Stick Puzzles

Popsicle Sticks, craft sticks, whatever you call them - they can be made into puzzles for kids. You can follow a detailed tutorial here or here. I just used photos on regular copy paper, and Elmer's glue. I need a new color cartridge, so all photos were in black and white - which makes it even harder to sort when they are all together!

I made the puzzles and let them dry - sliced them apart and put them in a cup for The Punk to find in the morning. He had fun trying to figure out what they were, and then he was off! He found that I had marked the backs, so he turned them all over and sorted them into piles. Then he sorted them by number - and solved the puzzles. A very proud Punk, indeed.

Back in the cup they went - and onto the School Shelf. I'm sure this will be a repeat when Daddy comes home!

If you Give a Mouse a Cookie

Today we finished the work we had left on our If you give a Mouse a Cookie lapbook. Some of the items were taken from this resource, but others were things I made to supplement the lesson. For instance - I made the tracing line work showing the mouse how to get to the cookie. The more we work on these the better he will be at tracing letters and shapes one day.

Match the Cookie Game

Lapbook Cover

Inside: Nursery Rhymes that include mice, cookie matching game, drawing of a mouse, I Spy Circles (in the book), tracing lines, tracking his name, If you give a Boy a Cookie story, and mouse facts (they have tails, ears, etc.).

My favorite part of the lapbook was the If you Give a Boy a Cookie portion. I let the Punk tell me a story while I took dictation - starting with the line

"If you Give a Boy a cookie"...

If you give a Boy a cookie he will want some milk. After that he will want another cookie. Then he will want a napkin to wipe up the milk he spilled, and the crumbs. Then, he will want to go for a walk. They will go to Art Class. If the cars come in the neighborhood they will get smashed so they walk on the sidewalk. They make chalk in Art Class. Then they go home and have a snack and draw on the porch with the chalk.

The End.

Linking this post to Preschool Corner & No Time For Flash Cards

If you give a Punk a fish...

I love reading other Mommy/Teaching/Preschool/Home School blogs. And one of my favorites is Counting Coconuts. She uses the Montessori Method a lot, and makes some really interesting school tools. I have copied a couple of her ideas already. The most recent one I decided to make was a felt fishing "game".

I cut the fish from felt (freehand - they are all a little different). I sewed them shut with a bit of stuffing and a hardware nut (borrowed from the husband's garage) in the mouth of each.

A dowel, yarn, magnet and some hot glue later - we have a fishing pole! Each of the fish are numbered (1-10) on one side, and have dots to count on the other. So far we have played a game (numbers side up) where I ask him to fish for number ___ and he finds it, and another (dots side up) where he catches a random fish and we count the dots before revealing the numbers on the other side. I plan on using some flash cards or playing cards to add more interest to the game as we go on.