Mystery Math Mats: Shapes

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to a 5 year old girl and 21 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha! #keepinitreal

Teaching children to offer or ask for help is an important skill to develop during the early years.  Practicing extending and accepting assistance fosters a learning environment where it is okay to need help and gives children the confidence to ask questions and see support when needed.

There is such a thing as becoming a crutch however,  That is when encouragement comes in- cheering on my kiddos to do what I know they can or at least try to do.

I want to help but I do not want to be a crutch.

Many times as a homeschooling momma, I have to step back and watch and keep my hands to myself and let my kiddo face her challenge, encourage her, and when she has done her best and still needs help, I need to be there to guide but not do it for her.

Not going to lie, our Math activity for our "Help" day was a great learning experience for both my girl and myself!

Mother Goose Time sent us new Math Shape Mats called "Mystery Puzzles" along with our 

Multi-style Tangrams.  I love these mats!  You match the shapes first at the bottom.  Then the kiddos will use all BUT one to make the image at the top of the card.

On the back of the card, are little answer keys so show which shapes will be used.  

The shaded shapes are the ones you use and the white is the one you do not use.

These would be great for quiet time boxes!

Look at that sweet smile of accomplishment on the bottom right hand picture!

The challenge of figuring out what shapes work and which didn't was such a confidence booster for my girl!

Below is the Mystery Mat that had her stumped and had me biting my tongue and keeping my hands tucked away as to not give her the answer but guide her.

I decided to film her as she struggled and reasoned what to do.

I am so thankful she didn't get frustrated (which is what usually happens) and kept trying.  She eventually asked for help, and I was challenged with not giving her the answer 

but guiding her in her thinking.

She felt so accomplished and happy when she finally got the answer!

My boy didn't miss out on the math game either.  I was super impressed with him matching the circle, triangle, and small rectangular shapes!  

Not minutes after completing our Mystery Math Mats and cleaning up all the shapes did my boy then dump the entire basket on the floor!

Help quickly came in the form of his big sister. 

Perfect opportunity to help others on our Help Day.

Problem solved.

I hope we see more of these Mystery Math mats in the future. 

I'll keep you posted when we do!

Until then,

Happy Learning friends!

Bird Activities for Little Learners

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to a 5 year old girl and 21 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha! #keepinitreal

"Momma, can we learn about parrots today?"

Absolutely!  I pulled out my bird bag from our Mother Goose Time: Family & Pets box.

Bam.  Math games, craft lesson, even a book with sight words to begin our reading-all ready to go. 

Add in the plethora of parrot/bird books on my shelf and we are set. 

Since we had just listened to lots of songs while studying our memory work for Classical Conversations, I decided we needed some game time.  So I started our bird day with our math game, Feed the Birds.  I had a ton of these little bottles from my breast feeding days with Everett and they made the perfect containers for this game.

MGT sent these cute birds with numbers, tweezers and yarn (I used  pipe cleaners I had already cut for Everett).  All I had to do was put the little birds on jars and add some dry beans for the game.  Although MGT suggested using number cards in our pocket cube, I have really loved using these big foam dice (also from MGT).  They really help with one-to-one correspondence.  Avaleigh tossed the die seeing how many pieces of bird food she needed to retrieve with her tweezers and which bird was to get that amount.  

Everett didn't use tweezers (although he wanted to) but he worked on his pincer grip and pouring.

Both kiddos had a blast and kept at it until all the food was given to the birds.

After a fun activity like that, it's great to have some quiet time.

Our Literacy lesson was perfect!

Our new I Can Read book came with pointers and sight word cards.

The pointers I placed on a key ring (8 for a dollar at Dollar Tree), and

I grabbed a $3 pocket chart while at Target this summer! Perfect for the sight words!  

I first went over the sight words with my girl and we practiced making the sentence "it is a..." and then used the picture card.  After practicing our sight words, I had her open up the 

I Can Read book: What Is It? and she began reading all on her own!  I had to help her a little on the last page, but the words were unfamiliar.  

We are really working on reading this year, but taking it very slow.  

We read the book again, this time using our pointer to point to the word "is".  

I love how the very last page gives the kids something to do that is kind of like a brain break.

She was getting tired, so it was the perfect time for my girl to draw her pet, 

our golden retriever Bailey.

"Why did you use orange?"

"Because that is the color of Bailey's fur, momma," Avaleigh said as she pointed.

"There wasn't enough room to write my name, so I wrote it this way."  Yall, she wrote her name backwards.  I'm really impressed.

After outdoor time, lunch, and putting Everett down for a nap, it was time to do our 

Invitation to Create: Birds.

MGT sent us everything but the markers, glue, and outdoor materials.

We observed the picture of the birds and talked about them.  Avaleigh decided she wanted her picture to look like the one provided (I am not surprised), so we went outdoors to gather sticks, leaves, and acorns.

"Momma, make a bird with me.  You can make one and I can make one."

Done.  First she created "stairs" on her bird, then all of a sudden, my girl said, 

"These are tears (blue lines) because my bird doesn't have a momma."

"My bird can be his momma," I said.  "Maybe they can be tears of joy."

Later when Avaleigh told her daddy about the picture, she mentioned that her bird had tears of joy because he had a momma. 

Her finished piece.

Love it.

Happy learning friends!

Harvest Moon and Scary FUN

This week we were all up in our feelings.

We did games and learning that revolved around feeling 

Happy, Sad, Surprised, Mad, and Scared. 

Scared fell on Friday the 13th.

It also fell on the Harvest Moon. 

Boom.

Totally did not plan that!

Our Kindergarten Homeschool year started this week.

We had our first Classical Conversations Community Day (awesome!), continued our love of 

Mother Goose Time, and threw in our Exploring Nature with Children (love it!).

Mother Goose Time had all the action planned to talk about emotions, 

while our Exploring Nature with Children had all the deets on the Harvest Moon.

Here's what we did and you can totally do it at home!

We started our day with a conversation: "When do you feel scared?"

Lately my girl has been acting afraid of the dark... and dragons.

We talked about fear and how 

the Lord has not given us a Spirit of fear but one of  power, love, and self-control. (2Tim 1:7)

Fear makes us want to hide, but if we rest in the Lord, we have nothing to fear at all.

Since she is afraid of the dark, we talked about how darkness can not penetrate the Light...

John 1:5 "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

God created light out of the darkness (Genesis 1:2-3...perfect with our CC week 1), and a little bit of light always keeps the darkness at bay. As a believer, Jesus' light is within all those who believe- His Holy Spirit- therefore, she had nothing to fear.  He is and always will be with her.

 It was the perfect conversation to have before playing with light and dark as we made shadow puppets and read the book My Shadow.

I asked my girl, "What must we have in order to see a shadow?" I turned the lights on and off in our room resulting in seeing shadows and then not being able to.  She instantly knew we needed light to make shadows.  We taped the straws to the die cut pieces provided from MGT; I whipped out our big ole flashlight, and she immediately started playing.  I asked her to tell me a story using her puppets, and this is what she created! Love it.

You can't talk about light and dark without mentioning day and night and having conversations about the Moon!  Especially when it's the Harvest Moon!

We just finished reading Little House in the Big Woods, which had a chapter about the Harvest Moon where Pa could work late into the night tending to the fields because the light of the Harvest Moon shined so bright.  We also read Hello, Harvest Moon again today by Ralph Fletcher.

It has such beautiful language and tons of personification, which led to lots of questions from my girl. For example, "Can the moon really climb stairs?"

We created a piece of artwork using our MGT die cuts from our puppet show, some watercolor paper cut into a circle and painted with orange and yellow watercolors, a blue and a black piece of construction paper, glue, scissors  and some jewels which are not pictured.

I followed some directions from here.  I adore her finished work...

I love the mouse's tail!

Our Harvest Moon/ Scared Study didn't end there!

I let her watch Little Bear's Harvest Moon today and told her we would go on a Nature Walk and check out the Harvest Moon.

Later, my girl asked, "How big is the Harvest Moon? Can we dance under it?"  

I laughed and said sure.  

I never knew that after watching the Little Bear video that my girl thought she would actually be so close that she could touch the moon.

We danced under the moon, and thanked God for providing the moon.  Isn't it amazing that He provided the Harvest Moon to be bright enough to help farmers take care of getting all their crops in before the heavy rains of fall?!  He is so good and all His ways are perfect!

When we left our nature walk, I asked my girl what she thought.

She sighed. "I thought it was going to be big enough for me to touch it.  I'm sad it wasn't bigger."

I chuckled and told her that she could become an astronaut and go to the moon, but that was the only way she was going to touch it.  She said she still had fun, and I hope this becomes a yearly tradition. 

From puppet shows, to dancing in the moonlight (looking like a fool I might add),

these are the moments I will store and treasure in my heart.  

And just because I don't want to leave my handsome boy out, here are some of his precious pics from this week:

Happy Harvest Moon yall!

Kindergarten Homeschool Space

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to a 5 year old girl and 21 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha! #keepinitreal

It's happening yall....Kindergarten is upon us.

A new school year (but does it ever really end) means a new school room set up.

My little girl turned 5 this July.  She is such a gentle and nieve child.  I know homeschooling is the best thing for her and her personality.  I am a new director for Classical Conversations, and am totally enthralled with the Charlotte Mason method.  Not to mention we are continuing our love of

  Mother Goose Time!  You will see all 3 coming together to create our current school space. 

Welcome to our once formal unused living room. I has been a playroom, preschool room, and now it is our Kindergarten Homeschool room.

Let me show you around.

This picture is taken from our doorway.  There are no doors, so the kids and I try to pick up this room each night because seeing a clean room just helps me breathe.

Both white bookshelves are from Walmart (link here) and have been in the kids' rooms. We had rain guttering for bookshelves for years, which I loved, but I needed to house more of our books, especially my science books I had stored in cabinets around the house.  Collecting books is my hobby yall.  My husband cut the guttering in half, and now both kids have 3 rain gutter shelves for their books in their room.

I love that the bookshelves create a table top that my son can not reach and destroy... yet lol.

Above the bookshelves are some of our Timeline cards from Classical Conversations.  My husband hung three rows of wire using eye hooks, and I attached the cards with mini clothespins.  The first 7 cards are missing since our first week of CC is coming up and I used them to make my Tutor board.

Do you have those Childcraft books from when you were a kid?

I jacked them from my parents' home long ago, and we have used them numerous times this past year of CC.  Most of the other books on these shelves are Science books, but one shelf is World History/Cultures and the other is American History books.  If I need to add a book to our collection, which happens almost weekly, I always check out Thriftbooks! Best prices fo sho!  Our Melissa and Doug abacus is missing a row, but I bought it for next to nothing when a preschool was going out of business in my town last year.

We love spending time outside and going for walks.  Charlotte Mason is my jam. 

I display our findings in this tray I bought at Dollar Tree. Right now it houses different acorns, an abandoned robin's nest, pinecones, cardinal feathers (and a few others), and a perfectly intact butterfly.  There is a container of fine sand from a friend's trip to the beach that she brought back to me. The giant leaf on the wall is one my girl found on our most recent walk.  She chose it because of it's size.  I didn't want it to crumble as it dried out, so I laminated the leaf and stuck it on our wall.  I am definitely going to laminate more leaves this fall.  Laminators are not that expensive and I am so glad I have one! This one from Amazon is less that $25.

Here are our story books, including Fairy Tales, Classics, Poetry, the Bible, Art, and Math books.  The top far right cubby houses all the books I really want to use for CC this year. I just wanted them in one spot to make them easy to find and grab as I plan out our year. The pink basket on the bottom is home to our Audio books and our Monthly Cds from Mother Goose Time.  The green basket is our recent stash from our library.  On top of the shelf, we have our books for this month from

  Mother Goose Time (Little Red Riding Hood and the Lonely Wolf) and our Tea Time afternoon read, Mercy Watson.  Both my kids love the Mercy Watson books!  

They are an easy and fun read aloud.

During the month os September we will be focusing on Family and Pets with Mother Goose Time.  I set up our monthly calendar (love how it teaches patterns with the colored numbers), monthly number focus, and our Theme Poster.  I found the map at Target for like $3 and had to grab it!  My girl already drew on it though.  She a line from Texas to Siberia because "that's the way you get to Mimi and PopPop's house."  Ugh.  At least she knows that a map is for directions.  Our table was $20 from the preschool that was closing down and I love it!  Perfect size for both kiddos.  

I still want to paint the top in chalkboard paint.

I moved this bookshelf back into our room because I needed a place for my things and for my son's toys.  The tall tower to the right houses our MGT curriculum and supplies I don't want the kids necessarily getting into...but is there really anything a toddler doesn't get into?  He opens these drawers all the time.  He also hears "No, sir" all the time.

My deep book cubbies from Walmart.  I love these things!

I have one for Workbooks, Art Materials (paper), Writing Journals, Mother Goose Time, and Classical Conversations.

This shelf holds a few curriculum binders and our Timeline cards.  The teapot is one my former roommate made in our Ceramics class in college.  I have always loved it.

This year we will explore Space with CC, so I nabbed this craft kit from Alex.  I bought a bunch of learning cards from the Dollar Spot at Target, and our Geoboard (love it!) is from MGT a year or so ago.  The basket holds rubber bands and my girl gets this down and plays with it quite often.

The bottom two shelves are pretty much my son's materials.  The big folder box houses coloring books that they both enjoy using.

We used to have a teepee in here that we read in, but my girl fell on one of the wooden stakes, broke it, and I never have replaced it.  I just stacked our pillows under the window and moved our rug to this side of the room.  We have a little light box that is on the floor and the blue basket on it houses all our transparent blocks that are so fun to use on our light.

I got rid of the really ugly wooden cabinet, and dragged this green beast of a buffet into our room.  It holds more materials that I don't want little hands getting into and it provides another flat top surface for all the things!

My dry erase board from Hobby Lobby that I have had for years is home to our Routine cards that MGT sent me a few years back.  I never used them because my girl just didn't need them at the time, but they are perfect as we journey into this new year.  Especially since we are exploring the Charlotte Mason method.  She encourages short increments of time for each area of study but using the habits of full attention and best effort for that small amount of time.  

These cards are going to help us stay on track!

With our new September box from MGT, we received some colorful and very sturdy Loose Letter Parts.  I added some magnetic tape ($3 from Hobby Lobby and then used my 40%) and vo-la! Magnetic letter parts!  Cookie sheets make it easy to take this anywhere.

On top of the buffet we have more materials from Mother Goose!

I placed our monthly manipulates which happen to be shapes, our puzzle that matches our story of the month, and our two math baskets for our first day of learning.  We are ready for September!

Our golden Bailey does not miss out on any action that happens in this room.  She loves us so much and is never far from where we are.  This month we will be studying the letters H, F, and T.  I used wide painters tape to put the letter on the floor.  My son tries to practice jumping over the lines.  He's adorable.

Well, that's our Homeschool space this year.  It'll change next year I'm sure.
I am so excited to document our learning adventures here and I wonder what my kids will think years from now as they look back on these posts.


Have a wonderful school year friends!