New Year, New Games - part 1

Part of what I did during our Christmas break (we were off for a month!) was to take inventory of what has been working and what hasn't been working in our homeschool in terms of tools, activities, books, curriculum and even schedule.  

We are pretty happy with most of what we are using but I knew we needed to spice things up with new games and ways to teach math facts, sight words and do our memory work.  I also wanted to look into more science resources as that is one of the subjects that Lucy loves the most.

The other thing I wanted to do was put together some pre-school materials in a format that Lucy could use to teach Jenna on her own.  They love to play school.  Lucy is a natural born teacher and Jenna is so receptive to anything that comes from big sister.  Had to capitalize on those two things!

So here is some of what I came up with (and please take the term "came up with" to mean stole from blogs or pinterest, asked some fellow hs moms or just heard about somewhere):

1.  The Sight Word Race Track:

I first saw this game played with a toy car driving through a street made of sight words.  Since Lucy is not into cars we use a little farmer from one of her Little People sets.  I call a word and she moves the little farmer stepping on each sight word card it passes until she arrives at the sight word I called out.  As she moves the little farmer she reads out loud each word she passes.

Now here comes the incentive.  Every time she passes through a "double dare" (2 sight words next to each other, I made the cards look different) she gets the opportunity to earn 2 pieces of Hershey Kisses that I transfer from my blue bowl to her little clear bucket.

Every time she misses/misreads a word I take a kiss out of her bucket and put it back in my bowl.  There are only a few double dares in the entire track but that gives all the fire she needs to master her sight words.  Last time we played she walked away with 4 pieces of chocolate.... not bad for a 9am snack! ;)

2.  Sight Word Bingo:

I use this game for the sight words that look and sound similar or start with the same letters (the, this, they, them, that, there, then, etc) to get her to really tune in and focus on how the word is spelled.  The bingo card is blank and is laminated so I just write the words I want on top with a write/erase marker. 

We bought an oil drip pan from an auto parts store to use it as a giant magnetic board and it works so well!  I place my laminated bingo card there and she uses magnet pom poms to cover the word I call out.

Mean mom makes sure she doesn't get a BINGO until most of the words have been read and covered.  Shhh... don't tell her!

There's nothing magical or new about this game.  It's all about the magnetic pom poms for her.  Hey, whatever tickles her fancy :)  I'm sure I'll have to find something else when the time comes to teach the boy... maybe magnets on lego pieces!

3.  The Giant Dice

Also called "educational blocks" in some stores.  Ordered them from here.  I like these ones because the inserts are write/erase so I don't need to print inserts like for some of the others.  We use them for math, for handwriting games, and even for memory work.

Here she is playing the Mistery Letter Game on her Handwriting without Tears curriculum but instead of me calling out a letter I wrote them on the inserts and let her roll her die.  Another little twist in format that got her all excited about an activity she was bored with before.

4.  Time-telling:

We have been using Math U See for math curriculum and the lessons on reading time were really good.  Lucy picked it up right away but she still skip counts around the clock to read minutes.

I have been looking for some games and ways to help her memorize her math facts and clock minute arm locations now that I know she understands the math behind it.

I came across a website called worksheetworks.com that lets you custom make worksheets.  I'm not a worksheet fanatic but I really like how you get to choose every aspect of how the worksheet is generated to match the exact skills of the child.  So many pre-made worksheets out there are either too advanced or too simple and end of being either busy work or a source of frustration.   We'll be using this website for other subjects in the future.  They have history, handwriting, literature, all kinds of things in there.

I laminated the worksheets because if you haven't notice we are in love with anything write/erase around here :)  plus I scored a laminating machine from amazon for $16 and have developed a bit of a laminating addiction!

Some more new things to share but we'll have to split it into a part 2 post.  Thank you for following along!