Preschool Math, Our Plan

Sometimes the homeschool blogging world is a great help, and sometimes it becomes something else… a place where we compare our children to others.  And, I think a bit unrealistically, it seems everyone else’s child knows more than “my” child.

M is not a great counter.  This strikes me and others as somewhat odd since he has the mind of a little engineer and/or scientist.  But he can only count to 13 consistently; he tries to count to 20, and then if he means a larger number he just says “forty-eighty-ninety”. :)  He is a bright boy and he’s interested in many things – like how the world and everything in it works.  Evidently, he just can’t be bothered with something small like learning numbers right now. ;)

If I thought he needed to know how to count to 100 by the time he was 4 I’d be driving myself and him crazy.  I’m perfectly fine with his limitations and don’t worry about it (not that I haven’t been tempted to push him just a little in this area after reading other blogs), but I know others out there do worry about these things.  There are mothers who read our blogs, and being wonderful mommies who want the best for their child, start wondering what they should be doing.  I know this because occasionally I get an email from a worried mom asking me what she needs to do.  I am so thankful in those cases that I have a normal, average boy and can offer her a little encouragement and reassurance.  Learning at this age should be all about FUN.  *In the middle of drafting this post, my friend Monica sent me a link to a great article about just this – keeping it simple!  It’s well worth the read.

The truth is a 4 year old doesn’t really need to count that high, or read on his own, or any other advanced academic skill.  M is not out looking for a job or even doing elementary homework yet.  By the time he needs a particular skill he will have it, I’m sure of it.  He’s busy learning about what interests him in the meantime, and there is nothing that will spur on learning like a genuine interest in something.

That said, I’ve noticed in the past 2 weeks that he is beginning to take a real interest in counting to higher numbers.  His dot-to-dot book, which he adores, has helped grow this interest.  Our calendar helps a bit too.  And nothing, absolutely nothing, has helped spur that interest on more than the little digital watch he got at Burger King.  Oh goodness, this kid wants to know what that watch says every minute of every day.  9:08 is one thing, but what in the world is 12:35?  He simply has to know. :)

We’ve just started doing “school” this week and I plan on using Montessori bead bars and number boards to aid in counting and other math skills.  I am by no means any kind of expert on Montessori.  I am just beginning to learn a little bit about Montessori.  My interest began when looking for ways to further M’s religious education, in fact… and here we are talking about math. :)  I think this will be a good journey for both M and I!

Anyway, for those of you who are interested, a great explanation of a simple Montessori bead bar exercise is here.  You’ll note the recommended age for beginning this work is 4.5.  Whew!

I made my own bead bars, using pipe cleaners and pony beads.  Simply twist a pipecleaner at one end, making a little loop.  Then slide on your pony beads.  Each number has a different color – 1 is red, 2 is green, etc.  After sliding on the appropriate color and number of beads, cut your pipecleaner, leaving a little bit at the end to twist into another loop.  So far I’ve made 2 of each bar from 1 to 9, and 20 golden (in this case, clear with gold glitter) 10-bead bars.   This should get us pretty far in our lessons.  These took about an hour to make one afternoon.  I’ve also made my own number cards and teen board, and then found them already online in a printable version on this site. Go to the middle of the page to find the link for printing Teen and Ten boards.

I will not try to explain the procedures for the lessons with the number cards and the boards, but if you are interested, I have found great videos here, here, and here.    

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Math Printables

I’m in an ocean of cardstock, printer ink, and laminating pouches here.  And, for the most part, I’m loving it!  Never fear, I am planning lots of fun, active, non-paper activities to do with M this fall, but still… a girl needs a reason to use her laminator, right? ;)

The first printable is a set of autumn-themed playdough number mats.  A long enough title, no?  These are for help in learning numeral formation, practicing counting, and developing fine motor skills.  Laminate them (or put them in page protectors, which is probably what I’ll do) and then use with playdough.  Roll “snakes” to form the numerals, and roll “balls” to place on the objects on each page.  As the number gets higher the circles get smaller, so those fine motor skills get a good workout.

Autumn Number Play-doh Mats

 

Also, I made this quick little chart to count with and introduce graphing.  Place small items – beans, plastic counters, little stickers – in the boxes below each number.  The number of items placed should match the number at the top of the column.  Make sure to have 55 little items available as a control of error.  The child should have just enough to complete the grid.  M has already been doing this – once with beans and once with Tigger stickers. :)  He loves it and loves pointing out that stairs or a triangle (or a piece of pizza, as he says) are formed when the page is finished.

Number Stamping Chart 1-10

Have a beautiful day! :)

Preschool Corner / Weekly Wrap-Up – July 9, 2010

This is the last preschool post for a while…  M is not excited about much that’s been out for him lately and I need to take a break and rethink some things.  And, well, it is summer. :)  So this wrap-up is for a few things we’ve done that he’s actually enjoyed over the past several weeks.

Math Skills:
I made some quick number cards and we used them with these little number rods I found at a thrift store:We did them in a very Montessori-ish way, going slowly and making sure to count each section of each rod, then naming the number of both the rod and the card.  M seemed to respond well to having “rules” for doing this.


Then we made a triangle with them:Unfortunately I didn’t get a full set of the number rods.  I plan on making some Montessori bead bars so we can continue this kind of activity with 10’s and 100’s. 

M worked on his fine motor skills, lining up flat glass marbles on craft sticks numbered 1 to 6 (then he lost interest):

Literacy Skills:
At Michael’s they have small painted wooden pieces for 25 cents each.  I picked up a handful and we’ve been using them to make up stories (this fabulous idea came from Jill at The Shafer Family): We use them in a variety of ways – sometimes one person begins with a piece and then the next person adds a piece and a bit of the story and so on.  Sometimes M just wants me to make up a story with all the pieces (or Daddy, who is a master storyteller!).  Sometimes we close our eyes and pick one piece out of a container and have to make up a story as we go along.  We’ll also be using these for phonics sorting.

I put our pipe cleaner letters out with a pan of flour for M one morning.  He spent a good 20 minutes running his fingers over the pipe cleaners and then drawing the letters in the flour.  The flour is so soft and cool – I think he really enjoyed this!

Fine Motor Skills:
M sorted seashells in a tray with tongs (idea from No Time for Flashcards):

He practiced some folding skills with his new Kumon First Book of Folding:

Then we worked on more folding and taping skills to make these cute little puppets from a recent issue of High Five:
And M used a small spoon to put marbles into this tray:   He LOVED this, which was a bit of a surprise to me (not sure why).  The tray is from some old board game of my husband’s.  I love how the clear blue marbles shine when the light hits them just right.

Sensory:
This sensory bin was another morning activity (planned to give me a few minutes of peace in the mornings).  M had a blast with it.  I put some water in a tub, and added a few drops of dish soap.  I added in a whisk, a baster, a strainer, and some small scoops:
It didn’t take long for the whisk to whip up some bubbles:
Finally, I gave him a straw and he had a lot of fun blowing into the water to make very big bubbles:  

Science:
One day I found M in his room with my set of small screwdrivers, taking apart flashlights and anything else he could think of. :)  He is definitely a budding scientist or engineer.

Creative Play:
For your amusement, here’s some self-portraits taken by M with my camera (I didn’t know about these until I uploaded the pics):   
I’m linking this up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out for some great school posts!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Preschool Corner / Weekly Wrap-Up – Bugs!

We finished our bug unit a couple of weeks ago, but… life intervened and I haven’t had a chance to write it all up until now. 

I use the term “bugs” to mean any creepy crawly thing, so although we talked about how spiders are not really insects, we still included quite a few spider-ish activities. 

I wrote about the bug books we read in this post,  and a couple of bug crafts we did here and here, in case anyone is interested. :)

To begin, I set up a sensory bin that was full of Easter grass, and hid 20 plastic bugs in it.  M had to find them, then use the tweezers to pick them out and place them on the grid.  I also had his little bug viewer out in case he wanted to examine some of them more closely.  (The grid was used so he would know when he had found all the bugs).M has been using his bug viewer (Target!) quite a bit outside – capturing bugs and them looking at them.  I’m… let’s say – not exactly a bug person… and somehow I always end up worrying about them escaping and getting on me and forget to take pictures.  But, believe me, M has spent plenty of time outside looking and learning about real bugs (even telling caterpillars that they are going to turn into butterflies – so sweet!), there just aren’t many photos to prove it. :)

We talked about the names of the various insects, then sorted them by color onto a color wheel:
For a fine motor skill, I showed M how to wrap bugs up in yarn… like a spider wraps them up in order to save them for eating later.  He had so much fun with this!  He had a little spider web and a plastic spider from a community center activity we’d done recently.   So he played for a very long time, pretending a bug would get in the web, then he’d wrap it up, then along would come the spider and eat them all up.  It was getting pretty gory, let me tell you, and M had a ball with this ! :)
At our nature center M did some pond dipping with the other kids… using a net to scoop up interesting things and then examining them in a bowl.  My pictures weren’t great, but he caught a damselfly, a dragonfly nymph, and a tiny snail, along with lots of plant life:      We also saw this lovely spiderweb, which fascinated him: 
I found an amazing bug book at a garage sale over a year ago.  It includes a tray of bug parts that snap onto each page.  You can create the bugs that are described, or use the pieces to make a weird bug creation all your own.  M had a blast with this book!
I’ve also been holding onto some beautiful bug flashcards I found about a year ago.  Here’s a sampling of them:
There’s 36 in all, and I have 2 sets.  I split them in half and placed 18 of them in a circle on the floor around the room.  The matching cards were placed in a pile.  He took a card from the top of the pile and had to find its match, by moving the way that particular bug moves, as he went around the room.  So here he is hopping like a grasshopper:
Crawling like a spider:
Wriggling like a worm or caterpillar:
And flying like a butterfly (with a bit less gracefulness) :He really worked up a sweat with this one!  But he had so much fun, he begged to do the remaining 18 the next day! :)  If only I could think of activities like this for everything we do… he is such a kinesthetic learner, and I am such a non-kinesthetic kind of mama.  {sigh}

I found some storyboard pieces here that go with the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle.  I made them into magnets and M had fun retelling the story with them. 
I made a file folder game, inspired by this one at Mama Jenn’s blog, but using butterflies from Prekinders that I had already printed out. 
The idea was to match up the halves.  We talked about how butterflies are symmetric, meaning each wing is a mirror image of the other.  M understood this, but was completely NOT into this activity.  I’m not sure if the more muted colors were not to his liking, or if it was a bit overwhelming – it is a pretty tough visual discrimination activity, with many looking almost alike, but not quite.  Or maybe he’s just tired of this sort of thing. 

He loves doing “what’s different” activities, so I made up these little cards for him  (you can download them here):They were laminated, so he could use a dry-erase marker and erase them – something everyone loves, right? ;)

I put these little foam capsules out for him and he enjoyed watching them open up in warm water.  This time we used pretty hot water and he took them out with tongs.  They dissolved so much more quickly than they have in the past with only lukewarm water.   These were all bug-shaped and we identified each one, then made them into stamps by gluing them onto peanut butter lids.
We played some basic grid games using bug grids that I made and printed out.  These can be downloaded here.  These are great for math and reading skills!  Going from left to right and top to bottom mimics the movement of reading.  He loves doing these – we just roll the die and stamp out that number of bugs.
I found the following two activities online, and thought they were great ideas.  M did not like them.  Not one little bit.  Maybe he wasn’t in the mood, I don’t know, but they were huge flops! However, I still think they are good ideas so I’m sharing them anyway. :)

First, a ladybug visual discrimination activity from Making Learning Fun:
And a phonics activity from Sparklebox, using caterpillars.  I wrote all the letters of the alphabet on 26 flat glass marbles from Dollar Tree, and the idea was to match them up to the beginning sound of the objects pictured on each caterpillar section :
Look at that face… bored out of his mind! :)  Oh well, I try to not let this kind of reaction discourage me.  Writing these posts helps with that, because I can see how many things he really enjoyed and learned!

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up – check them both out for some great activity ideas!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Preschool Corner / Weekly Wrap-Up - Dinosaurs

Goodness, we did our dinosaur theme way back in February, and I am just now getting around to writing about it.  I’m sure I’m not going to remember everything we did.

Some of the activities for this theme were homemade, because I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for online (or anywhere else for that matter) for a reasonable price… meaning free. ;)  My drawing skills leave a lot to be desired, but I am sharing the printables I made anyway, in case they meet a need for someone else, or give a better artist than I an idea of something to make!  I’ve linked to them where appropriate.

I’ve tried to organize the activities by skill set, but many of them overlap, so bear with me!

First, Sensory:
I put together a little rice and noodles sensory bin for M and placed some of his toy dinos in it along with some scoops.  He had fun just playing with them.

Math Skills:
We worked on counting with this printout from Prekinders.  I wrote in the numerals and the dots and M counted them, then matched them up. 

I also pulled out this dinosaur and egg file folder game that I made a long time ago (from here), for some easy color matching:

I turned two boxes into Triceratops and we took turns rolling the die, then feeding our dinos leaves with the tweezers.  The first to run out of leaves was the winner.  M really enjoyed this one!

He was just beginning to show an interest in measuring, so we measured dinosaur bones!  I had him mark the correct answer with a paperclip for fine motor work.

He always enjoys the shape crafts I’ve made for him.  This little Stegosaurus turned out awfully cute. :) 
And we sorted some little dinosaur cut outs by color:  
Fine Motor Skills:
M used a q-tip to paint the tiny dots on this page from Making Learning Fun:

I printed out some shapes (one is a dino, the others were just for fun) from Preschool Express.  To do this activity, M poked push pins into the cork board along the outlines on each paper.  This is a great workout for that tripod grasp.

And he did a dinosaur lacing carhttp://www.scribd.com/full/32089331?access_key=key-13l1pf4kzdo43w4xs505d:
Sorry I don’t have pictures of the finished work for some of these!

Literacy Skills:
We stamped out big and little letters on these dinosaur sheets from Prekinders.  I put a variety of upper and lower case letters in a pillowcase and we took turns pulling one out then finding it on the pages and stamping it out. 

And we put together upper and lower case letters on dinosaur puzzles.  I made these and despite the poor artwork, M really enjoyed this.  It was good for working on that mama and baby letter matching as well as reviewing the names of some dinosaurs.

Art and Poetry:
M used his toy dinos to make some dinosaur footprint art.  Some trucks got in on the action too. :)

I found a cute dinosaur poem from here and made some little stick puppets to use while we say it.  This is a great poem for working on ordinal numbers.

Science:
I found this very informative, albeit somewhat dry, little book about dinosaurs at Target.  We looked through it and talked about how some dinosaurs were plant eaters and some were meat eaters.  Then we matched up some of M’s toy dinos with the pictures in the book and talked about their long funny names.  It’s so cute to hear him say brachiosaurus and stegosaurus. :)

The following was not really a science activity, although we did use it to review the names of dinosaurs.  I noticed that M had many sets of matching dinos in his enormous box full of dinos.  So I set some up on one side of the room, and put the matches on the other end.  M had to pick one up and look at it, then set it down and run to the other side of the room to find its match.  This worked on memory skills, matching skills, and was just a good large motor workout.  He loved this!  
I found some life cycle cards here, and wanted M to sequence them.  He had a bit of trouble with this so I quickly made some numbered squares for him to use.  Somehow this helped and he was able to describe the sequence perfectly!

And, last of all, we had fun killing off dinosaurs with molten lava in a volcano. :)  The things I find myself doing (and having fun doing) as the mom of a little boy never cease to amaze me.
Stay tuned for a post about the dinosaur books we loved!

I’ll be linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up – check them both out for some great activity ideas!

Have a beautiful day! :)