New Math Games Review

Ok, I promised you a review of the math games I bought to use this summer and I'm finally going to get around to it.

 

Today we got Pegs in the Park in the mail.  Hmm.  I paid $9.50 for it at Rainbow Resource and I guess it was worth it. 

 

They review it like this:  This board game requires no reading skills and is recommended for children that want to have fun with counting. It comes with 44 colorful, friendly cards with pictures themed in a park. Each card has a (+) or (-) number. Pick up a card with 7 happy kites, and you move forward seven spaces. Draw a card with 5 angry ants, and you have to go back 5 spaces. First one to get to the ice-cream truck wins! Pegs in the Park teaches counting, forward and backward skills, and eye-hand coordination. *Jon

I just sat down with Daisy, Pepper and Banana Boy to play.  I would say it is Candyland with counting.  It does teach counting, forward and backward and eye-hand coordination.  All true.

 

Here were a few things about it I found frustrating, making it not a perfect game:  The spaces on the board are tinier than the base of the playing piece.  It was hard to count the tiny spaces and hard to see exactly on which space your peg was.bbYou get more spaces to count this way (ie: you won't finish the game too quickly), but I don't see it being easy for anyone under 5--just who I would be targeting for counting practice.  Those of us who played today are all stellar counters and know how to move from space to space in a board game.

 

The holes in the board are just a tad hard to get the piece into.  I would have liked a thicker board with a longer peg on the bottom.

 

It is just as frustrating as Candyland.  Go forward 5. Go forward 8.  Go back 6.  Lose a turn.  You only have one space to go!  OH, NO, go back 10!  (at least it doesn't send you all the way back to start!)  Daisy picked all the bad cards and spent most of the game within the first 15 spaces of her board, mostly going backwards.

 

I think I will play it with Pepper and Banana Boy, but change the game from picking one card and counting, to picking two cards and adding or subtracting the total.

 

Roll 'n Add -- Got this in my Rainbow order today, too.  This game, I love!  Simple, yet brilliant.  A fast play.  You get a sturdy cardboard tic-tac-toe board and twenty thick plastic markers numbered 1-20, plus two 10-sided dice.  Think Hollywood Squares meets addition.

 

Roll the two dice, add the total, pick out the matching marker (there is only one of each number, but one side is purple, the other orange, so you flip it to your color)  Place it on the tic-tac-toe board.  Now take turns and try to get three of your colored pieces in a row to make tic-tac-toe.  If that number has already been used, you can move the piece to another spot, if it's yours or flip it if it is your opponent's.  It practices addition facts to 20 using the numbers 1-10, something you don't get in most math games which use 6-sided dice (you know, the highest total you can get is 6+6=12).

 

There is also a version of the game where you take out all the odd-numbered discs and shake one die to find the doubles (shake an 8, play a 16; shake a 1, play a 2)

 

Here's something exciting!  They also make Roll 'n Multiply!  (It costs twice as much, but it must come with many more discs)  It's going on my next wish list!

 

Another game I got is Munch Math and I love this one, too!  This website gives you an excellent overview and screen shot of the game board, so I won't go into great detail here.  But even Banana Boy has played this with us and has done all right.  He can easily do the addition and subtraction and with help, can figure out the multiplication.  Pepper can do the mult. on her own (she's 7) and if I remind her which number is the dividend and which is the whatever-the-other-one is called (divisor, maybe?), and she thinks in terms of cookies, she can do the division. 

 

My favorite part of Munch Math, is that you have to try out all 4 operations to decide where to play.  Say you shake a 5 and a 4.  You can add and get nine, subtract and get one, multiply and get 20 and divide--well, that doesn't work.  So if you have a 9 and a 1 on your food, you have to decide which to cover.  Will it be easier to shake another 9 or another one?  Pepper quickly figured out that the only way to get zero is to shake doubles (two of the same number, like 5 - 5) and subtract.  So even though you could use 5 + 5 for your 10, you don't shake doubles that often so you should cover your zero right away.

 

We also bought Number Hunt.  The best part about this game is that it is organic and fair trade.  Honestly, there are 6 different ways to play and practice different skills, but the directions are very vague and don't always seem to work out in actual play.  We had to make up some of our own rules in confusing situations.  We do still play it.  It's not useless.  Our favorite version is Compare It, where you shake the die and compare that number to the number of the space on which you are sitting.  If the die is higher, you move forward that many.  If the space is higher, you move back the number on the die.  The die is wooden, large and very nice.  The markers are small, flat and cardboard--I like nice tall pieces I can easily hold.  I always wanted to be the horse in Monopoly!

 

Another one I bought is Addition & Subtraction Game Board Books -- six cardboard games in one folder.  Not worth $16.50, unless you don't own and can't find ANY other math games anywhere.  The games are pretty basic and also sometimes confusing to figure out.  We made up our own rules for some of these, too.  The biggest thing that annoyed ME, was that the game boards, made of laminated tagboard, are folded in half and stored in the folder.  The logical result of this is that they don't lie flat when you play them, making the tiny cardboard, laminated circle markers slide around. Erg!

 

On a positive note, I bought Lauri's Shape Bingo from Rainbow for $11.95 and what you see is what you get!  It's Lauri quality, fun to play (even if you don't need to learn your shapes!) and good for teaching a variety of shapes if you do need to learn them.  Plus they can simply be used as puzzles!  It's always fun to play Bingo, even if you don't need to learn something!  Daisy, Pepper, Banana Boy and I all enjoyed this.

 

And lastly, our most super-fun purchase today was a handful of SMENCILS!  It's not a math game, but Banana Boy couldn't WAIT to get out his math book and use his (really stinky!) Chocolate Smencil.    I didn't even tell him to!  I'd think carefully about just which artificial scents you can stomach.  Of course, I'm very sensitive to smells anyway.  I think I'd enjoy the peppermint or the root beer.  There's a great review of these over at Rainbow.

 

Let me know if you have other math games you are enjoying.  It's so much cheaper to get a good review for free than to buy the game and try it out myself!

 

Blessings,

Sandwich

One Small Sixth Grade Update

Rose Bud got her report card and she had A's, two A+s and an A- in gym--because she didn't know she was supposed to bring her tennis shoes the last day (they had already cleaned out their gym lockers).  So she was marked down for a dress violation.  Oh, well.

 

She's very happy about her homeroom and house assignment for next year and we are too.  I think her homeroom teacher will be a good fit for her.  And her best friend is in her homeroom, too.

 

For the summer, she's working through an Algebra book and she's doing Sonlights Language Arts 6--I had purchased it last summer for her before we knew she was going to public school.  She wanted something to keep busy with this summer and she chose those two things off the shelf.  She is also reading about WW I, WW II and the Vietnam War.

 

She's excited to be earning money this summer: $5/week for doing extra chores and $20/week for watching Sunshine two mornings (believe me, he's worth it!).  Of her $20, she gives away $2, saves half and keeps $8 to spend.  Aeropostale, here she comes!

 

 

Awareness for WHOM?

June is National Potty Training Awareness Month

 

Like I am not aware.

 

Can I just say that it is not any easier the fifth time around?  Can I just say that I am sick of being kicked in the stomach while changing a poopy 3 year old who doesn't want to be changed?  Can I just say that he is SO cute wearing his "unders" and running around peeing in the weeds?  Can I just say,

 

"Listen, Son.  It is National Potty Training Awareness Month and so I would like you to be aware that you are 3, you can pull your pants up and down, you know perfectly well what to do and where to do it and preschool starts in the fall.   So in honor of NPTA Month, I'd like you to be aware that mommy is tired of diapers and you need to do the whole big boy potty thing.  Ok?  For Mommy?  Let's call it your summer homeschooling curriculum.  So, from now on, in the daytime, you are wearing unders.  Pee goes in the potty.  Everyone pees in the potty.  If your unders are wet, you'll have to take them off, put them in the wash and put on dry ones.  Got it?  I'm glad we had this little talk about this important subject.  If you ever want to discuss any of this with Mommy, I'm here for you, ok?  I love you and I'm so proud of you!  Now, go out there and POTTY TRAIN!"

 

A different picture for those of you who had to read this on BOTH my blogs

Sunshine's Preschool Schedule, Week 1

Remember that this is all very loose.  The girls are doing this with him and they do a little activity for 2 or 3 minutes and then do something else.  The Week 1 schedule is:

 

Literature: Big Red Barn  (he loved this book)

Nursery Rhyme: Little Boy Blue

Bible Reading: Psalm 1: 1-3

Nature Study: Walk barefoot in the grass (he doesn't like this!)

Puppets: Finger puppets (Daisy drew a face on her pointer finger and Sunshine's and they had a long and intense conversation one day)

Indoor Quiet Game: This Little Piggy

Outdoor Game: Follow the Leader

Fine Motor: Poke playdough with toothpicks (S and Rose Bud made blue playdough as an activity one day)

Musical Instruments: Bells

Arts & Crafts: Playdough

Color: Blue

 

This schedule is loosely based on Brightly Beaming Babies & Toddlers

 

And here is why the girls watch him while I do school with the others.... 

Sunshine Unsupervised:

Whoo Hoo! We did something!

We've had the last week of public school, storms and flooding, swimming lessons and I've been sick.  We've been plugging along with Hitty, but now talking too much makes me cough.

 

Banana Boy and I did a project this morning at 6:15!  We're practicing the days of the week which he kind of knows but not very well.  So I cut 7 different colors of construction paper into strips and we're going to make a paper chain.  Each day of the week has its own color, so we'll be doing the days of the week, patterns and practicing colors.  BB knows his colors, but he is color-blind, so he has to work extra hard at it.  He identifies them with a pretty good degree of accuracy now.

I'll put up a picture of his chain once it gets going.  Today it is rather boring as it has just one green link.  I'm hoping this will be a nice, hands-on activity to help him wrap his little brain around the days of the week.

 

 

P.E.

I don't think homeschoolers, in general, are known for stellar homeschool gym classes.  Unless you have 17 children, there aren't usually enough kids to play team sports.  Many of us sign our kids up for soccer and t-ball and gymnastics and homeschool physical education programs at local rec centers and the YMCA.  Certainly most of our kids have lots for time for just plain running-around-the-neighborhood free play than public school kids.  There are books out there telling how to do homeschool physical fitness, but personally, I don't want to sit down and read a book to tell me how to get up and be active.

 

My kids do play outside a LOT.  We have 2.5 acres and the neighbors have nearly 1 acre, so between the 8 kids, they have plenty of space to roam.  Their latest kick has been badminton.  Using a splash ball eliminates the frustrating element of getting the birdie stuck in the racket every time.  We had a big Father's Day tournament here.  The boys and little girls love to ride their bikes around the driveway and with one hill to coast down and one to pump back up, they get fun and exercise.

 

They are forever playing some imaginative game like Indians or Kid or spy or knights.  With 8 of them, they manage to sort of play kickball.  They love to play tag.

 

So they're out running around all day.

 

Pepper, Banana Boy and Sunshine are in swimming lessons right now.  Banana Boy is becoming a t-ball star.  Rose Bud and Daisy are going to hike their flip flops off next week at camp.

 

Now if we could get mom off the computer.....

 

Anyway, even if they are stuck inside, they find SOMEthing to do.  Here they are doing their morning "workout."

 

Pushups

 

with the added difficulty of dodging Sunshine

 

 

Situps

 

Made more difficult...

 

It's not perfect, but it works!

 

 

A Peaceful Day

Generally, homeschooling at our house is chaotic. The baby is getting into something. Someone needs wiping. Someone needs help with math. Another one is in tears because the same thing she did yesterday, today is too hard. The baby needs changing. Everybody is hungry. No one has any pencils. I need more coffee and then the phone rings.

Today was not one of those days. For a few blissful minutes, all was peaceful. All was calm. Everyone found something constructive and even educational to do and I found myself just sitting there, sipping coffee and remembering why I do this.

Pepper busy with magnets

Sunshine playing school bus with his truck (he sets the Little People around the room and drives by to pick each one up)

Banana Boy explored symmetry (except for the broom) with the Cuisenaire rods

Daisy worked on math (and didn't WANT her picture taken working on math)

My Baby is So Smart

Because he doesn't talk much, I'm never quite sure what he knows.  I know he is mighty bright.

 

Anyway, today we got out the Lauri giant shapes and tossed them around on the floor.  They come with a little (actually huge) crepe-rubber color die.  So I shook the die and had Banana Boy hop onto the shape of that color.  Then I shook it for Sunshine and showed him the color.  I asked him, "Can you hop onto the orange shape?"  He scanned around at all 6 shapes, then burst into a grin and hopped onto the orange!  Yay!

 

All this proves is that he can match colors.  I didn't ask him to find orange without showing him the orange.  Maybe we'll play that way tomorrow.

 

Incidently, it astounds me how many preschool activities are based on color and knowing/finding colors.  I find myself doing this unthinkingly with Banana Boy and then remembering that it's a challenge for him because he is color-blind. In most cases he can compensate, but he gets blue and purple mixed up often and sometimes green and orange.  He did fine with our game today except for mixing up the blue and purple once.

Summer Schedule

Well, I have grand hopes for our summer.  Of course, we're busy like crazy, so i don't know how much school will get done.  Rose Bud is going to earn $20 a week watching Sunshine two mornings a week.  And I think I'll pay Daisy something to watch him for an hour the other two mornings

 

My plan is to do some school with Banana Boy on a regular basis, mainly some reading.  He's never been much into books and so I haven't read to him as I should have.  He's interested in science, so I think we'll read through some sciencey books together.

 

I've been meaning to blog about a great resource on the net that I'm going to loosely use with Sunshine.  Many of you who already homeschool, probably know about it, but I wanted to share it for my adoption friends. 

 

It's a homeschool curriculum for preschoolers called Letter of the Week.  It's fairly rigorous academically, which is not popular in all preschool circles.  But if you are able to be flexible  and to pick and choose, there are some great ideas and suggestions here and it's very well organized for you.

 

Now, Sunshine is 3, but in looking through this curriculum I realized that in some areas he is no where NEAR age level in this curriculum.  So what I am doing with him is to go all the way back in her Brightly Beaming Babies and Brightly Beaming Toddler curriculum, which is for newborn to 2, and I will be "catching him up."  I figure he missed a lot of things as an infant that he would have gotten having one-on-one with a mommy.  So we'll be doing little snippets, maybe at a more advanced pace than on the schedule.  Part of this I will be having Rose Bud and Daisy do with him during their playtime with him.

 

I have to sit down with the printouts and pick out some specific activities.  I'll try to post the schedule here as I get to it.

 

As for the rest, the plan for Daisy is to continue with grammar, spelling and math as well as state geography (we're about half-way done) and American history.

 

Pepper will be doing grammar, state geography and American history, plus math games.

 

Banana Boy will be reading with me, working on HIS reading, and playing math games.

 

And I told Rose Bud she should pick out something to study for the summer.  Being Rose Bud, she immediately got out her Key to Fractions book and started working through it.  She was bound and determined to finish the whole book that night.  I finally made her go to bed at 9 pm with 4 pages to go in the book.  She's in Book 3, so that project should keep her busy another week or so (there are 10 books total).  Actually, she and Jay Bud, next door, are interested in WWII, so I may steer them in that direction.  Probably I'll just get her a bunch of books to read.  I remember being absolutely obsessed with the Holocaust when I was that age and reading tons of historical fiction about kids who lived through it (like Anne Frank).  edited to add:  actually Anne Frank did not live through it, as she died.  But she lived it.

 

In addition to all that, we have swimming lessons (Pepper, BB and Sunshine), gymnastics (Pepper), T-Ball (BB),  Bible Camp (Rose Bud and Daisy), VBS (everyone) and 3 vacations (a 4-day church campout, a week in a cabin in Missouri and 4 days at Family Camp)  A special end-of-summer event will be Pepper's tonsilectomy.  Oh, and RoseBud has 3 days of band camp.

 

Happy Summer!!!!

 

 

A Word About Public School

Probably more than one word, if you know me at all.

 

Leslie asked how we decided Rose Bud and Banana Boy should go to public school while the others do not.

 

Rose Bud asked, at the end of 5th grade, if she could try public school.  After MUCH discussion between Mr. GT and me we decided to let her try it.  Some of the deciding factors were:

 

She is a very responsible, motivated and bright student.  We were fairly sure she'd flourish academically.

 

She is a really good kid, grounded in her values.  Remaining so was a condition of her staying in PS.

 

We have an excellent school system.

 

She was entering 6th grade and Middle School.  We figured this was a good transition point for her.  All the students would be new to the school and she wouldn't feel so "new."

 

It turned out to be a good decision.  She has thrived under the structure of public school.  She has been entirely responsible for her work, getting it done and in on time.  She manages her time beautifully.  She loves to learn.  The 6th grade team has been beyond excellent!  They are all very compassionate, sensitive teachers and we think they've done a great job balancing the hand-holding vs. building independence as these kids enter middle school.  She joined band in April and has worked really hard learning to play her instrument.  The 6th graders don't have many opportunities for extracurriculars (which I appreciate)--they keep them on a pretty tight rein, focusing on academics.  But next year she will have to chance to try out some sports and a few other things.

 

Why she's going again?  It was what she asked for for Christmas!  And we let her know we were very pleased with how well she was doing her "job" which was to learn, get the best grades she could, maintain a good attitude at home and be a good friend in school.  As long as those things stay "up" she's in.  At this point, she has agreed to come home for 8th grade (that was part of the deal for going to 7th grade and it also hinged on the plan that we would be moved to our land by that point.  The latter is not happening now, at least not that soon, so we'll see where we are by 8th grade.

 

As for Banana Boy, he has his little issues, mainly with anger at home.  They have NEVER seen this at either preschool or Sunday School.  Really, they love him to bits and he has been a bit of a favorite.  Since I get the brunt of if and since he does so well in a structured class, we thought that having the really positive experience of that continue would be good for him.

 

Academically, he is probably at K level now, so I'm not worried about whether he gains anything at all next year.  I still plan to do a little work with him in the afternoons.

 

My thought is that if he and I butt heads all day, this is not a good thing.  But if he can go to kindergarten and have a delightful time all morning, then come home all happy and have a delightful time with me, then we're having a delightful day!

 

He also has been growing out of the dreadful stage and gaining control of his emotions at an astonishing pace (progress literally month by month), so we're expecting that by 1st grade, he'll be at home full time.

 

Both Daisy and Pepper want to be home, love to be together, and are thriving in homeschool, so home they shall remain.

 

Sunshine will be in preschool (the same one BB just graduated from) two mornings a week.

 

Methinks it will be mighty quiet around here those mornings!!!

 

 

 

 

Really, We're Still Here!

It feels like we've been getting nothing done lately.  With the end of the school year, Banana Boy and Rose Bud have been having end-of-the-year goings-on. 

Rose Bud had the all-band concert (6th-12th grade) which was fabulous.  We have a really great music department here and the middle school band director is especially good.  I think I mentioned that RB only just started playing the clarinet in April and within a month was able to play in this concert.  She has been working so hard and sometimes will practice for almost an hour!

 

Rose Bud also did a slide presentation yesterday on her trip to India for her Social Studies class.  They've been studying different countries around the world all year and are just now getting to India.  Mr. GT suggested she ask to share her pictures since she's been there and her SS teacher was all over that.  So we put together a powerpoint of her photos, she organized them and colored the slides, we put captions on and she prepared to do it for 6th hour. 

 

Yesterday morning, when she arrived, Mr. G actually asked her if she would do it for all four classes intead of just hers.  I was so glad he did.  What a great opportunity to practice public speaking and I'm so proud of her for being proud of India and her brothers!

 

I sat in on the 6th hour presentation (and brought an Indian snack!) and she did a great job.  The kids asked terrific questions and her teacher was very pleased.  He also mentioned to me before the class, how impressed he was with the orphanage.  He said it didn't look anything like what he expected and that it looked more like a school.  He also noted that he could see how well fed and taken care of the children were.  I of course, put in a plug for Holt.

 

Banana Boy had his last day of preschool this week, complete with a recapping slide show of photos from the year.  Very cute!  The kids all had a great time running around in the gym afterwards and BB was so cute with his two best friends.  Hopefully, he'll end up with at least one of them in his kindergarten class next year.

 

At home, we've finished The Witch of Blackbird Pond (I ended up getting it on disc and letting the girls finish listening to it on their CD player).  We also read a book called American Diaries: Sarah Anne Hartford--Massachusetts, 1651.  It is not a very well-written story.  I read it a few years ago with Rose Bud.  But it is an easier read than Witch of Blackbird Pond for the younger ones and it does give a good overview of Puritan life.  So we slogged through it.  (if you want more details about the not well-written part, it is very ponderously written and is almost hard to follow because they take so much time to get through the first half.  The ending is also too contrived and too happy for how I think it really would have happened.  They don't stay true to character.  But, as I said, it does give a good glimpse into the times and the younger girls enjoyed the story.)

 

Daisy is almost finished with her sampler.  Pepper has abandoned hers.

 

I've gotten some more math games in the mail and will review those shortly.

 

We're about half-way through our state study (we're up to North and South Dakota!  Woo hoo!)  Daisy is still gamely plodding along.  Pepper fusses every time.  I did buy Pepper a School Zone 50 states workbook which she is enjoying.  She is also using Yo, Sacramento and enjoys the puns they use to help you memorize the capitals.  (wow!  just went to Amazon to get the link to the picture and that book is selling for over $30!!  Get it from your library.  I wouldn't pay $30 for it.  Glad I ordered it from Scholastic back when it was in print!)

 

Currently we are reading Ben & Me about Benjamin Franklin.  RoseBud never wanted to read this story so this is my first time through it and it's very good.  I think it used to be a Sonlight 3 book but that they've since replaced it with something else.

 

I've been promising the girls we'd make the quill pens from the Hearts and Hands kits when we studied Ben Franklin, so that will be on the slate this week.

 

 

Siblings and Homeschooling

I looked out the window this afternoon to check on the kids and saw this sweet picture:

They certainly are not always like this.  In fact, they spend as much time shouting at each other as they do playing together.  In fact, Pepper kicked Banana Boy this morning.

 

 I watched Jon & Kate Plus 8 last night for the first time.  We don't have cable and we were at my mom's.  There was apparently a JK+8 marathon on.  Anyway, those kids kept whacking each other over the head with whatever weapon was handy.  If no weapon was handy, they just used their handies!  She seemed fairly great at discipline and seemed to have good ideas about structure, yet these kids kept slapping each other!  Except for the very littlest ones (and obviously Pepper!) my kids seldom hurt each other physically.  We just don't allow it.

 

I do believe that having only each other to play with for most of the day promotes bonding.  I don't usually see all three of them hanging together.  Banana Boy has his best friend next door available all day and the girls are joined at the hip.   But two of them will often pair off and play for a long time.

 

I also believe that homeschooling (or living in a culture of all-the-time learning) really encourages them to play things that require intense participation with and by others.  When they play, they are playing Indian or pirate or house or adoption or school or some other imaginative thing.  The best friend neighbor kids are a part of this too.

 

I just thought it was so sweet to see the three of them out there together, heads together involved in something intense.  I had no idea when I took the picture what it was.

 

I did find out.

 

Do you want to know?

 

They were making their own knives.  More specifically, they were making one for their brother, who didn't yet have one.

 

Isn't that sweet?

 

I love homeschooling!