ABCYA for Basic Math Practice

I forgot about this wonderful website ABCya.com.  My daughter has been struggling with remembering all the rules that go with Math.  So, I have added 30 min of homework each week night, to help.  Mostly through games on ABCya,  I tried Adapted Math, and I liked it, but she did not find them remotely enjoyable.  I mean if you have to play a Math game, might as well be somewhat fun.  Fractions have been especially a pain, so playing the  multiplication, and fractions games, have been especially helpful.  I have also resorted to forced note taking.  I hated to do this, but if she has to write down the rule, for each lesson each day, then she can just look back in her notebook and find how to do it.  Me telling her all the time, is not helping her to remember.  I am seeing slow, but good results so far.  We will continue this as long as is needed.  There are other great Math websites, but I tend to stick with what works until it no longer works.  There is also Language Arts games, we just don't currently use those.  

Make Your Own Money Learning Game with Household Items

This can also be a recycling or upcycling project for your school lessons. My daughter loves to learn through play. Online games or nice, or apps on the tablet, but hands on games are even better. Money, adding coins and making change, is one of the areas she needs great improvement in. I saw on Pinterest where someone had made an alphabet game using these same type items, and it made me think why not make it a money game. I used caps from water bottles, a jar I had already painted, a Pringles top which fit the jar perfectly, and some buttons for extra coins.

First decorate your jar if you want. Cut a hole in the Pringles top. Right various denominations of coins on the water bottle tops with markers. The buttons are extra money. The small buttons can be either 1 cent or 10 cent, and the larger either 5 cent or 25 cents. Then make a menu of items your child frequently eats throughout the day. You can print one too, but my printer is currently not behaving itself.

Then for each meal, with your help especially at first, the child picks what they want to eat and adds up enough coins to make the correct amount. After they get the hang of it you can make change too. You may need more buttons or tops. I have not tried it yet, so can not judge. Of course you could use real coins, but ours get thrown in a large container for savings and they are a pain to get out. Besides this was more fun to make. Plus with the decimals written out on the tops, they can learn their decimals as well. She will be adding them up on paper as well. Add in equivalent fractions and percents too, to make it more challenging as you go along. I will be starting this with her tomorrow. I am hoping by the time we go back to regular lessons, she will be a whiz at this.

Now if I could find a parts of speech and punctuation hands on game I will be happy.

The Blue Footed Booby Homeschool Art: Birds

I will get to the art work in a minute. We have finished 3 quarters of school, and DJ got an A in Math. This is a huge deal for him, and something he has been working very hard at obtaining. He continues with all his regular studies, as all of them are working well for him this year.

In previous years, up to 8th grade, I have always done Science and History lessons once a week. That way I could focus on Reading, Writing and Math. This year, with DJ in 8th grade, he started to do every subject every day, or most days, so I started to do the same with Caitlin. I now regret doing that. So, she will be going back to just once a week, for History and Science, and concentrate on the others. I have an Abeka 4th grade Math book, so I started her on that today. That way, even though this is hard for her, by 5th grade she will have a good grasp. Abeka is said to be a year to year and a half of other Math books. I can tell you, I agree with that. We also did flashcards, and played the Math dice game, I shared to other day. Of note, if you try it, I had her identify the coin, say the value of the coin, then on paper write the coin's amount as a decimal and a fraction. Then she added them as decimals. I didn't attempt adding the fractions yet. I only did six problems with her, and that seemed perfect. She also started Easy Peasy Homeschool, banner on this blog if you are interested, day 101. Even though she is reading well, their writing lessons are good and extensive with each chapter read. So, I have opted to use that the rest of this year, and then re-evaluate. I found a website called Bedtime Math, and we have started doing that as well. Both kids do it, but not at bedtime. I am tired at bedtime, so we do it right after Dinner.

So, to continue with our bird art lessons, today we painted the Blue Footed Booby. One of my favorite birds. I just find the blue feet so amazingly beautiful, and no I do not have a foot fetish, lol. DJ does not paint, so his is drawn with colored pencils. I also painted two napkins to go with the bunny plates I painted last week. That post is not up yet, but will be soon, on craft blog. Check it out if you want.

Success At Last!

You will all be proud to know, that I persisted, and I got a Zhu Zhu hamster, finally!!!! I spent a good part of last night, bidding on Ebay, on Zhu Zhu pets. My goal was to get a hamster below 20 dollars, including the shipping fee. I did it! I got Chunk, the white hamster, for 18.50, that included shipping. So I actually only spend $8.50 more than if I got it at my local retail store. I don't know if everyone is done buying them or the recall scare, scared everyone away, but they were selling above 50 dollars just two weeks ago. Now I can rest.

Today we are doing Davey Crockett part two, because DJ did not retain much of what he learned. You can view the video in my archives, and we will be doing computer research as well. This is our last full day of lessons, until after the new year, so you will have to suffer through whatever I feel like sharing those days LOL. DJ is starting more complicated fractions, at the beginning of next year, so I am sharing a starter video about fractions.

Lesson Plans For 12/17/09:

DJ:
How to Draw a Christmas tree: video posted yesterday
Social Studies: Davey Crockett part two
Health: Benefits of exercise, worksheet, and discussion
Math: Subtraction, Fractions, Division
Language Arts: Writing to give instructions, proofreading, suffixes, pictures tell a story
Sign Language: Alphabet
Cursive Writing
Reading Comprehension with worksheet

Caitlin:
Connect the dots, alphabet
Reading: HOP The Fog
Site Words
Math: Addition to ten with coins
Computer work
Printing Practice

Caitlin will be moving on to her second set of site words, and number word association next semester.