Fun and Easy Competition Counting Game

Here is my favorite quick and easy game. It is the perfect number game to help children learn to count from 1 to 50 or from 1 to 10 or from 1 to 100 or whatever you are working on. You will see how adaptable it is.

All you need is:

A pencil
A piece of paper
Two dice

Have the players sit in a circle with the piece of paper and pencil in the middle. This can be on a table or even on the floor. Start to pass around the dice. Whenever someone rolls a double, they grab the piece of paper and start to write numbers on the paper from 1 to 50.

They continue writing as quickly as they can, until someone else rolls a double and steals the paper. That person continues writing numbers by picking up wherever the player before them left off. (For example: 35... New Player 36, 37, and so on.)

Whoever gets to write the number 50 before they lose their turn, wins that round! You can keep track of how many points each player has received on the back of the number page.

Continue until everyone gets bored, which surprisingly takes quite a long time!

The play can be adapted to any age child. Count up to 100 or just up to 10 or 20 to reinforce whatever numbers you are working on. You could even count by 2's, 3's, 5's or 10's for an added challenge.

I would suggest that you try this game the next time you are waiting for your meal at a restaurant, but I have to warn you..  play does get a little loud! There is something about the competitive element of trying to beat the dice that makes this math game loads of fun.

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Toddler Activities: Painted Easter Egg Cookies

By Deborah Pace Rowley

I posted this painted cookie activity last year. This is my all-time favorite activity for Easter so I thought I would post it again.

 

                                               

I have a confession to make. I am not a fan of dying Easter Eggs. (Does that make me a bad mother?) The real problem is that I don’t like hard-boiled eggs. And eggs that have been died a greenish purple color and have been hidden in the dirt in our backyard are in a category all their own. Sugar cookies on the other hand!! I love this activity any time of year but Easter time is the perfect time to “paint” some egg-shaped sugar cookies.

First, buy some cheap paint brushes. It is best to do this activity with paint brushes that haven’t been used with real paint. Then make or buy some sugar cookie dough. I have included my favorite sugar cookie recipe below if you are looking for a good one. (Thanks Karen!)

Next, roll out the sugar cookie dough and cut it with an egg-shaped cookie cutter. You can just use a knife and create your own oval shapes if you don’t have the correctly shaped cookie cutter. DO NOT COOK THE DOUGH. Set the uncooked cookies on pieces of waxed paper around the table. In the center of the table set out bowls of “paint”. The paint is made with egg whites mixed with a little bit of water. This is to thin the goopy egg whites to a paintable consistency. Then it is dyed with food coloring. I dyed one bowl blue, one green, one orange, one yellow and one red. (The yellow and orange ended up indistinguishable once they were painted on the cookie so I think next time I will try some purple.) Set out some paper towels and some small bowls of water for washing the brushes.

Last, have the kids put on paint shirts or aprons and let the fun begin. IMPORTANT NOTE: Remind your kids not to eat the cookie dough or the egg whites before they are cooked.

Learning about patterns is an important part of readiness for math so I had the big kids paint patterns on their eggs for the little ones to copy. That was such a big hit that soon the little kids wanted to paint patterns for the big kids to copy. After passing our patterns around for a while, we turned the kids loose to create their own artistic creations.

When you have finished painting your cookie eggs, sprinkle the top with sugar. 

Transfer them to an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. With the sprinkling of sugar, the cookies are delicious without any added frosting. You wouldn’t want the frosting to cover up the art! I love how easy it is to put the unfrosted cookies in lunches and to stack and store them for future snacking. Trust me, it is much easier to get rid of all these decorated eggs than it is to find uses for the real hard-boiled ones!

Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup shortening

¾ cup sugar

1 egg

4 Tablespoons milk

½ teaspoon vanilla

2 cups sifted flour

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

Blend wet ingredients well then add in dry ingredients. Chill the dough for at least one hour in the fridge or dough will be too soft to work with. Roll out the dough on a surface sprinkled with flour and cut into shapes as desired. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 8-10 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown.

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Toddler Activities: DIY Cheap & Easy Toddler Train

By Deborah Pace Rowley

                      

Toddlers love trains! In fact, you just might have a train fanatic in your house. I love all the cool Brio style trains and train tables out there. But if you are like me, I could never afford those expensive sets. 

That doesn't mean that you can't provide a train for your toddler to link, unlink, load and pull around the house. This fun DIY train is simple, cheap and easy to make. I started with 5 dollar store plastic soap holders with a top and a bottom. (They were travel set that you could use to take your soap on vacation.)  I added a set of baby links that I also purchased that the dollar store. The ten brightly colored links were also $1. So the total train set cost $6.00. It comes with ten cars once I separated the top and the bottom of each soap dish.  I was so proud of myself for drilling the holes in each side. I even found a drill bit big enough so that the links could fit through the holes. Girl Power! 

 

Toddlers will simply love loading the train with all their little animals and toys. You could add a pull string by tying some yarn or kite string to the end of the last link and your toddler could pull the train around the house. For older toddlers and preschoolers you could make this train educational as well. 

In the picture below, you can see that I added a colored square to the bottom of each car and Brooklyn tried to find an animal that matched each color. 

Here Brooklyn tried to put the correct number of raisins in each car. You could have your child load the cars with pretzel stick "logs" or gold fish or cereal or anything you have on hand.

Here I added an alphabet letter to the bottom of each car and Brooklyn is trying to find something to put in each car that starts with each letter. There are so many fun variations for playing with this toddler train. You could put one letter from your child's name in the bottom of each car and have your child rearrange the cars to spell his or her name correctly. You could put beginning sight words in each car and your child could link them up to make a sentence.

All aboard for lots of fun! Pin It

Preschool Activities: Letter of the Week {Cc}

By Tiffany Rudd

I realize this isn't a very holiday-ish topic to post on Halloween, but I found tons of fun candy corn activities to make up for it. Candy Corn are obviously a great "Cc" treat and since they'll be around through Thanksgiving you have plenty of time to try out these super fun activities!

 Snack Ideas:
      *Candy Corn Patterns: I love this idea from A Mommy's Adventures. All you need is a bag of Brach's Candy Corn Harvest Mix. First sort the candy by type and then work on candy patterns together.

Books:

      * Caps For Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina - This is one of my kids all time favorites to act out. One day I'll have a big box of funky hats to use with this book like my mom used to. 

      * The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle - This is a fantastic book that teaches days of the week, counting, and even the life cycle of a butterfly. We read this classic in preschool this week and created the egg carton caterpillars below.

 Crafts:
      * Egg Carton Caterpillars: This is one of those crafts where the process is more important than the result. These turned out looking kinda goofy, but the kids absolutely loved them! All I did was cut my big Costco egg carton into rows of 4. I punched holes in both sides of 3 sections and then let the kids paint them. After they dried we added google eyes, chenille straw legs and smiles. By the kids reactions, you would have thought this was a fancy/expensive art project. Brooklyn's still has a place of honor on her dresser.

       *Candy Corn Math: Another candy corn activity as promised! :) This is a great one for learning numbers and practicing counting. All you need is some construction paper and candy corn. You can find this activity here.

Free Printables:

      * When I was planning my curriculum for the letter Cc I was all prepared to create some fun candy corn number and letter puzzles. The three sections make them the perfect design for practicing both. Luckily I searched a little first and saved myself a bunch of time. Click on the pictures below for free printable candy corn puzzles for practicing numbers and letters. 

      * Click on the photos below to print the writing practice worksheet and the flashcard. I hope you have a fantastic Halloween and a fun week learning the Letter Cc!

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Elementary Activities: Learning To Tell Time

By Tiffany Rudd

Since Cameron is in 1st grade this year, they have started learning how to tell time. Reading an analog clock can definitely be difficult for kids, so we've been practicing extra at home. Here are a few of the activities and websites that have been a hit.

      * Homemade Practice Clock: This clock (see photo above) was super simple to make. I just cut a short and long hand out of construction paper and attached them to the plate using a brad fastener. I recommend making the hands different colors as it makes it easier to distinguish for a beginning learner. I then added the numbers 1-12 around the edge of the plate. I also added the minutes (5, 10, 15, 20, etc.) along the inside edge.

      * For an even easier homemade practice clock, you can just print and assemble one HERE. 

      * Telling Time Memory Game: All I did to make this fun time memory game was print two copies of these CLOCK FLASHCARDS. Then I just cut them out and clued them to pieces of construction paper so you couldn't see through them. You just play with these like any memory game, where you take turns turning over two cards to see if they match. When you find a match you just have to tell what time the clocks say before you can keep them. The two of us have had so much fun playing this simple matching game.  

      * ABCya.com: This is one of my favorite learning websites and it has a really fun time travel game for learning to tell time.

      * Click HERE to print telling time practice worksheets.

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Elementary Activities: Personal Pizza Fractions

By: Deborah Pace Rowley

When children start learning fractions in 3rd or 4th grade, it is fun to reinforce this principle at home with some personal pan pizza fractions. All you need to do is make your usual pizza crust. Then when it is time to roll the crust out, gather the family around to each make a personal pan pizza of their own. Give each person a small circle of dough to roll out and then top with a selection of toppings. You can set out bowls of pepperoni, sausage, canadian bacon, olives, pineapple, green peppers, onions etc. as well as some pizza sauce and cheese.

Once everyone has created their masterpiece, bake the pizzas. I like to bake our pizzas at 500 degrees for about 7 to 10 minutes. It is super quick and gives them a wonderful hearth-baked taste. Now the fun begins. Give each person a card with a number on it such as 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8. This is the denominator of the fraction. This is the number of pieces that they get to cut their personal pizza into.

When all the pizzas have been cut up, give everyone a second number such as 1, 2, 3,  or 4. This is the numerator. This is how many pieces of pizza they get to have. Let each person create their fraction by putting the numerator above the denominator and then taking that number of pieces. For example if you cut your pizza into 4 pieces and you get 3 pieces of it, the fraction should read 3 over 4.

Once everyone has eaten their first fraction, return to the counter and relabel the pizzas. Now what fraction of the pizzas are left? In our example above Mom ate 3/4 of her pizza so 1/4 of Mom's pizza is left. Let the family continue to choose pieces of pizza and rename the fractions until all the pieces are gone or everyone is stuffed, whichever comes first!!

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Preschool Activities: Counting & Learning Numbers

By Tiffany Rudd

Counting and number recognition are important concepts for preschoolers to learn. They are also very fun to teach and practice!

If your child is new to learning numbers, it is a good idea to start with counting. First, just practice counting to 10. You can count together while you clean up toys or get dressed. Once your child can count to 10, start having her count items. This is a great time to use snacks as a teaching tool.

Snack Ideas: 
      * Any small item (marshmallows, raisins, fish crackers, etc) can be used to practice counting and numbers. First, give her a pile of snacks and have her tell you how many there are. Once she has learned to recognize the number symbols you can show her and number and have her count enough treats to match.

 TIP: Teach your child to move the items to a new pile as she counts. This will help her avoid recounting or skipping items, which is very common at this age.

 Activity Ideas:

      *Choo-Choo Train Counting: Click on the photo to print these fun number trains and read about the fun ways you can use them.

      *Catch Anything: I know I keep sharing this activity, but it is such a fun one for practicing just about any concept. Click on the photo below to print the mitt and the numbers practice page.

Free Printables:

      *My Number Book: This is a simple printable book for tracing and recognizing the numbers 1-10. Click on the photo below to print a copy for your child.

      *Ladybug Game: I created this fun game for my preschoolers this year and it was a big hit. Just follow these simple steps to play this game at home...

Step 1: Click on either photo below to print the game, number cards, and dots.

 Step Two: Cut out the number cards and black dots. You can cut out the dots on the printable, or just fold a black piece of construction paper and cut out your own.

Step Three: Put on your ladybug costume and don't forget your ladybug wand. Of course this step is essential for playing a ladybug game. ;)

Step Four: Play! The goal is to place a number card in the square and then give the ladybug enough spots to match the number. 

I hope these resources are helpful and that you have fun learning numbers with your child!

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Meal-Time Activities: Buy Dinner and Make Change

By Deborah Pace Rowley

For this fun learning activity all you need is a homemade menu and some play money. You can create the menu on the computer or even on a small chalkboard. Assign a dollar value to each of the items for dinner. You can even charge for a glass of water and for ketchup to go with the french fries! For younger children, just use whole dollar amounts. For older children, throw in some change. 

Give each family member some money and start out the meal by letting your child act as the waiter and cashier. First he can take each person’s order on a small notepad. Then he can total up all the purchases. Math Practice! 

After each family member has paid for their meal, your child can calculate how much change each person should receive back. More Math Practice! If your child figures the correct change, give a big tip. The waiter can then use that money to buy a yummy dessert.

Now that my older children have started working in fast food restaurants, I know how important figuring change can be.

P.S. Learn how to make the cute menu board shown above for just a few dollars at oopseydaisyblog.com. 

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Preschool Activities: 6 New Ways to Play in the Sandbox

By: Deborah Pace Rowley

Sand is so much fun to play with, but my kids interest in playing in their sandbox seemed to come in waves. Sometimes they were super interested and were out digging and creating sand creations on a daily basis. Then for no reason whatsoever (actually the reason was usually that one of the girls had seen a BUG in the sandbox!) I couldn't get them to play in the sand for months at a time.

If your child's interest in the sandbox has waned and you are interested in getting back outside and enjoying the beautiful fall weather, try these ideas to think outside the box!

*Bury plastic dinosaurs in the sand and have your child launch an archaeology dig. No madly flinging sand around the box, no siree. Use a large paint brush and big kitchen spoons to gently uncover the fossils where they lie.

*Create your own homemade bones with make and bake clay. Craft bones in three sizes-- large, medium and small. Or cut the bones out of cardboard. Then turn your preschooler loose to uncover one of each size of bone. Can your child guess which size of bone he has uncovered first?

*Send your child on a treasure hunt around the yard that eventually leads to the backyard sandbox where treasure is buried. A few gold coins wrapped in a plastic bag make a great treasure but even a fruit snack will do in a pinch! If pirates had fruit snacks they would have buried them, don't you think!

*Send your child out with supplies to create a sand sculpture worthy of a California beach! Here are a few ideas to get you started.  Sculpt an octopus complete with bottle cap suction cups on his tentacles. Sculpt a mermaid with pasta shell scales. Sculpt a swimmer complete with real swimming goggles or a shark with a fun foam dorsal fin sticking out of the sand.

*Create a massive sand volcano by building the sand up around a full two liter bottle of Diet Coke. When the volcano is complete, watch it erupt by quickly unscrewing the cap and dropping several Mentos candies inside. Yes, this is messy but worth it! And your sandbox will eventually dry.

*Move toys outside that don't usually grace the inside of the sandbox. Would your daughter's Littlest Pet Shop Collection enjoy a day at the beach? How about the Polly Pockets? Could your son build a cool beach house out of Legos for the vacationing guests?

What are your kids favorite things to do in the sandbox? Share your ideas in the comments below.

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Elementary Activities: Measurement Fun

By Tiffany Rudd

One of my favorite math concepts to teach in 3rd grade was measurement. Length is an especially fun one to watch kids experiment with and learn. Recently, on a rainy day, I got out a my favorite picture books about measurement/length to read to the kids. After we read, the kids were super excited to get measuring on their own.

A great way to start exploring measurement is to try measuring using household objects. Cameron discovered that Brooklyn is 6 baby-phones long, 9 Anniston shoes long, and 7 Declan diapers long. 

This is a perfect lead-in for a discussion on standard measurement. The book How Big is a Foot by Rolf Myller is a fantastic book about where standard measurement came from and why we need it. 

These next three books are my favorites for inspiring kids to measure the world around them... 

How Tall, How Short, How Faraway by David Adler 

Measuring Penny by Loreen Leedy  

Hershey's Weights & Measures by Jerry Pallotta

So, next time it is rainy or cold and your kids are stuck inside, get out a ruler or measuring tape and let your child loose measuring everything in the house! :)

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Elementary Activities: Math Catch

By Tiffany Rudd

One beginning math skill they teach in Kindergarten is being able to quickly name what is one more or one less than any number 1-20. In the spring when we met with Cameron's teacher she told us that he needed some practice with this particular skill. 

I, of course, immediately started trying to think of games and activities I could create to help him practice this skill. Before I even had a chance I went out in the yard the next evening to find my husband playing a game of catch with Cameron. When one of them caught the ball they added a point. When they dropped it, a point was taken away. So, there was Cameron quickly announcing with each throw one more or one less than their previous score. Once they reached 20, the game was won and they started another round. 

With this simple, zero prep activity the two of them practiced an important math skill each evening for over a week. It was even a favorite for the two of them to play together this summer. Thank goodness for husbands to remind us that simpler is usually better. (Just don't tell him I said that! ;)

This simple activity can be adapted to practice a bunch of beginning math skills. Here are just a few I can think of...

• Count by 2's, 5's, or 10's with each catch. 
• Call out multiplication facts for you child to answer with each throw.
• Call out a number with each throw. If the ball is caught, add that number to your score. If it is dropped, subtract that number.
• Skip count by any number you choose. 

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Parenting Tips: Following the Olympics (Olympics Week)

By: Deborah Pace Rowley

I learned about this activity in a recent issue of Family Fun Magazine. This idea came from Wendi Brandow of Glenville, New York. See a snapshot of the article here:

http://familyfunmagazine.tumblr.com/

I knew I wanted to use it to kick off a fun blog week centered around the Olympics. With its unusual sporting events, unique views of the host country, and spotlights on athletes around the world, the Olympics make an irresistible learning experience. To engage your kids in following the Olympics, start by choosing a “home” country for each child. Below are the countries that traditionally win the most medals during the Summer Games so make your selections from these ten countries. You can have your child draw his country out of a bowl or simply choose his favorite from the list: 

China

United States

Russia

Great Britain

Germany

Australia

South Korea

Japan

Italy 

France

Next make a chart that lists the countries that you have selected next to each child’s name. Award coins to that child for each medal that his or her country wins: a quarter for every gold medal, a dime for every silver medal, and a nickel for every bronze medal. You can find the medal count on the internet each night where you can also watch highlights of the different events. Tape the coins to the poster and watch each child’s collection grow. At the end of the Olympics you could remove the coins and use them for a mini Olympic event of your own. Bike to a local burger joint for an ice cream cone, try horseback riding at a local farm or go swimming at a local pool.  Watch the Opening Ceremonies tonight and stay tuned next week for more ways to make the Olympics come alive in your home. 

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