E is for...Egg Carton Math Mat

Cristi from Through the Calm and Through the Storm and Meg from Adventures with Jude are hosting this great weekly party called Blogging Through the Alphabet. All are welcome to join in, just make sure to keep your posts family-friendly. I am determined to stay faithful this time around. I might not always post on the same day of the week, but I have every intention to post something each week.

Here is how I decided my "theme" for this round of Blogging Through the Alphabet. As I was going through old blog posts recently, I noticed I have some neat ideas for activities and crafts that I did with in the past. Unfortunately, I always included them in my weekly wrap up posts or more recently in Poppins Book Nook posts, so they sort of got buried. I can't really share them as individual activities or create pinnable images to promote them and share my ideas, which is why I started this blog in the first place (to share my ideas with others who work with children). So, I am going to make new posts for these ideas.

I have found there is a huge benefit in this strategy. I am remembering  ideas that I had forgotten, which means I can now do these activities with the younger children. I will be sharing the old pictures and possibly sharing new pictures of the younger children participating. In fact, this is the second week where I wasn't sure what I was going to post about, and through searching my blog I found activities I had completely forgotten about.

Five summers ago I focused on one number a week with Tabitha and Amelia. We made a number book and did number crafts. I also came up with a fun way to display our numbers. Then I used that activity to further the girls' math knowledge during the following school year. 

E is for . . . Egg Carton Math Mat

I printed out a picture of an egg carton and wrote "How many eggs?" on the bottom. Then I added Velcro strips to each cup, plus one piece to the middle of the lid. I also cut out little oval "eggs" and put the other side of the Velcro on the back of them. 

Originally this egg carton paper was attached to our poster. I had made paper strips which had the number written out plus the numeral. The girls were to a place the number strip to the carton and then attach the correct number of eggs. As we made our way through the summer, more and more eggs filled our egg carton.

As I mentioned, during the next school year I then thought this would be a fun way to work on math skills. Specifically, the concept of zero. First I asked the girls if the egg carton was full or empty. When they told me it was full I took one egg away at a time, each time asking if it was now empty. Finally, it was empty and they learned that there were zero eggs in the egg carton.

Then we worked on some subtraction.  I made up some equation cards from 1-12, plus some number cards for the same amounts. 

These equation cards looked like this:

The Numeral - Empty Box with Question Mark = 0

I put the card above the egg carton and the girls had to put the correct number of eggs in the carton.

Then I asked them how many eggs they would have to take away to make it empty again, to equal zero. They used the number cards. These cards were just square pieces of paper that fit over the square on the equation card.

They found the right number, and took away the eggs. Then they put the numeral card in the equation.

Both Tabitha and Amelia enjoyed this hands-on math activity. They were only 3 and 2 years old at the time.

This can also be used for general addition and subtraction practice for numbers up to 12.

D is for...Donut Dots Math Game

I began this Blogging Through the Alphabet journey a couple of weeks ago, and I am determined to stay faithful this time around. I might not always post on the same day of the week, but I have every plan to post something each week. And I can't believe I almost missed the letter D. I completely forgot to get this posted before heading out for my son's wedding this weekend. Phew, I got it up though.

Cristi from Through the Calm and Through the Storm and Meg from Adventures with Jude are hosting this weekly party. All are welcome to join in. You don't have to be a Schoolhouse Review Crew blogger or a homeschooler, but you do have to keep your posts family-friendly.

Here is how I decided my "theme" for this round of Blogging Through the Alphabet. As I was going through old blog posts recently, I noticed I have some neat ideas for activities and crafts that I did with in the past. Unfortunately, I always included them in my weekly wrap up posts or more recently in Poppins Book Nook posts, so they sort of got buried. I can't really share them as individual activities or create pinnable images to promote them and share my ideas, which is why I started this blog in the first place (to share my ideas with others who work with children). So, I am going to make new posts for these ideas.

One of the benefits in doing this is, I am remembering these ideas that I had forgotten, which means I can now do these activities with the younger children. I will be sharing the old pictures and possibly sharing new pictures of the younger children participating.

Several years ago I decided to make a math game out of donuts. We were doing Letter of the Week and had made donuts to go with D. They were really yummy too. Then we made these simple donut crafts that I decided would make a great game.

D is for . . . Donut Dots Math Game

I just cut a donut shape out of white construction paper.  Then I cut out the brown paper to look like chocolate glaze.  The girls glued them together. Not much of a craft, but it was meant for them to take part in making our game. 

To play the game we used pony beads as sprinkles and I made game cards.  We had cards numbered where the girls could add on 1-5 sprinkles, represented by the dots.  Or they could lose 1-3 sprinkles (I wrote these cards in red pencil and left only used outlines of dots instead of the black dots). We drew one card per turn and added or subtracted the designated number of  "sprinkles."  The winner was the one with the most sprinkles after we ran out of cards.

Springtime Patterns

This week we continued working on our Pattern Garden from last week. We also discussed the fact that some of the patterns we put on our Garden are Opposites. Here is what was on our Pattern Garden picture at the end of last week.

We used long/short and big/small.

This week we added clouds in the sky and focused on the opposite up/down.

We then had our second Pattern Muffin Tin

And later in the week we made Pattern Parfaits for Kids and a Mom  in the Kitchen.

We layered Chocolate Oreo Crumbs, Chocolate Pudding and Coolwhip.

We finished our Spring Pattern Gardens by adding Butterflies using the opposite open/closed. The open winged butterflies are flying above a flower, while the closed wing butterflies are resting on the flower. I had the girls decide on what pattern they wanted to make on the table, then I explained how we were going to place them on the paper.

They also decided there needed to be rain.

I had some paper squares I cut out of scrap paper set aside. I figured when I was busy it would be a fun activity for the girls to make some random patterns.

The blue papers are Tabitha's and the red papers are Amelia's (Hannah was sleeping). 

We also continued work on our Color Garden (for Hannah) and Word Family Gardens (for the older two).

Tabitha and Amelia are not gluing theirs on yet because we are using them for different activities.  I would say a word and have them find it to put on their flower. We have done the following Word families this week- ed, eg and ell. 

They then took turns reading a word and finding it for their flowers.

Then we played a memory match game. I combined the girls' petals for the eg words so we would have doubles. Then we placed them upside down. When they turned up a petal they had to say the word. Other than that it was a typical Memory Match game.

I also came up with a fun subtraction game. Tabitha was using the Shaker Jar with Toothpicks. This was obviously a simple activity for her so I wanted to add something to it. I made her count 10 toothpicks out of the bunch that were in there. After setting the extras aside I explained the game to her. She was reminded that  there were 10 toothpicks in the jar. She then was to shake the jar three times upside down so toothpicks would fall out of the holes. She then recorded how many toothpicks fell out on a piece of paper. She was then to figure out how many toothpicks were left in the jar. After thinking about it and giving a guess, she could take them out and count them. 

Toothpicks in jar - Toothpicks that fell out = Toothpicks left

10 - ? = ?

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Papa Piccolo: Kittens in the Gondola Game

I had printed out some gondolas to go with our Papa Piccolo unit, but wasn't sure at first how to use them. I wanted to add some kittens to them, thought about putting numbers on the gondolas and having the girls place that many kittens on the respective gondola. I actually may still do that with Hannah, but I came up with a "game" for the girls.  They already know their numbers pretty well. So I thought some addition and subtraction practice would be fun.

This is how I set up the game. I found the gondola coloring page over at Crayola's website by googling "gondola coloring page."  The girls each colored five gondolas. Then I taped two sheets of light blue paper together to represent the water of the canals. 

I made number cards by cutting out 1.5 inch squares. I made two sets of numbers 0-5 and one set of 0-10. The kittens were also found by googling "kitten coloring page." Then I just made a sheet of them in my word processing program and printed them onto construction paper.

I had Amelia pick a number and place it on the Velcro, then she was to count out that many kittens for the first gondola.

Tabitha did the same for the second gondola.

Then they added them together.

Then we tried the subtraction.

Amelia chose to place four kittens in the first gondola.

Then I told Tabitha she could pick any number up to four. She chose four and then she was to take four kittens out of the first gondola and put them in the second.  That is the amount of kittens that left the first gondola.

Only problem was, Amelia didn't like Tabitha taking her kittens.

I told her it was just a game and she should come and pick the number to show how many kittens were left in her gondola.

She was so upset she did it so fast and disappeared.

So I told her we would do it again and I made sure Tabitha wouldn't take ALL of Amelia's kittens.

They are looking forward to playing again. Each girl will have her own game that will become a part of their notebooks, but I thought it was more fun to play together.

We are storing the pieces in envelopes on the back. All I have to do now is punch the holes to place it in the binder.

The girls have also been spending their workbook time working on math. Tabitha wants to go into space, so I told her she would have to be an astronaut. So she wanted to know what astronauts need to know. We talked about math and science. So now she thinks she is going to go to space soon as she is doing lots of math. Ooops.

She worked on most of these pages today.

This post is being linked up as a part of the Schoolhouse Review Crew Toys and Games for Homeschool Round Up.