Count, Rhyme, Repeat with Free e-books

Or rhyme, count, read, repeat!!

One of Spider-man's current favorite is "Ten Little Ladybugs".

And recently, he has been reading "Ten Rubber Duckies" a lot as well!

They are really are a lot of fun, with tactile critters, magical countdowns, and rhymes all thrown into the learning mix...

Batman, inspired by the books, decided to come up with his own. Of course, he chose to do count-ups, and skip count.
This is all his effort, I only added the clip arts! Amazing how a good book can inspire us :) And what a great way to get ready for KG over the summer. Some of his rhymes are here as images. He started from 1, skip counted by 2, and stopped at 11. Simple. For this one, he decided to rhyme with the number. Start with 1, add 2, you get 3. So what rhymes with 3 that makes sense in the context of monkeys, forest etc, and off he went...

With its predictable ending, and repetitions, this makes a great simple reader.

Feel free to download the book here - Skip Count Up and Rhyme with Monkeys . 

Come up with your own rhymes and combinations. Count up, down, or skip count.
Spiderman soon joined us, and in collaboration, we came up with three more books, which were a hoot. All three are available  for free download as well - just click on the images.

Batman wants to share these with all his friends. I would appreciate if you 'like' us on FB, or follow our tweets, or subscribe to more of our fun ideas, or do them all - so the sharing circle is complete!

Take a peek at our other combinations...


Count up with spotted cows..

Count down with buzzing bees...

Skip count down with little fishies...

 

I would love to see if you have done something similar. Please leave me a comment. Have fun with rhymes!

Sharing at:
Tot School Gathering Place, Montessori Monday, Summer Fun for Kids, The Sunday Showcase, Link & Learn, Stress Free Sunday, Mom's Library, Artsy Play Wednesday             

Things That Go Together Printables

Spiderman loves our collection of miniatures. See this post for his comments and observations about pre-reading fun with matching objects.

I decided to mix it up a bit, and created some "mostly" new cards for more matching fun...

This is a great problem solving and matching game. It encourages your pint sized learners to develop critical sorting, categorization, thinking skills, all the while extending their vocabulary. 
And all this when they are having fun!

I made  26 pairs of cards on a boatload of topics. So it is guaranteed to keep them engaged. 
This set is Batman's and Spiderman's fave.

 This next set gave them both a moment of pause! I could hear the gears turning :)

 The set is free, and available for download at my TpT store here.A big shout out to the wonderful graphics at My Cute Graphics! I adore them. They are cute and free!

Shared at
It's Playtime, Artsy Play Wednesday, Mom's Library, Link & Learn    

Pink and Pirates at TpT Store

No, it's not about pink pirates this time!

But I did put some fun stuff on the TpT store, and I hope you will find it useful and have some fun with it!

I started with the Montessori Pink Series for Language Arts (start at the beginning, right?).

One is free preview of the series with a little bit of everything....

....and the other one is  focused specifically on the Pink Series Rhyming Fun, with 30 cards, 4 worksheets, and rhyming chutes and ladders game with just words from the pink series...
My two super-heroes love this twist on the fun classics game.

If anyone is just starting with the Pink Series, and would like to see something specific, I am open to suggestions! Another file with just the Pink Series Cards will be up shortly, followed my more worksheets.
The ambitious idea is add more on the Pink, followed by Blue and Green, but I get ahead of myself, lol :)

I also added some ten frames, pirate style, from 1, all the way up to 20...

It has a fun ten frames game - along with the ten frame you get, you need to pick the corresponding treasure chest with the right number on it, so you can get to 10. In this case, a pirate picked up a 9, and needs the chest with 1 on it!

 

The file also has addition cards to reinforce the learning with the ten frames, and tons of cliparts for the pirates to fill up their frames with. It also provides some excellent fine motor skill if they cut the pix themselves!! 

That's all for now, although I am working on adding more fun stuff.

So if you have are interested, head on over to the TpT store, and give me some feedback please! 

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Share it Saturday, Stress Free Sunday             

Laundry Lessons

Not to air our dirty laundry, but what can we possibly learn from this? 

A lot of moments can be teachable moments, but even knowing that, I was a bit taken aback at just how many things we did learn (yes, I learned a few as well) while doing something as simple as laundry!

First we sorted the kid's clothes, but of course, the lesson starts before that. The kids are required to put their clothes in the hamper. If they don't, their clothes don't get washed, and soon, we don't have our favorite angry birds t-shirts for school! But I digress.

• We sorted the clothes into mostly white (& cotton), mostly cotton that need a bit more vigorous washing, and mostly not (the ones that require gentle washing)! We fastened buttons, snaps, zippers etc, and turned clothes with prints on them inside out. Lots of fine motor fun.
• We also sorted the clothes to make sure that we had a whole set, like both socks in a pair, tops and bottoms of pajamas etc.
• The sorting into 3 piles prompted a discussion about the different settings on the washer, hot water cleaning more dirt, but also being tough on the clothes etc. And of course, energy. Hot water needs more energy, as the water needs to be heated up. Batman looked at the whites, which were not very dirty, and at all the settings, and decided on the warm/cold cycle as a compromise between cleanliness and energy efficiency! Perfect choice!
  

  
• When the time showed up, Batman asked me - is that time in minutes or seconds? Well, that got us talking about minutes and seconds, and what might happen if I add an "extra rinse" setting, or do a heavy soil vs. light soil etc. We made predictions about more time or less time, rather than the number of minutes!
• And then, the most fun part of laundry started. One kid (or mom) picks the clothes from sorted pile, and throws them after balling it up, and the second one, standing in front of the washer, catches it and places it in the washer!! Some gross motor fun...
  

  
• We also do some estimates about how many clothes might fit into the washer, and talk about not overfilling it....

So let's see, a simple thing like laundry, and we learned about responsibility, sharing, science behind dirt and soap, energy efficiency, math fun with sorting, prediction and time, fine and gross motor fun...

Of course, I don't do this every time I do laundry, but often enough, and mostly with the kid's laundry, to motivate them, and to have some fun!

I bet us parents do it all the time, we just don't write elaborate posts about our teachable moments!! But sometimes, we just need to make conscious decisions to go with the flow, and forget about toys, or gadgets, or printables, or books, and just teach as life happens!

Shared at:
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Nature Montage - Symmetrical Art

How do you entice boys to create art with nature?
Entice them with twigs, rocks, pebbles, shells...

At first they were a bit hesitant, but the vibrant colors worked their charm :)

I explained to them about Rangoli designs, and Mandalas, showed them a few pictures, and made a circle for them on the floor, and with some coaxing, they got started...

The word of the day that day was - symmetry, lol!!

The one on the left is Spiderman's, and the one on the right is Batman's - work in progress. Super-heroes need to get in touch with their sensitive sides as well! 

Spiderman had minimal help from me in perfecting his center. I rearranged the petals and shells a bit for him to make it look "tidy" per his instructions. 

Here is his finished Mandala.

Batman did not want any help. He used some twigs from his nature collection...

He also decided to finish it up as a "square" mandala...

We also did a mirror art inspired by this post.

 Batman placed a mirror on the yellow line a few times to get the hang of it...

 

He also realized that the shells (on & near the blocks) are not truly a mirror image, as the "swirly things" on the shell are not really mirror images. And he is right :)

This one was Spiderman's, he had mostly one level of things to replicate right next to the central line. He got the hang of it after a few times with the mirror as well :)

Linking up to:
Kids Get Arty, It's Playtime, Monday Kid Corner, Link & Learn, Montessori Monday, The Sunday Showcase, Stress-Free Sunday, Money Saving Monday, Eco-Kids Tuesday, Mom's Library, Artsy Play Wednesday    

Transportation theme - Week 1

Do you trip over hot wheels, get poked by helicopters while in bed, find Lego pieces in your purse?
Have vehicles, or transportation doo-dads all around the house? 
Think puzzles, toys, hotwheels, trains, tracks, building blocks, legos, car wash, remote controls...
Do I see some head nodding?
With two boys, and numerous birthdays and special occasions, I do. So why not make a theme out of it? 

We can combine numbers, letters, science, crafts, and good old fashioned fun! Win win for everyone!

Ever since Smelly Letters, Batman has been on a quest of trying to alphabetize everything! Wow, me the trend setter. So when he wanted to alphabetize our vehicle collection, I thought, why not? Might be fun!

 

 

 This is just a trailer. Stay tuned - Transporation A to Z is coming soon to a blog near you...

But while we find things inside our house for every letter of the alphabet, let's have fun with some other stuff!!  

How about Automoblox? Put the different parts together, learn their names, mix and match the wheels, rims, front and back ends, tops for cool cars, and shh, work on some fine motor skills. 

Or how about the Battat Take Apart vehicles? I have a 4x4, and both Batman, Superman and all their friends enjoy them! More taking apart and putting them together fun! When the drill runs out of battery, I just let the kids use the bits as screw drivers. Some lefty-loosy, righty-tighty review, and off we go...

The Geo-board set that I have (could not find it on Amazon any more) had template for quite a few that went nicely with our theme. After we made some impromptu sling shots with the rubber bands, we got down to business...

 

Spiderman wanted to soar into the sky as well. To infinity and beyond in the rocket ship with drill and design set...

 

 

And then Batman wanted wanted to do a Hovering Helicopter, because a plane/jet can't hover, you know Mamma? This a Quarcetti set.

Make some crayons for those spectacular drawing of the boat or train to follow. It helps that Spiderman likes to strip the paper. And of course, an exacto knife.

And then there are the classics, Legos!! We had plenty lying around to go with our theme...

Batman, my emerging party planner, commented - "with all the stuff we have, we can almost have a Transportation themed birthday party, Mamma. Remember, like the one we had for Spiderman last year, with small stations set up everywhere with all train stuff?"

But sadly, neither Batman nor Spiderman wanted a Transportation themed birthday bash, as "we already did all these stuff" ... 

Linked up to:
Link & Learn, Monday Kid Corner, It's Playtime, The Sunday Showcase, Montessori Monday, Tuesday Tots, We Made That 

Montessori Inspired Rhyming Work and Chutes and Ladders

I have an extensive collection of miniatures, and I love them as much (if not more) than the kids :)

I generally start with 4 groups or less, place one object from each rhyming group on the carpet/mat, and Spiderman's job is to find the matching ones.

So I placed bed, chair. oar, hook and swing on the carpet, and Spiderman followed up with the rest...

Montessori inspired Object Box

... of the items from the tray.

Rhyming with miniatures

Bed, head, red, sled, bread
Chair, bear, pear
Oar, door, four
Hook, book
Swing, king, ring, wing  
 
Here is our work from another day. We started out reasonably, but then Spiderman kept on adding more, and the mats got a bit crowded. 

   

As you can see, the bed (with its mattress and pillow, and monsters lurking underneath) and the pirate hook is a hit with Spiderman. They have to make a mandatory appearance every time we play with our Rhyming box!

What I have noticed is that Spiderman is not quite as adept at this yet. Let's say that bee is already placed on the mat or carpet, and he picks up a tree. His first instinct is to say as many words as he can think of that rhymes with tree, like me, he, she, gee... If he also said bee during this rhyming spurt, then it is a snap fpr him to put in the tree with the bee (group), but if he did not, and looks at the groups on the board, then it takes him much longer to match it, if that makes any sense :)

I always have to remind him to match it with what is on the mat/carpet. Yes, "he" rhymes with tree, but it is not on the mat. Is there anything on the mat or the carpet that rhymes with "tree"? And yes, "shy" rhymes with "pie", but we don't have "shy" on the mat.

So I needed to come up with something where in just thinking of a  rhyming word is good enough. 
So I decided to amp up the classic chutes and ladders by adding a rhyming element to it.
This way, all he needs to do is think of a rhyming word, and that's it :)

<Click on the image to view the pdf file>

Chutes and Ladders with Rhyming Fun

<Click here to download the game>

Added benefits:
Spiderman also needs to work on higher number recognition. Along with all this, I have seen more conflicts between Batman and Spiderman, and I thought they needed to take turns, be patient with each other, etc etc.

Linked up to:
It's Playtime, Mom's Library,
Tot School Gathering Place, Link and Learn, Stress Free Sunday