A few days ago our son told us about trapezoids - how one is created by cutting off a piece from a trianlge... I thought lets do some activities on shapes then. While browsing for some lessons or worksheets a came across the pentomino puzzle. I liked those as a girl (and turns out I still do)and thought lets try.
We drew them on paper ourselves, so there would be practice for coloring, cutting and counting as well. Turned out even our almost 2 year old wanted to do a puzzle! (of course he can't find a solution yet, but coloring those puzzle pieces and playing around with them seemed to make him happy ;-))
It's fun! There are so many solutions - it's always worth trying again...
Here I found a nice free pentominoe printout:
http://www.scholastic.com/titles/chasingvermeer/pentominoes.pdf
If your child likes to play online:
http://www.scholastic.com/blueballiett/games/pentominoes_game.htm
And here is some history and more information for older children & adults:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentomino
Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Shadow, Temperature, Light - Free Science Lesson
SInce we had some snow in the last few days, we could observe what the sun can do with the snow and what shadow can prevent to happen to the snow:
this picture shows what we discovered:
...photo of the deck behind our house
Where the sun could not reach the snow, it was still there! It was simply not as warm in the shade as it was in the sun.(Our son came to this conclusion by himself (he's 6 yrs old)).
We looked around for some more evidence of this "Play by Nature" and found it here:
The sun could'nt melt the snow where the fence's shadow was on the gras.
...photo taken in our backyard
We might look into this tpoic a bit more once we have more snow.
this picture shows what we discovered:
...photo of the deck behind our house
Where the sun could not reach the snow, it was still there! It was simply not as warm in the shade as it was in the sun.(Our son came to this conclusion by himself (he's 6 yrs old)).
We looked around for some more evidence of this "Play by Nature" and found it here:
The sun could'nt melt the snow where the fence's shadow was on the gras.
...photo taken in our backyard
We might look into this tpoic a bit more once we have more snow.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Free Origami Instructions
We're having some fun activities besides the homework from public school (Our official homeschooling start is after Christmas):
Our son brought home some origami-like folded animals. I told him that we have a book with lots and lots of instructions to fold awesome things. He went for it! Now we're folding and folding and can't stop.
It's a perfect way for practicing shapes and fine motorskills for a kindergartner or 1st grader.
If you don't have a book on hand, here are some free origami online instructions:
Christmas Tree:
http://www.davidpetty.me.uk/mom/mom30.htm
Candy Cane:
http://www.origami-resource-center.com/candy-cane-diagram.html
Star Box (to serve some homemade cookies):
http://www.davidpetty.me.uk/mom/mom41.htm
Bat (my son LOVED this one):
http://www.nickrobinson.info/origami/diagrams/bat.htm
Pilgrim Story - Folded Boat:
http://www.origamiwithrachelkatz.com/stories/pilgrims.htm
Our son brought home some origami-like folded animals. I told him that we have a book with lots and lots of instructions to fold awesome things. He went for it! Now we're folding and folding and can't stop.
It's a perfect way for practicing shapes and fine motorskills for a kindergartner or 1st grader.
If you don't have a book on hand, here are some free origami online instructions:
Christmas Tree:
http://www.davidpetty.me.uk/mom/mom30.htm
Candy Cane:
http://www.origami-resource-center.com/candy-cane-diagram.html
Star Box (to serve some homemade cookies):
http://www.davidpetty.me.uk/mom/mom41.htm
Bat (my son LOVED this one):
http://www.nickrobinson.info/origami/diagrams/bat.htm
Pilgrim Story - Folded Boat:
http://www.origamiwithrachelkatz.com/stories/pilgrims.htm
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