Spelling Game (2nd grade)

Today for our spelling, I handed Little Cheese the spelling list that I wrote for her for the week. She has also copied the spelling list in her own handwriting but had to the front and back of a piece of paper so I thought this route would be easier. Please remember that this was our third day and so we are still reviewing words from last year...

Here is the list:














To play the learning game, I wrote her spelling words on the white board but left off letters and replaced them with blank marks. The words also were not in order. Her job was to look at the list and figure out the words.















She got through it alot faster and easier than I thought that she would. The best part-she loved it!

A Wonderful Learning Game

A marble maze. It is such an amazing game to have in your house! We have had ours for three years now and it is still a favorite. Unlike that new bedazzled toy that was received, like a whole two months ago for Christmas. You know, the must have. The please, please, please...can't I have it Mommy thing?
(Actually Little Cheese has never begged for a toy. She didn't even make a list of things she wanted at Christmas. She was just very thankful for the things that she did get. Alot of them, though, are not played with now).

Back to the subject. I highly recommend getting a marble maze for your child(ren). What it teaches? Creativity, colors, counting, puzzle solving, fosters independent and shared play , and fun with a toy that requires batteries. (This is a marble game so you have to be careful with little children and the marbles.)























Creativity: The pieces can be arranged in hundreds of different ways
Colors: Ask your child for specific colors to be added next.
Counting: How many pieces can you use?
Puzzle solving: Pieces have to be arranged so that the marble can freely roll from one piece to another.
Independent/shared play: A child (especially an older child) can put the maze together. There are enough pieces that two smaller mazes can be made or one very large one with more than one starting point. Have a race!

If you are interested in one like I have,

Come Learn With Me...the ABC's

With Little Cheese, we have always played alphabet games, rhyming games, counting games, any type of game that we can think of in the car. In fact, it is highly unusual for us to be in the car and have her not ask me to play a game.

One thing that we do is play the alphabet game. This game can be played as soon as your little ones know what a letter looks like. Focus on one letter at a time. It is impossible, and often frustrating to try to teach too many letters at once.

Are you ready? This is so simple. Look for letters. Big, bold, bright letters are plastered all over the place. On businesses, on billboards, on trucks, on license plates. We usually count them as well.

Another idea is to look for items that start with A. You know, A is for airplane way up high...A is for apple tree with apples for you and me...A is for...

Don't forgo the precious time that you have in the car. We live in a place where it takes us a good twenty minutes to go from one place to another. That 20 minutes is an excellent teaching time.

I will post some other ideas on how we helped to teach Little Cheese and now Manny the ABC's. Please forgive me if this post seems to simplistic but some times it is the simple things that we overlook.

For The Love of Blocks

I try hard to come up with things that my three year old will sit and do. I also try to incorporate those same items into homeschooling my six year old. There is one single item that I have grown to love....blocks!

I found these foam blocks in the craft section at Wallace World






They came in a box of, oh say, a couple hundred or so (at least that is what they look like when they are dumped in the floor by a three year old!) and they come in such wonderful colors.

Here are our uses for them.

1. They came with a large yellow plastic needle and plastic thread. My little one will sit and string these beads for a good ten or fifteen minutes (which is a woo-doggie! amount of time for him to actually concentrate on something)

2. We do this awesome game (again for my two year old but my six year old enjoys the simpleness of it as well) with them.

I had to head to the doctor's office one day and knew that there would be an awful wait. So, in a moment of pure genius, I grab a pair of my hubby's black socks from the drawer and a these little blocks. I put one or two of each shape and size of blocks in the sock, making sure that each sock had the exact same amount/color/sizes

At the doctor's office, each child was given a sock. I would say "find the large circle" and they would put their little hands deep down into that dark sock (so that they couldn't cheat by looking) and try to find that shape/size.

To my amazement-my two year old did it every time! And it killed a good twenty minutes. Now I must warn you that this game of sticking ones' hand down into a black sock while sitting in a doctors office and pulling out different colored shapes while yelling "I got it! I got it!)" may bring different reactions from those sharing the lobby with you. Just a thought.

3. They are great for homeschooling.






The fact that they are the same size/color/shape makes for a great way to not only practice shape identification/color/shapes but it also helps to teach units/sets/fractions.

I told my six year old, for instance-using the small ones pictured, that the rectangle shape that they make has been divided into fourths. Each one is 1/4. Two makes 1/2 of the shape, three makes 3/4 of the shape and so on.

They do a much better job than chocolate graham crackers (*guilt* especially when one said homeschooling/nursing mom shouldn't eat wheat!)

4. They are great for stacking and making towers

Balloon Learning

Have you ever thought of learning by using a balloon? This is one of the best items for reciting numbers, the alphabet, multiplications tables, rhyming words, or anything else that can be listed.
The game can be played with one or more players.

Items Needed: One non-helium balloon
Object: Keep the balloon off the floor
Rules: Throw the balloon gently up in the air. Try to keep the balloon in the air by gently hitting it upward using the palm of the hand.
Number of players: One or more

If you were going to recite the alphabet, start with the letter "A" and for every time the balloon is hit upward, say the next letter. If it hits the floor, start at "A" again.

This game is great for all age levels. To play with one or more people, simply hit it back and forth to each other (fairly of course) and take turns reciting the list, numbers, or letters.

"Are' Matey's"

Another way that we learn our spelling words is to make a memory game. As my daughter turns over each word she has to tell me what it says. Once she finds a match, she has to use that word in a sentence. Sometimes she gets a little silly with it-which I am working hard on. I want to be fun during school but also have to keep her reigns pulled in quite snuggly.

She turned over the word "are" and looked at me and said...
"...'Are Matey!"

It was the giggle of our day!