A Glittery Fun Math Work

I recently introduced this Kindergarten Math Activity Bag to E(4), and she LOVES it!


E(4) was dressed as a "Princess Ballerina" on the first day that she did this work, and she thought this was the perfect work for a Princess Ballerina.


E(4) counts the beads as she slides them onto the appropriate pipe cleaner.  While she's learning to count and identify numbers, she's also developing hand/eye coordination and fine motor control.  Best of all, she's having FUN!

Mailbox Math

Whenever we go for walks in the girls' grandparents neighborhood, we always have fun playing mailbox math.  It's pretty simple...they excitedly run from one mailbox to the next.  O(6) reads the numbers and/or adds the numbers together.  E(3) identifies the individual numbers.  E is always so excited when she sees a 3...she says "That's MY number!"

Measuring a Growing Skeleton

Since we've been studying the human skeleton, I bought this growing skeleton for the girls (from Michaels).  There's lots of math involved in this simple activity!


We measured the skeleton before putting him in a bowl of water to grow.  We each made predictions about how much we thought he would grow. He grew 1 inch in 2 days, so O(6) figured out how much he grew each day.  She then figured out how many days it would take him to grow 6 inches.  Fun! 

Math Manipulatives Exploration

We started our first morning of homeschooling with free exploration of math manipulatives!  Fun!  We all LOVED playing with our new balance.  Both girls have always loved the geoboard, and they really enjoyed working on it on our 1st morning of homeschool, too.  I had fun playing with the plastic square manipulatives, and both girls liked the cuisenaire rods.  I can tell that we are going to have LOTS of math fun this school year!

Sequencing Hearts by Size

I was SO excited when I saw this set of heart cookie cutters for just one dollar at Dollar General!  They are perfect for toddler activities!  E(2) puts them in order from smallest to largest.  We talk about which one is small and which one is the largest.  She hands me the ones that I ask for, and her favorite...naming them with our names.  The smallest heart is E, then O, and on and on.

She enjoys putting them back in order within themselves, but it was a challenge in this rounded bowl.







So, I moved them to a flat container in order to ease her frustration and to help her be successful.

Kindergarten Activity Bag...Math!

I made this super fun math activity bag for O(5) before our vacation a few months ago, and she LOVES it!






To make this activity, I hot glued plastic number tiles to glittery pipe cleaners.  Then I put the appropriate number of beads into a collapsible container (it came in an Easter egg dyeing kit) and added in a glittery piece of felt to use as a work space.

To complete the activity, O puts the appropriate number of beads on each pipe cleaner.  This is not only great math practice, but it's also good for developing hand/eye coordination and fine motor control.





After she finishes putting the beads on the pipe cleaners, she puts the numbers in numerical order.





Then she can create simple addition and subtraction math problems.





This is the perfect car and plane activity for my math girl!

The idea for this activity came from here!

A Review of Icosoku Jr.

I am excited to review our first item for the Timberdoodle Blogger Review Team! I LOVE browsing the Timberdoodle catalog and website, so I'm thrilled to be a part of their review team.

Our first item that we are reviewing is the Icosoku Jr. I've been reading about the Icosoku for more than a year, but I didn't think O(5) was ready for it. So, I was very excited to see the Icosoku Jr come AND even more excited that Timberdoodle sent us one to review!

I put the Icosoku Jr. in a basket with the triangle pieces off, so that it is ready at all times :) To play the Icosoku Jr. you randomly place the number buttons on the ball, and then match the dotted tiles to the buttons. This is harder than it looks, but it's lots of fun!

O calls herself a "mathematician," so she was initially thrilled with the Icosoku. I explained what to do, but then I left her alone to finish the puzzle. She was easily frustrated with me not right there to help her. Since then we've played with the Icosoku Jr. together many, many times, and now she says she "LOVES it!"

Now that she has gained confidence in herself, she enjoys it more and plays it more independently.

This is a great travel puzzle (game, toy,...whatever you want to call it), and I'm looking forward to taking it with us on our upcoming vacation.

While E(2) is much too young to understand the number concepts on the Icosoku Jr., she really enjoys snapping the number buttons and tiles into place. I watch her VERY closely because it wouldn't surprise me if she decided to put a number button in her mouth.


This is a great fine motor excercise for both girls, and they are fine tuning their concentration skills and their ability to pay attention to details as well. O also is working on her addition and logic skills. So many things are going on when completing this puzzle... You can watch a video demonstrating the Icosoku here.

Timberdoodle sent the Icosoku Jr. to review at no cost to me. I was not paid for this review, and the opinions expressed are my own.

Simple Addition Power Tower

Here's another idea from Pinterest! O(5) LOVES math, so I was thrilled to see these Power Towers for simple addition on Pinterest.

The Power Towers were so easy and inexpensive to put together, and O LOVES them! I printed the Power Tower label on photo paper and glued it to a Pringles container using scrapbook glue. While I was doing that, my mom was writing simple addition problems on the bottoms of Dixie cups. She wrote the answers inside the cup, so that O can check her work.

We took turns solving the addition problems and stacking the dixie cups. The best part (according to O!) was knocking the tower down.

I love the smile on her face in this one! This girl loves to learn!

Tonight during supper, I reminded the girls that tomorrow is Saturday, and I asked "Do you know what that means?" (I was trying to get them excited about sleeping late!) O says with a smile "No school for me, and no homeschool for E(2)...but I'll probably do some schoolwork anyway!"