Helping you be your child's first teacher with creative, intentional parenting
Hello Friends,
I’m just posting a quick blog to let you know that I’m going to take a week or so off from my computer (GASP!). We’re planning a Spring Break adventure with our kids and I’m feeling the nudge to unplug for awhile. Have you ever been there?
Please stop back after Easter! May your Resurrection Sunday be blessed!
Growing up, whenever grandma came to visit we’d play Rummikub. The tiles were smooth and white and reminded me of the blocks of white chocolate that TV chefs used for Christmas desserts.
After our daughter was born, I was still in the hospital on our wedding anniversary. My husband and I lifted the lid on our battered blue box and balanced tiles on the rolling meal tray, playing “best of 5″ together.
And a couple of years ago when dates were expensive and babysitters rare, we had a running total going all summer long, carefully balancing our runs and melds on top of our living room ottoman while the wind blew through our open windows.
So when I had the opportunity to teach our children, of course I was thrilled. But as we played, I found a few reasons to consider Rummikub more than a game. It became an exercise in math.
While this post is not intended to explain the rules of the game, it is meant to help you see how it can be used to supplement and support math skills at home.
Here are 5 ways to make your playing time count!
What games do you use to help reinforce math at home?
With our kids only just hitting mid-elemenary school, there haven’t been an abundance of opportunities to help them with homework as of yet. But last night our moment arrived: my son asked me to help him unscramble some sentences.
Sounds like fun, I thought. And it was!…until we got stuck on nearly every a few of them.
After verbally trying to work through the confusion together, we decided we needed another way. We needed to see the words and physically move them around so they made sense.
Here’s what we came up with (excuse the poor photos–the battery on our regular camera died!):
1. Write each word on a separate post-it note
2. Work together to physically move the words around until they make sense.
3. Write down your sentence!
Even if your child doesn’t come home with this homework assignment, it’s a great activity for your young readers and writers to order sentences. Why not think of a few of your own to try? OR, download my FREE practice page!
FREE DOWNLOAD!
For PDF of unscrambled activity:
If you need to exhale, and in turn, to breathe a little more deeply, please meet me over on Girl Meets Paper for a “Quiet Weekend Moment.”
~ ~ ~
PS: Last weekend I heard my link wasn’t working…please let me know if you encounter a problem!
Today was a cleaning and organizing and purging day at our house (good times)! Tucked in at the bottom of a pile of “keepers” was this poem, once a fixture on our refrigerator. Even though we can’t snuggle and bake cookies and live blissfully every day, I still love the intent and sentiment of expressed; hope you do, too.
Just for this morning, I am going to smile when I see your face and laugh when I feel like crying.
Just for this morning, I will let you choose what you want to wear, and smile and say how perfect it is.
Just for this morning, I am going to step over the laundry, and pick you up and take you to the park to play.
Just for this morning, I will leave the dishes in the sink and let you teach me how to put that puzzle of yours together.
Just for this afternoon, I will unplug the telephone and keep the computer off, and sit with you in the backyard and blow bubbles.
Just for this afternoon, I will not yell once, not even a tiny grumble when you scream and whine for the ice cream truck, and I will buy you one if he comes by.
Just for this afternoon, I won’t worry about what you are going to be when you grow uo, or second guess every decision I have made where you are concerned.
Just for this afternoon, I will let you help me bake cookies, and I won’t stand over you trying to fix them.
Just for this afternoon, I will take us to McDonald’s and buy us both a Happy Meal so you can have both toys.
Just for this evening, I will hold you in my arms and tell you a story about how you were born and how much I love you.
Just for this evening, I will let you splash in the tub and not get angry.
Just for this evening, I will let you stay up late while we sit on the porch and count all the stars.
Just for this evening, I will snuggle beside you for hours, and miss my favorite TV shows.
Just for this evening when I run my finger through your hair as you pray:
I will simply be gratefull that God has given me the greatest gift ever given.
I will think about the mothers and fathers who are searching for their missing children,
…the mothers and fathers who are visiting their children’s graves instead of their bedrooms,
…and the mothers and fathers who are in hospital rooms watching their children suffer senselessly, and screaming inside that they can’t handle it anymore.
And when I kiss you good night I will hold you a little tighter, a little longer.
It is then, that I will thank God for you, and ask him for nothing, except one more day…
Unfortunately I don’t have a source or an author, but my quick Google search suggests it may be Sally Meyer (copyright 1999).
On a recent stop to our mall’s non-franchise toy store, I found a couple of items that I knew needed a new home with our family. Admittedly, I get that feeling a lot, but when it’s coupled with an opportunity to learn, it’s a battle to not reach for my wallet.
Today I want to share with you one of my finds: a set of “story dice” that you can literally roll out for your next writing lesson or hilarious family story time. Winner of 2010′s Oppenheim Toy Gold Seal for “Best Toy,“ Story Cubes are nine dice adorned with illustrations rather than numbers or dots. The idea is that you will construct a story using all objects on the dice to form a coherent story.
While not complex, you should know that these illustrations do require some thinking. Rather than offering pictures of dogs and kittens, the words are a bit higher level. For example, it does require some concentration and imagination to combine “keyhole” with “forest”.
So if your children are a bit older and ready for something beyond Candy Land, this game may be for you! Check it out!
We’ve been fans of Seeds Worship CDs for many years and Christmas seemed like the perfect time to expand our inventory. What better gift than further planting the word of God in the hearts of our kids? Our gang will each be receiving a new CD in their stockings on Christmas morning.
Seeds began when worship leader Jason Houser was asked by his church to create some catchy tunes for his church’s summer Bible school program. What resulted was a collection of songs straight from Scripture that grown-ups liked as much as the kids. That small “seed” has grown into a company that has now produced six albums — all helping you and your family hide the Word of God in your hearts.
This season of Advent is a special one for preparing young hearts (and middle-aged ones) for the coming of the Christ child. In past years our family did not do much on our own besides reading the story the birth of Jesus, but this year I’m trying to be a bit more intentional.
I found this great little booklet that was given to me some time ago and decided to make it our family devotional after dinner each night. Published by Zondervan, The Christmas Story from The Family Reading Bible is divided into 20 brief meditations that lead the reader from the promise given to David in 2 Samuel, to the writing of the Prophet Isaiah, and then finally to the New Testament events of God coming to dwell with his people.
I appreciate that this book includes some talking points at the end of each reading. For example:
Yesterday morning as I preened in the mirror, my youngest son walked around our bedroom happily collecting dad’s piles of dirty clothes.
Yes. We have piles this week.
As he lifted up a pair of pants, coins rattled and tumbled to the floor; to his delight, he scooped them up and placed them on the counter next to my make-up and hairspray.
That’s when the lightbulbs went off!
As a kindergartner, M has some exposure to money, however adding sums and computing amounts past $1 is something we’re still working on. So we spent five or ten minutes with dad’s pocket change and he was thrilled to be doing “big kid” math.
SOME IDEAS FOR YOU:
How many quarters make 75¢?
How much would you have if I took one quarter away?
Can you show me 41¢? [again, with few coins there is only one way to achieve this, thus, less confusion]
What coin would you add to this quarter to make 30¢?
Can you figure out how to make 16¢?
My son felt such a sense of accomplishment and I felt less guilty for taking extra time on my eye shadow application.
In just five minutes—with money you found on your floor or in your couch cushions—you can do something fun and productive with your little one!
What is a fun money activity you’ve tried at home?
…apparently starts in a treehouse!
I found this paper lying in a pile of after-school cast-offs produced by my daughter and her friends, and just thought it was so cute.
Forget the Christmas list this year–just build a tree house and fit your tree with a sturdy tire swing. Apparently, it’s the recipe for backyard fun!
Enjoy your weekend 
