School Success

We had  a busy week at school, mainly due to the extra work I added.  This week Branna's regular math topic was fractions.  How can you not have alot of manipulatives and hands on work when talking about fractions? Fortunately, I found a really good set of games and activities which saved me a ton of prep time.  And even better, Branna enjoyed them!

A couple of her favorite things included fraction pizzas

and making a fraction-pillar.

Atlie's "Tot School" activities went really good, too.  A few things we had for the week was a "Tame the Tiger" game, magnetic pompoms activities, and coloring sorting work.

"Tame the Tiger" was a simple activity (to do and to make), but it was a big hit.  I simply cut an opening that was big enough to fit a pompom through in an tiger-face plate.  To "tame" the tiger, she had to "feed" it pompoms.

Originally, I had corresponding color/number cards.  My thought was that she would draw a card and feed the tiger that many pompoms of the given color. (I.e. If she drew a purple 2, she would give the tiger two purple pompoms.)  She did this at first, but in the end just wanted to put as many pompoms as should into the at once.  We'll try the numbers again later.

The magnetic pompoms were pretty fun for her too.  That is after the initial fun of pulling off the magnetics...

This was also easy to put together.  I cut a magnetic strip (with an adhesive backing) into small pieces and stuck it on the pompoms.  (The adhesive ended up not being durable enough to survive Atlie, so I need to go back and use hot glue.)

I printed off pages from Making Learning Fun, placed it on a metal cooking sheet I got at the Dollar Tree, and viola!

I also made a coloring sort sheet.  It could be used for lots of activities, but since we were working with pompoms, that's what we used.

A few other short activities she did was using colored chalk on black paper,

playing with Aladdin magnets (I found these on the Disney website and printed them off on magnetic paper)

and we brought out the felt pizza from last week.

But, I think Atlie's favorite activity and the one that held her attention the longest was using circle stickers on alphabet pages.

She still has lots free play (coloring, reading books, etc), but I'm excited that I'm finally getting an arsenal of activities for Atlie.  This week's tot school includes matching games and more letter letter identification.

Lastly, Branna has been working on time.  I introduced it a few weeks ago in school and her and Branyon have continued practicing during their morning lessons. To help her get a better grasp on the subject, I made this flower clock.  I came across the idea and thought it was a great idea for our classroom!

Tot School Time

We've started back to school again after our Christmas break.  One of my goals during this semester of school was to find things more constructive and learning activities for Atlie.

I've taken a few ideas from other homeschooling blogs, but haven't been consistent with it.  Another issue for me is time.  I don't mind spending some time getting things together for Atlie, but it's frustrating to spend an afternoon on something that she ends up not being interested in or only spends 5 minutes doing.  So, I've been collecting ideas that are easy for me to construct and that I think will keep Atlie busy... at least for a little bit.

This week, we had felt pizzas and button snakes.  The felt pizzas were super easy to make.  First I cut out a dough-colored circle and glued it to a firm piece of paper.  Next I cut out toppings: tomato sauce, mushrooms, ham, pepperoni, black olives, and green peppers.  As you can see, Branna enjoyed it just as much (if not more than) Atlie.

The button snakes took a little more time to make than the pizzas, mainly because there was alot cutting, but they were still relatively easy to make.  After cutting out shapes (I did squares, rectangles, and triangles) and cutting a slit in the middle of each, I sewed one felt piece to the end of a piece of ribbon and a button to the other end.
The ideas is to thread each felt piece on the button and down the ribbon.  This activity didn't interest Atlie quite as much, but I think it was because I called them "snakes".  Maybe I'll bring them back out in a few weeks and call them "worms" instead.

And of course, we still fall back on the usual free play.  Here is Dr. Atlie making a very careful examination...

... and the girls painting.  (Branna's picture is of her dog, Cooper.)

My projects for next week's Atlie Tot School include magnetic letter fishing and color matching activities.  What are your favorite Tot activities?