Math Pop!! (or making flashcards fun)

There are some things in life that are not much fun but must be done.  That's what I tell my kids.  One of those non-fun necessities in the life of a child is memorizing the multiplication table.  Yes, you can skip count, but future math problems will be so much easier if the answers to multiplication problems are readily available.  While I was dragging my son through his latest set of flashcards and wondering if we would ever get through them, I had a bit of inspiration on how to make them more fun.

I had seen an idea on Pinterest from giverslog.com where they had made a bubble wrap hopscotch gift to send in the mail.  I thought, "How fun! What kid doesn't like jumping on bubble wrap?"  This came to mind as I was puzzling over how to make our drill work more fun, and I thought "I should put the answers under bubble wrap and have him jump on the right one!"  It was a hit.

I cut squares of bubble wrap (I used the large bubbled kind because it makes a louder "pop") and wrote the answers to some of the multiplication problems we were practicing on pieces of paper.  I scattered the answers around the room and taped down a piece of bubble wrap on top of them.  After I explained the game to him, we practiced the flash cards one time so they would be fresh in his mind.  I called out multiplication problems, he called out the answer, found it on the floor, and jumped on it.  The next time through we used a timer to see how fast he could do it.  Then we did it again to see if he could beat his time - much more fun than sitting still and drilling.  He thought we should call the game "math pop", so we did.  We made up our own rules.  After he yelled out the answer, I was supposed to yell "pop it!" and he would go jump on it.  I was not supposed to say the next problem until I heard a good 'pop'.  Games you make up together are always more fun.

Joshua getting the playing field ready

With the toddler, I put colored pieces of construction paper under the bubble wrap and told him jump on the color I yelled out. He said "No mommy.  I stomp!"  Okay.  That works too.  After he stomped for a while, he decided it would be more fun to run and jump.  He did slip a few times when he started that, because the bubble wrap can slip even when taped down, but he would just stand up and laugh and say "I okay, mommy. I okay."  The older kids didn't have a problem though.  

For the 5 year old who is learning to read, I wrote letters on paper to put under the bubble wrap.  I would say something like "what letter does the word 'ball' start with?" and he would say "B!", find the letter, and pop it.  

This idea can be modified for so many different subjects.  What about writing out the continents, saying a country, and having the child jump on the continent where you would find that country? You could play this game to practice letter recognition, sight words, number recognition, math computation, states and capitals, musical terms, and any other thing your child needs to work on.

We had scattered the answers all around the room so there would be lots of moving (kids just need to move, don't they?), but you could also play with the answers all in a row or in a square to make it easier for the kids to find the answers at first.  When they were more familiar with the answers you could spread them out a bit more.

If you have more than one child working on the same things, you can always make it competitive and see who can pop the answer first.  Or you can split into teams and have one child from each team be racing to pop the answer first.  Just some thoughts.

My kids really enjoy playing this game during school time.  When we're done, we just stack the bubble wrap in a pile to use another day.

So, there you go.  Next time you have some flashcards to do with your child, think about adding a little fun to it.

Phew. That was a long post.  I need a nap. 

Video Game Day

Sometimes I get worn out with homeschooling.  I get tired of fighting with the kids (mainly 1) to do all their (his) work and sometimes I'm not feeling excited about homeschooling by the end of the day.

That's when I know it's time for a theme day.

I throw theme days in every now and then just to keep things enjoyable for me.  I usually go a website called holiday insights.  On this site, they have every strange holiday for the month listed. For example, did you know that today (September 17th) is constitution day, citizenship day, and National Apple Dumpling Day?  I try to find some fun looking days for us to take a break from the normal routine.

Last Wednesday, the website told me it was National Video Game Day.  I thought the boys would like that one, so we had a fun theme day.

Joshua woke up very excited to start his school work, because he knew somewhere during the day we would play video games.  We started with journaling. He wrote in his journal about his favorite video game and drew a picture.

For Joshua's math, I made up some video game word problems.

For Christopher, I made an easy to read story about Mario.

We also made a video game snack.  We spread frosting on a graham cracker and then added junior mint and mini m&m buttons and a starburst arrow pad that I cut with scissors to make our own edible wii remotes.

Joshua tried using his to play the wii.  Silly Boy.  

After snack we went outside for some physical education.  We played "Don't wake Bowser" in the backyard, a game we invented together.  The person who was Bowser stood by a tree with his back turned, holding a red bouncy ball.  The others went and tapped him on the shoulder, waking him up, at which point Bowser would give chase and try to tag someone with the red ball, aka "fireball".  Whoever was tagged with the fireball was Bowser next.

And of course, we played lots of video games together.  All in all, a very fun day.

Nathan especially loved playing "Just Dance Kids"

Of course, the kids don't really know whether or not it is the kind of day you say it is, so you could pretty much do any theme day any day that you like.

And just so you know, officially this coming wednesday (sept. 19th) is National Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Now that is one you do not want to miss.

Chicken Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Nathan!

Many weeks back I was sitting around the table during lunch with my kids and the topic of birthday parties came up.  Nathan's birthday was the next in line so the kids were asking him what kind of party he wanted.  Did he want a pirate party?  A train party? Muppets? Cars?  He listened quietly and then sat up and said "I know!  I know!  A chicken party!!"  Seriously, is it any wonder this child is my favorite? That is, of course, if parents had favorite children, which they don't, but he might be high on the list if there was such a list,  but of course I don't have a favorite.

For the next month Nathan told people that he was going to have a chicken party and he's been very excited about it.  I started looking around on the internet to get some ideas.

Turns out that not many people have chicken themed parties.  Weird.

Here are some of the things we came up with for our chicken baby's chicken party.

We started with a rousing game of "Duck, Duck, Chicken", but it was hard for the new 3 year old to remember to say "chicken" instead of "goose".

We followed that with a round of "Musical Nests".  Turns out this isn't a great game to play with a 3 year old.  He didn't see why he had to sit out and why someone else was sitting on his "nest", so we abandoned it and instead just danced the chicken dance.  The kids liked that a lot.

Next we did an "egg and spoon" race with some plastic eggs.  The kids got in 2 lines and we did it relay style.  Funnily, my 3 year old dropped the egg fewer times than my 9 year old.  He's got skills.

The last game we did was "hatch the egg".  I had put some little erasers inside some white balloons and the kids had to sit on them and pop the balloons to get them out.

We then had chicken cake and ice cream.

I had found a really cute chicken cake I tried to copy from here, and as you can see, I didn't make it nearly as cute.  It looked like she had used coconut to make her chicken look fluffy.  I do not like coconut, so I tried using grated white chocolate.  It's okay.  I also made a chocolate chicken cake, just because.

As our cousins left, Nathan passed out the chicken party bags.  The party bags had a cookie, some chicken feed (candy corn), some farm foam stickers, and an egg shaker which I had originally planned to have the kids shake to music during the party.

Some other chicken games we had thought of but didn't end up playing include:

hiding easter eggs and having kids find them and put them in the nest

doing scratch art

tossing (candy) corn into a chicken cutout mouth

playing "fox and chickens"

First Day of School 2012

We started homeschool with the boys officially on August 15th, the same day that Maren started 4th grade at her new school.

The night before school we had a special family night to talk about school and the importance of learning and being a good friend.  The kids had all dressed in their pajamas from Christmas for some reason.  Here they are showing off their "Super Siblings" poses.

It was rather a hectic morning on the 15th since we didn't know how long it would take with school traffic to get Maren to her new school.  We got her up early early, had a special breakfast, and were about to go, but she didn't want to leave without watching the boys open their books.

We have a tradition where I wrap up the new school books and school supplies and put them in their backpacks/desks for the first day of school.  It makes the first day a bit more exciting for the homeschooled kids.

The boys were very excited to unwrap the books.  I usually include one little just for fun thing too.  This year Christopher got some angry bird pencils and erasers and Joshua got a little desktop basketball game.

The opening set us back a bit, and we rushed to take a first day of school picture and get in the van. I didn't take the boys' pictures because I figured I would do it when we got home.  I never did.  I still haven't.  Maybe we'll take the 10th day of school pictures.

super sibling poses again 

The traffic was horrendous. I have since learned to use back streets to get down to her school, but it took us a good 40 minutes that first morning to get there.  I thought I'd have time to get her to her classroom, help her get settled, take a picture and say goodbye.  Instead, we entered the building just as the bell rang, ran up to her room, and hastily snapped a picture as I said goodbye.  The class was already full of kids sitting in their seats and listening to the teacher give instructions.  Oops.  Oh well.

And just for the record, I did not cry at all the first day she was gone.  It probably helped that we were running late so I didn't have a minute to think about it as I said goodbye.  She's enjoying school, but I sure miss her at home.  I love my little girl!

Labor Day Apple Picking

One day in August 2004, Jason and I were walking through a farmer's market downtown and noticed a flyer on one of the vendor's tents for a "buy one get one free" special on labor day for picking apples up at their orchard.  It sounded like a lot of fun to us, so we got a few friends together and took Maren up to the orchard for some apple picking fun.  We loved it so much we have gone back every year since (except maybe 2007 which I can't find any pictures from).  Each year more and more people came with us, and so now when we go up we run in to a bunch of people we know and it's lots of fun.  I look through these pictures and I can't believe how quickly time has gone by.  It doesn't seem like that long ago.  This probably won't be interesting to most people, but this is for me and our family history.

First year, in 2004:

Maren and her friend Sydnee

Daddy helping Maren

In 2005:

Maren and her friends Emma and Sydnee, and her new friends
Garrett and Amanda.  How we miss you guys! Also, this was Joshua's first
apple picking adventure.  Grandma is holding him in the background.  

In 2006:

helpful big sister

Apple picking with friends is more fun.  Unfortunately, her friends
Emma and Sydnee had moved out of town by this time, but we were
lucky to have Garrett and Amanda still around.  

In 2007:

Okay, so I don't know for sure if we went in 2007.  Christopher had been born in February of this year, and Jason had to be up in Cincinnati for all of July, August, and September. I don't remember  if he had labor day off and if we went apple picking or if we spent the day up in Cincinnati with him.  So, if anyone (perhaps Grandma? or Aunt Angela?) has pictures from this year that we are in, please pass them on. It may have been we just missed this year.  

In 2008:

One of my favorite apple picking family pictures

In 2009:

This is the favorite apple picking year to talk about.  Nathan had been born 3 days before labor day, and so Jason took the 3 older kids on our traditional apple picking adventure by himself.  It looked a bit stormy, but he was hoping it would hold off until they were done.  No such luck.  It started pouring and thundering.  They had to run back to the porch in front of the store and wait out the storm, along with all the other people who were picking that day.  The kids did not think this was fun at the time, and were screaming their heads off as it lightninged and thundered overhead.  A friend snapped this picture.  Jason thought the whole situation was pretty funny.  The kids can laugh about it now, but it was a sensitive subject for a year or two, with Maren yelling "It was NOT FUNNY!" every time Jason told the story.  

In 2010:

We didn't get a good family picture this year, but there are some cute ones of the kids. It also happened to be Nathan's first birthday, so we had a birthday party for him afterward.  

 In 2011:
Apparently it was a bit chilly this year.

We also love eating the fresh apple and peach pies with fresh pressed cider bought from the little store!

And finally in 2012:
We had a great day of apple picking with family and friends.  It was quite wet, as it had rained on and off the whole weekend, but we didn't let it dampen our spirits! (Oh man, I'm hilarious.)

My big 3 year old!!

It's hard to believe how big the kids have grown.  We love our apple picking tradition!

Back to School Party 2012 - Kid Style

Just so you know, this isn't a post about some cute over-the-top back to school party I threw for my kids.  It doesn't have any cute decorations or fancy treats.  Just so you know.

The day before school started, I was doing things around the house while the kids had a special secret meeting up in Joshua's room.  Occasionally Joshua would come down and ask me to write something for him, and then he'd disappear again.  Some time later, I received an invitation to a back to school party.  How exciting!

The party began with the guests sitting on the bed in Joshua's room as he and Maren explained how you played each game.  There were also prizes for each game, and at the end of the party, everyone would receive a back to school present from a collection of odds and ends the kids had rounded up in their rooms.  The presents were nicely displayed on a pillow.

fancy presents

The games included the "Angry Bird Toss" where we tried to knock down towers with an angry bird, "Tower Falls" where we tried to see who could build the tallest tower in a minute without it falling over, and "Penguin Pop" where we used a penguin ball shooter to try and get a ball in a container.  I thought it was quite cute and clever of them, but I didn't get many pictures since I was too busy playing the games.

Joshua playing penguin pop.  

After the party was over, and the presents were distributed, I offered to take the kids to get cupcakes and go to a fun indoor playground, since I was feeling bad that I hadn't planned any back to school party things.  Sadly, every other parent decided to take their kids to the same place for day before school fun.  But the kids still had fun, even though it was crowded.

Yay for cupcakes!