Fall Crafts and Activities for Kids We’ve been loving the Fall season this year, now that our kids are starting to get old enough to have fun on our little adventures — and we’re breaking through into a whole new world where nap times don’t always ruin our grand plans ;). Here’s some of our […] Read more…
Science experiment for finding volume using water — differentiated for use with preschool through high school; great for science centers or math centers or multi-age homeschool groups. Read more…
Water Displacement Observation Many of our best learning moments start with simple conversations. Today during lunch, N was (per usual) not focusing on his food. Instead of eating, he was dipping his hand in and out of his water cup. As I started explaining explain that he was making his water dirty, he interrupted me. […] Read more…
I’ve learned heaps about Stuff these past few weeks :). But it’s a strange feeling, working in a virtual world. You can spend hours and days immersed in unraveling mysteries and tab-hopping between multiple applications, but at the point when you remember to finally stand up and walk away, you never have anything to show […] Read more…
This is a round-up of our favorite math stories. I didn’t realize until recently that this was even a thing, but during a recent trip to our library I realized there was an entire section dedicated to math books — not the textbook kind, but beautifully illustrated, fiction and nonfiction story books for kids! Read more…
As an introduction to my readers here, I’m copying over my final post from my old site at funschoolingadventures.wordpress.com. … A few reasons for my move: … Read more…
… We started one with a simple page that consisted of gluing down the shapes he had cut out, then tracing over the names of the shapes. I made up a bit more elaborate version and am attaching it at the end here to share with anyone who would like it. … Read more…
The dreaded B word (BORED) has begun to surface in our house – the kind of bored where the boys throw every couch cushion and pillow on the floor, jump on them like little hooligans, then flop down and complain that there’s nothing to do. Read more…
Whenever I hear people talk about how much they hate math or how they just aren’t good at it or how their kids are crying every night doing math homework and the whole system of Mathematics is tearing kids down and families apart, it makes me terribly sad. I wish I could jump into every one of those homes and show them how math is really not so scary and even quite lovely if you look at it the right way; I want to help students build a solid framework of understanding by working through authentic, relevant, and interesting learning activities so that they truly own the knowledge they gain. I believe students should be given the opportunity to work through concepts to the point of mastery (not to the point of complete and utter boredom because they’re swallowing a one-size-fits-all prescription) and see math not as some painful adolescent ritual but as the language of the universe — the description of all the patterns and phenomena we see at play in nature and in art and architecture and engineering … and computer coding and aviation and seafaring and gambling … to name only a very few aspects of a universe written in the beautifully patterned and predictable* language of math.
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While all the other kids were busy building forts and playing in water tables, J wandered over to this rock with a divot that had collected water. Someone (probably a staff member) had left out an old paintbrush and J picked it up and started dipping it in the puddle and “water painting” on another rock. Ha! Why had I never thought of that?! No prep work needed, almost no supplies, no mess to clean up, and endless directions to pursue — use a paintbrush, sponges, roll toy cars through water, make water paint footprints and handprints, practice calligraphy, draw Anything you can think of, even do math on the sidewalk! … etc. Here’s an activity we could do at home any day for FREE (1 point!) that’s clean (2 points!) and fun (3 points!). (Points are nonredeemable but fun to collect.) Read more…