Fun with a Box

What an AWESOME day at the DingoDen -- Geography

One of the best things that happened this week was that
the country box from Shanghai, China arrived! We organized
with another homeschooling family living in China to trade a
'country box' with assorted things from our countries. We sent
off a box with an aboriginal dot art kangaroo,
aboriginal/Australiana fabric squares, a book of our region by
Steve Parish, post cards, coins, Tim Tams and other things.
Anyway, the box from the homeschooling family in China
arrived. We were SO excited!

They sent us a HUGE assort of things. Pictured below the kids
are holding a newspaper and flag. The scarves you'll see in the
pictures below are worn by Chinese students. Each school
has a different school uniform, but all kids no matter
where they are in China wear the red scarf (for the younger
students) or green scarf (for the older students).

The last picture below is some Chinese tissue paper cut outs. They
were so delicate.

China Country Box -- 2

Some other things they sent us included
*a child's drum
*candy (a BIG hit!!)
*envelopes that Chinese children are given
at the Chinese new year. Logan was disappointed
that there was no money in them (I said
it wasn't the Chinese New Year yet!)
*Chinese coins and bills
*an excavation kit of a Terra Cotta Warrior (COOL!) --
we'll do that next week
*chop sticks
*postcard and peasant painting card

All I could say is WOW!! What a wonderful
day. The kids were so excited and have talked
about it for the rest of the week. We keep going
back to the box and checking things out (and eating
another candy!)

As for the country box -- we'll do a couple things. We'll
be making our own book about China (including some
crafts, maps and other things we worked on a month or so
ago) and we'll collect our goodies into a box that I'll bring
out every now in their workbox to explore and "rediscover."

We are so grateful -- and whatan amazing learning
experience for the kids.

This Week at the Dingo Den: MATH ACTIVITIES

I thought I'd share a few of our activities this week. I'll
group them by subject more or less starting with math.

Logan is doing "math footprints" -- math problems written
on footprints and held down by contact paper. Elora is a
blur of activity while Logan tries to concentrate! Logan's
working on +5 and +6 addition facts.

Delenn and I are playing the Apple Picking game. We roll
the dice and place that many apples (magnets) onto our
game board. (printed from kidssoup.com)

Math Activities -- 2

Math chain -- Delenn had to place clips onto the number.

Logan is doing skip counting by 3s. Then he had to figure
out how many there would be if he had 4 groups of 3 (12) and
so forth. (skip counting wagons: http://filefolderfun.com/FirstGradeMath.html)

Math Activities -- 3

Addition Dice Game -- roll the dice and add them together. I
got this idea from http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com
She shares some WONDERFUL homeschooling ideas there!

Math counting cups -- using silicon muffin cups and erasers from
Oriental Trading

Math Activities -- 4

Hide and Seek Eggs -- We'll do this tomorrow, but I'll still
post these pictures, just don't tell the kids yet! I'm going
to hide these eggs around the living room. The kids will have
to bring the eggs to me one at a time, answer the problem (or for
Delenn's eggs tell me the number or consonant blend sound)
and then go get another egg. Should be fun!

Elora checks out what we're doing, but often does her own thing creating a bit of chaos in her midst

Elora just LOVES Signing Time at the moment. She gets up
in the morning and signs the word "Signing"!! I can't remember
if we mentioned this a couple days ago that Elora knows and
uses 65 words -- 20+ animals, tree, moon, star, etc.; about 10
food words; and the rest are verbs, nouns, actions through the
day -- things like eat, drink, brush teeth, medicine, hurts, sit
down, work, laugh, happy, crying, etc.)

Art Activities at the DingoDen this week

Delenn made a mask

Art Activities -- 2

Delenn has been doing an apple theme this week. She's painting
an apple tree. Elora enjoyed some painting time too.

The Apple Tree Game

Delenn painted the tree and then we cut out the apples. We
had to add an apple to the side (see last picture) because
it was quite difficult even for Mom!

Art Activities -- 3

We covered balloons with paper mache. Logan made a Scooby
Doo knight's mask. Delenn is going to make a piñata.

We made apple muffins. They were AMAZINGLY good!

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups unbleached flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tblsp b powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves (I didn't have any so used pumpkin pie spice)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup walnuts (I didn't have any walnuts or pecans so just added an extra 1/2 cup of apples)
2 large eggs
4 Tblsp unsalted, melted butter
1 1/2 cup sour cream (I only had 1 cup and so added a bunch of milk to make the batter moist -- roughly 1/2 cup milk)
2 cups (2 apples) of cored/chopped tart apples

TOPPING: I used blended pecans, brown sugar, flour mixture I had on hand with a bit of butter. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup light brown sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 4 Tblsp butter

Directions -- combine dry ingredients. mix/blend wet ingredients together before adding to dry ingredients. Do NOT OVERMIX.

bake 375 for 20-25 minutes

LAST PICTURE: Delenn made a "lion mask"

Art Activities 4

Today Logan continued to work on the paper-mache project while
Delenn made a fuzzy creature.

Art Activities -- 5

Here is Logan's finished knight's helmet.

Below the kids are doing the first step of
a two day project making a spider's web.
From http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/2008/01/colorful-spiderweb.html
though I found the idea from this homeschooler's
blog http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/walkingbytheway/

The Knight

Art Activities -- 6

The kids are using chalk pastels below. They had to take a bath
once they were finished, but it was interesting using a new
medium.




































by Delenn



























by Logan

Art Appreciation -- Norman Rockwell

This week's art pictures are by Norman Rockwell. The kids
really liked his work. All I do is show the artists' self portrait,
tell the kids the artists' name and then we look at the pictures
together. So far we've done daVinci, Michelangelo, van Gogh
and Rembrandt.

A few other activities this week

Some of our other activities included Logan's
read aloud time (a Native American legend about the Northern
lights; Owl at Home and from his Little Critter's Spectrum
book). Also we worked on German with our little reader
from (Ich habe -- I have... a kite, a ladybug, a flower,
etc. -- http://www.carlscorner.us.com/German/IHave%20GE.pdf).
Journal writing (which included thank you letters to the
grandparents for his birthday gifts).

And also (pictured below):

Hatching sea monkeys

Alphabetical order linking game

Piano practice

What was in our workboxes today?

Some of our activities today included:
**piano practice
**money file folder game
**"Robin Hood" money card game
**candy store game
**writing journal (handwriting practice)
**Magic Grow Sea Creatures (2nd picture)
**Asia/world flags (3rd picture--we added 4 new countries)
**Natural Disaster -- volcano and mudslide projects (see pictures
below)
**Natural Disaster book pages (Logan is putting together
his own book on natural disasters)
**Priming the water for the "sea monkeys" (we'll add
the eggs tomorrow)
**Reading: Spectrum reading story on the Northern
Lights (We watched a you-tube video about them
yesterday)
**Drawing/coloring
**Beading (4th picture --during Quiet Time)
**German

And there are a bunch of other things we didn't get to
today -- an arts and crafts project for Delenn, mazes,
puzzles and more. That's why I love this system -- we
have full, fun days and the ideas/projects/activities are
ready for me so I don't need to spend any time gathering
materials. We don't necessarily go in any order (a lot of
people have their kids go through the boxes from 1-12).
I'm more of a guide as we bounce from activity to activity.
Logan seems to know that he can't just jump right into the
fun boxes (like the mystery box). So, first thing this
morning he hopped on the piano and did his math work.

It was a great day despite Elora still being sick!

(Disclaimer: not all days are as busy as this one!!!!)

What else did Mom do during the course of the day?

*dishes put away
*3 loads of laundry (done not folded!)
*meals made
*read aloud during breakfast/lunch (we're currently
reading Sky, The Blue Fairy a chapter book (series) about
rainbow fairies who have to be rescued from the cold-
hearted Jack Frost's evil spell)
*leaves in the backyard raked, dog doo patrol
*carpets vacuumed
*new alphabet activity printed out, laminated and
cut our for Delenn for next week
*photos printed and laminated for his natural
disaster book (for him to cut up and write about
next week)
*rug scrubbed -- twice (Elora was sick)
*and today -- I even got a few pictures posted!

I'm tired, but that's probably only because Daddy and I were
up cleaning up Elora and dealing with her from 1:30-3am
last night!!

More natural disaster projects!

We posted a number of new entries yesterday.
If you already read through them, just scroll down
past the tsunami project photos to view our
latest natural disaster project. If you're just
catching up with us just read on below...

It's been a while...

Things have been busy here at the DingoDen this past month.
We'll try to catch you up to speed with a few entries and pictures
over the next few days.

Natural Disasters and other things

We've had our own hurricane of events lately, so I haven't been able to
post. I promised Logan I'd get a couple things posted "soon" so hope to
find the time to do that (see a few pics below). If you hadn't heard, Logan
wound up in the hospital for two days/nights about two weeks ago with
breathing issues August 7th-9th. Again he was vomiting all day and his
breathing suddenly took off at rapid rates. We went to the medical
clinic who sent us STRAIGHT to the emergency room (NO, I was told, DON'T drop the girls off at a friend's house first; have them meet you there.) The doctors have determined that he has asthma. His seem to be illness induced. So now we have a plan of action for addressing these issues as this is the third time he's wound up in hospital.

Delenn and Elora got sick last Friday. Elora's temperature shot up to
over 104 degrees. Delenn didn't have such a high fever but was sick all
night. Mom came down with a bit of the tummy bug Sunday-Tuesday. I'm
finally better, but now Dad has a tender tummy. Elora still isn't
better as she started vomiting again last night (we *thought* she was
better so she/we was/were at a restaurant with friends of ours when she
got sick). Now she has diarrhea as well and is in bed napping.

With the workboxes in place, we've still managed to continue forward
with homeschool activities. Delenn enjoys doing school and is really
getting confident on her three letter words. She's just started the Bob
Books (I held off and was just having her do word family groups for the
past couple months). She loves the workboxes and is always checking
out her boxes to see what new things are in there. Her activities consist of things like puzzles, making homemade moon sand, hammering wooden pieces, sorting and counting wonderful little erasers from Oriental Trading (icecreams, stars, balls, flowers, bugs and more!), file folder games, painting, play dough -- you know the general preschool fare!

Before I go on to Logan, let me add that Elora enjoys being in the midst of all our activities. She'll happily sit down and do her own sorting and definitely wants to be in the middle of everything we do. She is still not talking, but her signing is becoming much more sophisticated. She uses 50-70 words (easily) signing and when she "has something to say" she will turn my head to be sure I'm looking at her. She'll tell us "Daddy's at work" when we're eating breakfast. She "jabbers" (ie. signs) about all she sees around her (birds, babies, dogs, and so forth). And she makes her needs and wants known (I have poos, I want to eat, milk please, read me a book, brush teeth, medicine, cream (for her bottom), and on and on). And going right along with that, she loves "Signing Time" the wonderful set of ASL signing videos for kids.

I think I mentioned that Logan's learning the piano now, right? He seems to be enjoying that is learning a song every three-four days or so (now alternating right and left hands). We're also learning German together as a family (I taught German many years ago and am semi-fluent). We don't use a "set" curriculum for German as the kids are so young we need to make it heaps of fun... but I do REALLY like this little reader I came across (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage).
The kids like it too. There are also a whole set of easy German readers at http://www.carlscorner.us.com/GermanRdrs.htm which we've been reading through. She has about 45 little books (10 pages each) that are perfect for those starting out German. Anyway, the kids are doing well with it. Logan know his numbers 1-20, basic colors, a few greetings and simple sentences like "Where is the cat?" "I don't know."

Our latest unit is on natural disasters. I got some wonderful little
picture cards for $1.60 at
http://www.currclick.com/product_info.php?products_id=30487&it=1 Logan has read through 4 cards each day and has written out the word for handwriting practice.

We've watched a number of short little video clips, a few of which I'll add in below. And finally we've been doing a number of natural disaster projects. Since pictures will tell a better story I won't say more til I have a chance to post pictures! (They are now posted, scroll on down below.) Anyway, below are the video clips which are just a few minutes long each.

TORNADO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEUXr6FMtWk&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNL7ASvl4k4

HURRICANE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9VpwmtnOZc

TSUNAMI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9JDzBTwiig&feature=channel

That's it from the DingoDen for now.

Hurricane Project

The kids had to build a house of index cards using only a set amount of building materials (tape). Then we tested to see if their building would withstand a level one hurricane (one straw) or a level two hurricane (two straws). This project went well with the hurricane video we saw (see the link above) because in that clip the roof was torn off of a house.

Learning about Tsunamis

The picture Logan and Delenn are holding was taking .5 seconds
before a tsunami hit the island of Sumatra. The digital camera
was found a year and a half later. You can't really see the picture
very well, but it's truly astonishing (scary); the wall of water was
105 feet high and dwarfed the suburban houses below it.

Tsunami Project

Next we built an ocean beach front. We used a sand/cornstarch
combo to make the shore a little stronger. We added the houses
and then added the ocean. The directions said to hit the table to
create an earthquake. It didn't seem to work well with the baseball
bat, so we switched to earthquake tremors created by hand.

TSUNAMI! Watch out!

Logan creates as earthquake, the waters receded
and then created a large wave that swamped the
houses.

Delenn creates a tsunami

Volcano and Mudslide Project: Making volcanoes and mountains

Our next natural disaster project was making volcanoes and
mudslides.

First step was to combine cornstarch, sand and water and cover
our containers (butter containers for the mountains, a plastic
coke bottle and cup for Logan an a funnel wrapped in a plastic
bag for Delenn's volcano).

Ready for disaster to strike

Logan's volcano erupts

Logan placed baking soda inside his volcano
and then added the vinegar/red food dye/dish soap
liquid. ERUPTION!

Delenn's Volcano

Mudslide!

After erupting the volcanoes over and over again, it was time
to try to recreate a mudslide. We talked about how rocks, dirt
and pebbles can slide down a mountain in a landslide. When it
rains and the ground is super-saturated with water, mudslides can
occur. Below Logan and Delenn are recreating a fierce rainstorm!

Delenn and Elora thoroughly enjoyed playing in the "floods" that
resulted from the rains ("pretend these are the people and they
are stuck on this island" Delenn told me and Elora). Meanwhile
Logan went back to erupting his volcano.

We all had a super time with this project as well!

Playing with Magnets

Delenn found these magnets in her workbox, but everyone
had a lot of fun with them.

Family Bike Rides

We've been enjoying biking lately. Logan rides on his 2-wheeler
and Daddy or Mommy pull the girls. Mom and the kids have
been meeting Daddy at his bus stop after work (going the long
way around, a ten-minute bike ride) most afternoons.

Science Experiment

Can you make a empty can move without blowing on it
or touching it?





Logan did!

MATH IDEAS/ACTIVITIES PART I -- addition, hundreds board, skip counting

MATH IDEAS PART I -- addition, hundreds board, skip counting (roughly K-2):

With the beginning of the new school year, I worked a lot to become more
organized. Perhaps someone out there can benefit from my master math
list.

GENERAL MATH SITES: (I used these a lot for Kindergarten Math)
http://www.littlegiraffes.com/math.html
http://www.jmeacham.com/
http://www.thevirtualvine.com/math.html

NUMBER GAMES

from this website: http://www.mathwire.com/games/numbergames.html

ADDITION:
Addition Math War -- a card game. The person with the highest amount
wins the round
Popsicle Stick Math Facts -- Place addition math facts on Popsicle
sticks with the answers at the bottom. Stick them in sand and have child
self check his/her math facts.
Math Fact Card Toss Relay -- Throw flashcard as far as possible, run,
pick it up, solve it and race back so the next person can go. Race for 3
(or whatever) minutes solving as many facts as possible.
Mathlines Online Game -- Practice the sums equaling 4 (5, 6... up to
15). You blaster has a number, shoot the ball that gets you 4 (2+2, 1+3)
http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-math-lines/addition-10.html
Math Monster Game: Write out the equations you want to practice (5+7 and
the answer 12 on a different sheet). Give the child the answer and
spread the equations around the back yard. You are the Monster trying to
freeze them before they get the correct answer. If you tag them and they
think they have the right answer, they check it with you. If they are
correct they are free, if not they are frozen until another player sets
them free. We play this with my 3 year old daughter who has to find a
number (1 through 12) and tell the Math Monster what number she has. The
Math Monster won if she froze all players.

EGG CARTON ADDITION (not my idea, I think from Louise on this board?)
Each person had to toss a pom pom into an egg carton (which had numbers
on it). They had to add their two numbers together and the person with
the highest number won the round.

ADDITION STRIP BOARD:
addition strip board and I printed it out here:
http://www.montessorimaterials.org/Math/AdditionStripBoard.pdf

MATH BALANCE: Do addition equations on a math balance (If you place a
weight on 5 and 4 on one side, what number do you need place the weight
on on the other side to make it balance properly.

http://www.activitiesforlearning.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=53
(for purchase from RightStart Math)

HUNDREDS BOARD ACTIVITIES
such as cutting up the hundreds board and making it into a puzzle
missing number puzzle board activity

http://www.mathwire.com/archives/october07.html;
I also got some ideas from this site: http://www.squidoo.com/hundredboard)
Picture Prompts (the numbers to read out to make pictures on the 100s
board) http://www.jmeacham.com/games.htm

SKIP COUNTING:

Practice skip counting by 1s, 2s, 3s, etc. up to 200 with these mazes
http://www.printactivities.com/Mazes.html I laminated ours so my son
could do them more than once

Skip Counting Wagons File Folder Game:
http://filefolderfun.com/FirstGradeMath.html

Math Master List Part II (Time, Place Value, Money Activities, Multiplication)

MATH IDEAS PART II: (Time, Place Value, Money Activities, Multiplication)

TIME: One activity we did quite a bit was to take a blank clock face (no
numbers) and to practice putting the hours (1-12) around the edge of the
clock in the correct spot. Once that was easy for my son, we took a
clock with the numerals and then put the five minute increments around
the edge of the clock. :05, :10, :15... up to :55.

Here's an online game my son does to practice matching the digital time
with the analog time http://www.teachingtime.co.uk/draggames/sthec1.html

CLOTHES PINS CLOCK/TIME GAME:
http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/TrainTimeClipCards.htm

PLACE VALUE UP TO 1000:

Straw/Beans -- practice making bundles of 10

Go to the Bank -- Give a heap of tiles (beans, whatever) 60-90 or so.
Have the child count out group 10 tiles and take it to the bank to trade
for a Popsicle stick. Do this until he/she can't count out 10 any more.
Have him/her tell parent the total (6 Popsicle sticks, 4 left over =64).
Parent counts tiles to check the answer.

Math Stacking Cups -- using little plastic cups (the size of medicine
cups) place the numerals 0 through 9 on them with stickers (I have about
20 cups). Race to make pyramids with 4 digit, 3 digit, 2 digit and 1
digit numbers. For example give the following numbers 3, 17, 296, 4058
and have the child stack them as fast as possible reading out the
numbers properly (four thousand fifty-eight, etc.)

Place Value File Folder Game: http://filefolderfun.com/FirstGradeMath3.html

Sunny Side Up -- a dice game for learning single and double digits. I
won't put the directions here; I don't want this posting to be too long.

MONTESSORI MATH PLACE VALUE

Right now we are using a lot of Montessori Math materials for practicing
place value (printing out purple dots in single units, groups of ten,
squares of 100 and then I put 10 of the 100s together with a brad to
represent the thousands place).

Here's the site where I got a lot of my free math manipulatives (purple
beads) from http://www.montessorimaterials.org/math.htm

I got the Stamp Cards (1 units, 10s, 100s, 1000s for practicing place
value here http://www.montessorimaterials.org/Math/stampgame1.pdf --
just print them out on colored paper). My numerals were bought from
Right Start math, but you can print them out from Montessori Materials
here: http://www.montessorimaterials.org/math1.html

MONEY -- We work with US coins because there is a penny (1 cent) coin

CANDY STORE GAME: One activity that has been a big hit has been the
candy store. You can print out these cards and have your kids shop for
candy (with real coins). Printables are at this website:
http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/MoneyCandyCards.htm

MONKEY MONEY FILE FOLDER GAME: http://filefolderfun.com/FirstGradeMath.html

ROBIN HOOD -- Playing Cards have coin stickers(a quarter, a dime and a
penny, etc.). I made them up using coin stickers from Oriental Trading.
Each player puts down a card the person with the LEAST amount of money
is Robin Hood and gets to take the "rich" person's money.

MULTIPLICATION Sea Lion File Folder Game -- X2 and X3
http://filefolderfun.com/SecondGradeMath.html

**TIMEZ ATTACK -- There is an AMAZING, free video game called Timez
Attack for kids who are learning their times tables. You can download it
free at http://www.bigbrainz.com/Download.html It's well worth taking
the video tour to get a feel for the game:
http://www.bigbrainz.com/VideoTour.html

MATH JOURNAL -- once a week I include a math-related writing activity in
his writing journal (example 1: draw me a picture that includes one
circle, one square; example 2: draw out this word problem -- Max has 6
ice cream cones and drops one; Jill has three ice cream cones but drops
two. How many ice cream cones do they have total now?)

MANCALA -- http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-mancala/index.html

TANGRAMS:
Here are some links for making your own tangram puzzles. I cut mine out
of foam board.

tangram puzzle pieces
small=http://www.abcteach.com/free/t/tangrams_small.pdf
large= http://www.abcteach.com/free/t/tangram_large.pdf

I cut out the tangran puzzles from these webpages and put
them together with a key ring:
animals--http://www.abcteach.com/free/t/tangram_pattern_cards_animal.pdf
abstract
designs--http://www.abcteach.com/free/t/tangram_pattern_cards_abstract.pdf
people--http://www.abcteach.com/free/t/tangram_pattern_cards_people_1.pdf

PURCHASED MATH THINGS:
RightStart Math Card Games Kit --
http://www.activitiesforlearning.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=12
I just LOVE these ideas!
Family Math for Young Children by Jean Kerr Stenmark
Family Math by Jean Kerr Stenmark
Zap
DinoMath Tracks Game
Addition War
Sunny Side Up Dice Game
Math Mat