We are gearing up for a fun unit about Woodland animals and I wanted to create a hands-on way for my tot and kindergartner to learn about animal tracks. I decided to use a white clay recipe from The Imagination Tree to create homemade clay animal tracks.
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Yesterday I shared how we made a homemade geoboard and ways we have played with it. Today I am sharing a ton of free printable geoboard activities. You can learn all sorts of things not just math concepts. I hope you enjoy some of these free resources as much as we do.
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A couple of years ago I decided to make a Geoboard when I saw the price of them in the educational catalogs. We just so happened to have a wooden cutting board from a local discount store. This wooden board had already been an artist canvas at one point and now would be turned into a homemade Geoboard!
Get a thick piece of wood that is square and well sanded.
Gather some small finishing nails, ruler, pencil, and hammer. (I tried to use thumb tacks like I saw on Mama Jenna but they just broke to pieces so I switched to nails.)
Mark your grid on the piece of wood. You can measure out your marks or print a Geoboard Pattern.
We used fabric hairbands but you could easily use loom bands or small rubber bands depending on what you have on hand or can buy cheap locally.
The first time I showed my kids our homemade geoboard they made a lot of free form designs which I would consider ART more then MATH but I am totally fine with this idea as well.
You can show your child a shape and see if they can recreate it or a letter or a number. You could ask them to make a design with only orange bands. You could ask your child to make a pattern with two colors for a different game.
Just be sure that whatever you do you allow the child to explore and have fun!
If you do not have time to make your own geoboard you can buy one from Amazon.
Check back tomorrow for an entire post all about:
Free Geoboard Printable Resources
If you are wanting even more math ideas check out Cool Maths for Cool Kids for 31 days of awesome ideas!
I love incorporating my love of nature with a simple Science activity like bird watching. We were recently given a clear window bird feeder by Yellow Beaks. I have had my eye on a clear bird feeder for a long time. My husband actually had a small kit with one growing up that got broke many years ago.
Big Red and Lil’ Red were super excited about a new box arriving in the mail. They both wanted me to take pictures. Big Red even did a short video of how to open the bird feeder and how to fill the bird feeder!
It came very well packed with bubble wrap and inside two boxes which prevented it from any damage during shipping. Hubby was able to attach the suction cups to the kitchen window easily. We did wash the window first for a clear view of the bird feeder. We have had a handful of very sever weather and storms since it was placed. The bird feeder has withstood all the wind, rain, and storms.
We noticed the seed had been disturbed but we didn’t know who came to the feeder to eat. We kept watch each day hoping we would catch a bird eating. Well, just so happened that we caught a visitor but not a bird! A squirrel dropped down from the roof onto the windowsill and had a little snack. He proceeded right into the bird feeder. Those suction cups are strong and stayed right in place!
We are hoping to get more visitor’s that we can hopefully watch, draw, and learn from.
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When we were on vacation in Put-In-Bay last month we realized that none of our children had been to an 18 hole miniature golf course. I couldn’t believe it but then thought about all the places where my hubby and I played in our childhood which are now closed down. We used to be able to drive to a handful within a 30 minute radius and now there’s maybe 2 or 3 at most!
I truly am an educator at heart but have not really shown that here on our blog. I am going to try and change that in order to give parents more confidence in homeschooling their children. I started my blog in order to help others locally and now globally find what resources they need in order to homeschool no matter what age from baby to college.
Lil’ Red will be turning 2 in August and he loved chasing after the ball during our 18 holes of miniature golf. He watched the ball go zigging and zagging which helped increase his tracking skills. He tried a few times to hit with his own club but most often needed help swinging in order to hit the ball thus working on some hand-eye coordination. Sometimes he got a little too interested in someone else’s ball so we sent his ball zooming down the green so he would chase after it (gross motor).
Big Red was pretty good at using the golf club to swing and hit the ball. He is 5 years old and had a lot of fun trying to get his ball into the hole. He got frustrated a few times when the ball went sailing some place he didn’t mean to but overall had a great time.
Miniature golf is a great way to increase hand-eye coordination even for older children like Princess and Eldest. They don’t use those particular muscles very often in everyday life since they use lots of up close computer work.
We forgot to explain that on the last hole the ball goes away. This was confusing and concerned Lil’ Red deeply. He laid down on the green to see where the ball went. Then he got up and marched off in a huff when we told him it was gone.
