You will notice that I didn’t put directions for how to use the game board on the printable. I wanted it to be open ended. You can then use it to work on the skills your kids need to work on.

Below you will find a list of several of the ways that I think this first in the series of printable math worksheets can be used. After looking the list over I bet you will be able to come up with more fun ways to use it. You may even decide you want to use it to review reading skills or sight words.

Ways to Use Open Ended Printable Math Worksheets

Most of these game ideas using the jellyfish game board are focused on skills children in the primary grades are working on. You could totally use the game board with older children too.

Say the Number and Move It

Your children can use a die with a number on it or dots. Children will roll a single die and then say the number that is displays or represents. If they say the correct number, they can move that number of spaces.

Add the Number

Your children will roll two or three dice with dots on them. They will then add up the number in their heads or touch and count each of the dots of the dice. They can then move that number of spaces on the game board.

Adding and Beyond

Children will roll two dice. They will add the numbers on the two dice to find the sum. Then they will tell the next four numbers after that number.

Example:

Child rolls a 3 and 4.

They say it equals 7.

Then they count on 8,9, 10,11.

Finally they move the sum of the two dice on the game board.

$Open Ended Printable Math Worksheets$

Say a Number Then Roll and Subtract

One player calls out a number from 0-20 and then rolls a single die. They will need to state the subtraction fact that they have created.

Example:

Child says the number 11.

They roll a six.

Child answers with the number 5.

They can then move that number of spaces on the game board.

Roll and Multiply

Children will roll two die. They will multiply the numbers that appear on the die. Then they will move that number of spaces on the game board.

More Printable Math Worksheets

Counting Bee Free Math Printable for Kids

Let’s Create a LEGO Floor Graph

Roll and Cover Ladybug Addition Mats

Cat in the Hat Math Activity Mats

Place Value Pasta Printables

$Open Ended Printable Math Worksheets$

Opened ended printable math worksheets can be used for so many different games. I hope your children will enjoy the games I have shared with you above.

Fire Truck Games and Activities for Kids

February 4, 2016 By Deirdre

We have played and created fire truck games and activities for a long time at my house. I think it all started when we went to a story time at the library that had a fire safety theme. A fire truck was invited to come to the library and JDaniel loved climbing all over it. Since that library visit, we have checked out and explored books about fire trucks a lot. We have created crafts with fire trucks. We have played fire truck games using homemade math worksheets and one the floor.

Let me share with your come of our favorite fire truck games and activities! These are just some of what we have done. Please take a moment to search through the blog to find several more fire truck games, a snack, and a few more crafts.

Here my favorite fire truck games and activities:

Fire Truck Crafts

Meeow and the Big Box that the librarian shared so much I later shared it with JDaniel’s preschool class. Since that library visit, we have checked out and explored books about fire trucks a lot.

After reading through a book on painting techniques for kids, we made this fire truck with smeared flames behind it. We made the smears with a simple household item we already had in our kitchen.

Fire Truck Games

JDaniel used to suffer each spring and fall with terrible allergies. We had to spend a lot of time inside. This masking tape ladder is just one of several floor activities we did while avoiding pollen. JDaniel could move up the ladder as he read a sight word or counted on.

JDaniel has such a great time creating a snowstorm in a bag! I made him a fire truck bag with colored tissue in a zipper bag. The harder he blew in the bag the more the tissue flew. This fire truck game was great ways to work on breathing control.

While we were exploring the number one to twenty, I made this fire truck game for JDaniel. He loves rolling dice. I selected dice that had dots on them. He could count the dots and then cover the number with a button.

This is one of our newest fire truck games. It wasn’t created for JDaniel. The fire truck counting game is an activity I made for Pre-K Pages community helper series.

About the same time I made the fire truck game for Pre-K Pages I created this counting activity. While it is not a game per se, it came to be used to play math counting games.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, there are even more fire truck games and activities you can seek out on JDaniel4’s Mom. Here is one more to wet your appetite. I think you will love this place value fire truck game.

35 Totally Awesome Kids Activities with Pumpkins

September 1, 2015 By Deirdre

Pumpkins are one of my favorite fall themes. I don’t think you have to wait until Halloween to work on kids activities with pumpkins. They can be explored September through November. There are so many ways that children can learn and create with pumpkins.

I have found totally awesome pumpkin themed activities you will love on wonderful blogs. Please take a moment when you visit each blog. You will find that they are filled with great projects and ideas.

At the end of this post you will find our activities. JDaniel and I have done a number of activities that feature pumpkins. We truly enjoyed each of them. I know you will too.

Kids Activities with Pumpkins

Science

Pumpkin- Cano from Little Bins for Little Hands

Pumpkin Investigations from Inspired By Family

Halloween Science- Pumpkin Rockets from Preschool Powol Packets

Runaway Pumpkin Halloween Experiment from All Done Monkey

Magic Jack O’Latern from I Can Teach My Child

Reading

Free Pumpkin Pre-K Pack from This Reading Mama

Sight Word Pumpkin Patch from Coffee Cups and Crayons

Pumpkin Literacy Activities from The Educator’s Spin on Things

Crafts

Easy Hand Print Sponge Pumpkin Craft from ABC Creative Learning

Friendly Pumpkin Decorating from Craftulate

Halloween Window Gel Clings from Science Kiddo

Halloween Pumpkin Craft from Busy Kids Happy Mom

Ninja Pumpkins from Frugal Fun 4 Boys

Pumpkin Printing with Pool Noodles from Toddler Approved

Life Cycle Pumpkin Craft from Carrots are Orange

Math

Pumpkin Counting Sand from 3 Dinosaurs

Pumpkin Math- Geo- Pumpkin from Fun-A- Day

Creating a Pumpkin on a Geoboard from Still Playing School

Seed Counting from Mama.Papa.Bubba

Paperclip Counting Vines from Playdough to Plato

Just Plain Fun

Pumpkin Washing Sensory Bin from Where Imagination Grows

Printable Halloween Games from Laly Mom

Busy Bag Mix and Match Pumpkin Faces from Mama Miss

Kids Activities with Pumpkins from JDaniel4’s Mom
$35 Totally Awesome Kids Activities with Pumpkins$

Pumpkin Box Bowling

Pumpkins are Here!- Prepositional Phrases Activity

Pumpkin Faces Created and Carved

Mouse House Pumpkin Activities

Measuring in Farm Units

Pumpkin Teeth Math Printable

Button Pumpkin Face

Cupcake Liner Pumpkin Craft

Planting Pumpkin Seeds in a Pumpkin

If you try any of these pumpkin activities, please let me know in a comment below.

Awesome Language Arts Worksheets

August 10, 2015 By Deirdre

Over the last few years I have created a number for language arts worksheets and printables for my son to work on. They have been gathered together in the post so that you can used them with your children. I hope you have as much fun with them as we have.

Language Arts Worksheets

Awesome Language Arts Worksheets and Learning Printables

Build The Alphabet with LEGO Light Sabers

These LEGO themed light sabers can be used to build the letters of the alphabet. The free printable has light sabers for various sizes that can be used for letter building.

Awesome Language Arts Worksheets and Learning Printables

Sight Word Scarecrow Game

A printable scarecrow themed game board can be used to work on sight words or really any skills that your children to need focus on.

How-to-Use-LEGO-and-Reading-Worksheets-To-Explore-Colors

Fill in the Color Word Sentences for LEGO

I composed to language art worksheets that have blanks where color words should be. Your children can use various colored LEGO to fill in the blanks. These are a little like Mad Libs!

Awesome Language Arts Worksheets and Learning Printables

This Mouse Needs a House Reading Comprehension Sheets

I was given the opportunity to review the wonderful children’s book This Mouse Needs a House. I created to language arts worksheets that give children the opportunity work on reading comprehension skills. Children can read the book on their own with as a class and then share what they remember from the book.

Awesome Language Arts Worksheets and Learning Printables

Spelling Trace and Write

This spelling practice printable was placed in a picture frame. My son was able to write each spelling word I called out to him on the frame’s glass. When we were done, it was super easy to clean off the glass.

Awesome Language Arts Worksheets and Learning Printables

Summer Writing Journal Prompts

Some children have trouble knowing what to write in their journals. They need something to inspire them. I made this list of summer writing prompts for my son. He is just the kind of child the needs a little inspiration before writing.

Awesome Language Arts Worksheets and Learning Printables

Printable Sight Word Spiders for Floor Webs

This set of printable spiders has a blank area for you or your children to write in sight words they need to work on. We explored the sight word spiders on a tape web in our garage.

Awesome Language Arts Worksheets and Learning Printables

Chicken Themed Letter Recognition

This is one of those language arts worksheets that you complete by rolling dice. I made lowercase letter dice for my son to roll. My son had to color in the uppercase letter that matched the letter he rolled.

The link below is an affiliate link.

All you need to make your own wooden letter dice are small wood cubes and colored dot stickers.

Awesome Language Arts Worksheets and Learning Printables

Writing Sight Words on a Rainbow Printable

The goal of this worksheet is to write each of the sight words on the cloud on a one of the band of the rainbow. They can write each word as many times as they can on its band of the rainbow.

We had fun exploring, reviewing and learning using each of these language arts worksheets. I hope you will too. Please let me know which ones you decide to try with your children in a comment below or on my Facebook page.

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Washi, Painter’s and Duct Tape Crafts and Activities

July 1, 2015 By Deirdre

There are so many ways to use tape to create boredom busters with and for your kids. There are so many kinds of tape that can be used to create them. Today I am going to washi, painter’s and duct tape crafts and activities that were created by team of bloggers that hosted the Craft Closet Boredom Busters event last week. Many of these activities are from the bloggers archives. I loved searching their sites to find them. I think you are going t love them