School Time Adventures

WARNING: I am officially on a huge felt kick. I now have my 1980s felt board I made by hot gluing felt to cardboard, and a whole bunch of felt ready to be made into fun projects!

I made these really easy ladybugs for practicing number recognition and counting.

Bad idea to take a picture of them on a black table :( 

I tried to lighten the pictures the best I could.

Cut out a red oval and black semi-circle head.

Use puffy paint to make the #, and tacky glue to stick the head onto the body.

(Do you remember the glow-in-the-dark puffy paint back in the early 90s? 

That stuff was the best!)

I made 6 ladybugs for now..

I am really excited to make more felt activities, stories, and crafts,
so stay tuned for the fun felt frenzy!

I found these lovely decorations last night in my box of random stuff. The key to using your box of random stuff is to have a husband that makes you throw out stuff every so often :) So we did pattern sequencing, number recognition, my favorite game of "pick a card any card" to match the appropriate number with the correct number of objects and to my surprise we did addition!

Pattern sequencing..

This was just a pattern with 2 objects: sombrero & chili pepper

The whole sequence

Pattern sequencing with 3 objects: 

sombrero, chili pepper & maraca

 The complete sequence 

I then put 2 number cards on the table and asked River to put the correct number of objects in a row

3 &4

2&5

(River thought it was funny to put the objects upside next to the 2.)

We then played "pick a card any card"...

I went first holding the cards and River went second.

(The person holding the cards is singing the "pick a card" song the whole time!)

Then once you pick out your card you need to put the appropriate objects with your number.

We were still having a fun time doing math (probably because we were singing the whole time) that I tried something new. Lately River has been counting in groups instead of the larger number. For example we put 12 walnuts into the egg carton and instead of counting to 12 he counted to 6 twice. So I say something like, "Yes, that's right, 6 +6 equals 12. There are 12 walnuts in this egg carton." Even though I am a little frustrated that he didn't just count to 12...but today I was so happy that we were able to make some bigger connections. 

I started with having 2 maracas and 2 chili peppers and asked "How many objects do I have in my hands? And River said, "Two and two makes four". I couldn't believe it! I tried a few more and he answered correctly each time. Until the 6th problem then he was done, but I was so excited that he was able to make bigger connections. (I even went to the local education store yesterday to buy some new materials to help encourage him to count the larger number, instead of breaking it up.)