Learning about Place Value

Erik has been struggling to grasp the concept of place value, so we've been trying to find ways to make it more understandable. His school was doing a coin-wars fundraiser, so we pulled out our coin  jar and I set him to work counting sorting them out. 

We counted each kind of coin separately from the rest, starting with the smallest pile. He'd take a pile of coins (let's say dimes, for example) and sort them into piles of 10. Once we had all our piles of ten we counted how many piles and wrote the number on a white board. I pointed out that there was only enough room for us to write one digit in the space, so we had to figure out how to regroup the coins and write them digits in the correct space.
We did this same process with each of the different types of coins. I think by the time we were done he had a much better understanding of place value, though he still doesn't quite have it mastered. We'll keep working on it, but we're almost there.

Field Trip: Animal Encounters, Rio Salado Audubon Center

We are always on the lookout for free, family-friendly activities to enjoy, so when I spotted something about this one we jumped right on it.

The Rio Salado Audubon Center in Phoenix, AZ is a really neat place. Inside you have a small visitor center with displays on the water cycle and water management. It's not huge, but what is there was interesting. Outside there is a beaver pond surrounded by pretty gardens, and even a unique little play area for the kids. There are walking paths around the gardens, as well as down to the nearby river.

 Every second Saturday, October-April, the center has their Animal Encounters event, where they bring birds from a rescue center and teach the public about the animals and about their program. It's all free and really fun for the whole family. We got there a bit early so we took a while to go outside to explore, birdwatch, and play.

The kids loved the butterfly garden. There weren't really any butterflies around that day, but we loved the play structures.

When it was time, we headed back inside to learn about some birds. It was really fascinating, and so fun to see these beautiful animals in person.

A falcon. 

Red-Tailed Hawk

Red-Tailed Hawk

Gray Hawk? I don't remember for sure. 

After seeing all the birds we went back outside for a picnic and some more playing and exploring.

We found a path that led down to the river and enjoyed wandering that direction. The kids are always excited to get to find some water.

This was such a fun place to visit with our family, and such a great way to learn more about the animals that live all around us.

Letter U, Under the Sea

We happened to have a convergence of oceany awesomness at our house, and oh boy did we have fun with it! Erik had to write  report on sharks for school during the same week that it was my turn to host our pre-school coop and teach the letter U. We decided to go whole hog with an ocean theme for everyone! 

Some of our letter U activities included making sea Urchins out of play dough and toothpicks. Some of the kids were enthralled with the simple fun of stabbing their ball of play dough with all the toothpicks, some weren't as interested. 

 Another fun thing we did was to make a giant Under the sea coloring page for all the kids to share. I taped a sheet of craft paper (the back side of some leftover wrapping paper would work too) to the table and just free handed some ocean creatures on to it. Don't look too close, I'm not an artist! :) The kids don't care though, and they loved it.

Set out a variety of coloring tools (crayons, markers, pencils, etc) and let them go to work. We actually kept this on the table for a couple of days for my kids to work on, putting a table cloth over it when needed to protect it.

 One really fun resource for our Under the Sea week was this great book! You can see some of the crafts we did out of it in the background of the pictures above. The kids really really loved it!

Click the image to go check out the book on Amazon.

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

Shaving Cream Spelling Practice

We are always looking for ways to make learning more engaging around here, so when Erik needed some help with his spelling words we decided to bust out one of our favorite supplies; shaving cream! Shaving cream free play has been one of Erik's favorite things since he was a toddler, and we've had lots of fun with it over the years. 

This day I set up all three kids with a tray, some shaving cream, and a few drops of food coloring. The older two loved it, but Maren wasn't quite as impressed. She played for a moment or two, then wanted to get cleaned up. Oh well, she'll learn to love it eventually. :)

 After giving the kids a few minutes to play around, I started having Erik spell his spelling words with his finger in the shaving cream. This works great because it gets both fine and gross motor muscles involved, as well as multiple senses. And, the more of yourself you get involved in an activity the better you remember it, so theoretically this is a great way to memorize those boring old spelling words!