Geometry unit for Preschool and Elementary age

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We use Math in Focus as our main curriculum. This does include some hands on activites and extensions but I am always open to adding more! I have been waiting for Miss K's geometry unit so we could do this Shape lap book from Hands of a child.
 

To align it with the Math in Focus lessons we added some extra mini books into it for:
Properties of Trapazoids & Hexagons
Line segments and curves
Area & Perimeter
I printed extra so Mini Piwi could make her own shape poster. Unfortunately i dont have a photo of this because she later took to it with her safety scissor.
She also enjoyed a lot of the Shape printables from 3 Dinosaurs.com

Online resources we used for practice:

Sorting Plane shapes and Solid Shapes
Identify the 3D shape game
Shape Inlay -Tetris crossed with a Tangram type of game
Triangle sort
Shape Lab
Polygon Playground

We also made shape biscuits. I got distracted with spelling and overcooked them a bit but they were still popular.

Including Mini Piwi in the Shape activities:

I had printed extra copies of some of basic shape mini books so Mini Piwi could make her own shape poster. Unfortunately i dont have a photo of this because she later took to it with her safety scissor.

She also enjoyed a lot of the Shape printables from 3 Dinosaurs.com

Online Pre School resources we used:

Umi Zoomi Shape building game @Nick Jr
Shape puzzle
Purpy's shape search
ABC Mouse

She spent a little bit of time making pictures with the plastic shape but wasn't as enthusastic about it as I thought she might be.

Our Fun Math books

This week we read Which is round, Which is bigger by Mineko Mamada.
It was a great way to prompt Mini Piwi to make comparisons between shapes and objects. The cute and funny title is an English translation from the original Japanese book.  Toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy answering questions about objects, the answers at first seem obvious until the next page reveals a twist.

Another point and giggle book with a Math theme we read was 100 Animals on Parade by Masayuki Sebe. We all spent a long time with this book counting animals and spotting all the  objects the author asks you to find. The kids loved the busy illustrations and the I spy concept.

*Disclosure:  I received a free digital copy of these books through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.

Preschool Spring Bee and Butterfly Trays for Colors and Counting (Free Printables)

When we made Spring flowers from egg cartons I starting thinking about how else we could use them. Ultimately they ended up inspired 3 math and matching activities...

Butterfly and Flower Color Matching 

 We used this tray for two activities

I told a story about how each butterfly wanted to visit a flower that was the same color they were. Mini Piwi then 'helped the butterflies' by matching each card with their matching flower. Later on in the day I turned the cards and the flowers over and we played memory match with them.

 Buzzy Bee Pollen count and Clip

 This one was extra fun because Mini Piwi and I made the Bee clips together.

We made bee pegs 0-10 so the activity can grow along with Mini Piwi. Right now she is only starting out with recognizing numerals and counting objects so to begin with I only included 4 flowers. I placed the 'pollen grains' into the flowers and together we counted them and choose the correct bee peg to clip to visit the flower. Once she got the hand of the pegs Mini Piwi thought it was great fun!

Would you like to make your own version?

You are welcome to print the bees, pollen and butterflies I made for the above trays....Pre K Bees and Butterflies Match and Clip (free printable)

You will also need 10 flowers in colors to match the butterflies on the printable.
I explained how we made them in DIY Ballerina Hair Garland from Egg Cartons but you could use real flowers, silk flowers, paper flowers, the sky's (and your craft supply's) are the limit. I'd love to see what you come up with!
 If you don't have pegs then you can match the bee number cards to your flower the way we did with the butterflies. I just happen to have some pegs leftover from another project.

We read one of my favorites to go with our bee activity...I think you might recognize it :-)  

By chance I also found a new book at the Library: Butterfly colors and Counting  (by Jerry Pallotta, illustrated by Shennen Bersani).  I think Mini Piwi thought it had been written just for her and her butterflies and flowers!

What are your favorite Bee or Butterfly books?

Sir Cumference Inspired Co-ordinate Mapping Skills Activity

Miss K (7) was a princess fan until last year when she gradually started moving away from all things pink and frilly and became animal crazy instead. Now that she is 'over Princesses' we set out to find something about Knights for this month's theme. Miss K chose:

Sir Cumference and the Viking's map is the latest, in a series of books, by Math Teacher Cindy Neuschwander.  When we first read this title, we hadn't read the earlier ones. This didn't seemed to matter though.

Without giving away any of the other adventures, Sir Cumference is a knight of Camelot, married to Lady Di of Ameter. They have a son named Radius. When the book starts Radius and his Cousin, Per have become lost during a horse ride in the forest. While trying to find their way home they
discover a treasure map created by a legendary Viking Xaxon Yellowbearyd. Can the map guide them home...and to treasure? It won't be easy:  the cousins don't understand how to read the map's strange numbered grids and they have bandits following them!

Miss K liked the adventure story a lot and was surprised to find out that co-ordinate mapping was Math!  This book introduces co-ordinate graphing in a way that Miss K had no trouble understanding. Other titles include topics such as Place value, decimals and area. I appreciate any effort made to make Math understandable and fun and Ms Neuschwander has thought of a topic that can be enjoyed by Girls and Boys. Athough it is a picture book our Librarian assures me that older kids still like the series because they 'get' more of the math puns.

In order to have our own graphing adventure Miss K and I made up a map.

All the locations on the map were Medieval themed.  At this point what Miss K didn't know was that they actually related to something near our home.

Without the kids knowing I set up a treasure hunt for them, leaving co-ordinate clues at each location. The neighbors were polite enough not to ask what I was up to.

On treasure hunt day we set off with the map and first clue. And a scooter. Mini Piwi had to take the scooter.

They found 'rabbit feild' which was actually neighbours' animal scultpures

and the 'creepy Tree'

There was a lot of map consulting

But eventually they found the treasure locked away in the ' Secret Message chest" also known as our Mailbox.  No pictures of the treasure because my hands were busy unwrapping gold chocolate coins!

Mini Piwi chose:

 

Dragons love Tacos, by Adam Rubin, turned out to be a great choice! From the title we know what you should serve at a Dragon part. However a little boy throwing a Dragon party discovers the hard way why you should stick with Mild salsa. The story is as funny as the illustrations.

Mini Piwi decided to make a blue egg carton dragon. She took a lot of care painting it and then we let it dry. The following day I suggest we go back to finish her dragon. Dhe told me that it was finished, it already had a tail. Oops.

We really enjoyed being a part of the Poppins Book Nook this month. Here are all the blogs taking part. Please go visit them to see what they are sharing for about all things Royal.

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - Royal Baloo - 3 Dinosaurs - Monsters Ed - Chestnut Grove Academy - Growing in God's Grace - Royal Little Lambs - Life with Moore Babies - Teach Beside Me - The Usual Mayhem - Mum Central - Fantastic Fun and Learning - Kathys Cluttered Mind - Play Create Explore - Toddler Approved - Growing Book by Book - Adventures in Mommydom - B-Inspired Mama - The Fairy and The Frog - Edventures with Kids - Learning & Growing the Piwi way - A Gluten Free Journey - Rainy Day Mum - Mom to Crazy Monkeys

Come back next month for:  Wizards!

Math with Apples Project

This week we read 'An Apple pie for Dinner' and practiced our measuring skills with an apple Math investigation.

This book is very cute! Granny Smith (pun intended) wants to bake an apple pie but  she doesnt have any apples. All she has is a basket of plums and sets off in the hope that she can trade them. The illustrations are very fairy tale like and reminded me of the amazing shadow applique my grandma used to create.

Apple Math:

Earlier in the day we had compared raisins and grapes and talked about how drying removes the water.
The goal for apple investigation was to find out how much weight an apple looses when it is dried. Mini Piwi was chief fruit weigh-person, Miss K was the data recorder and self proclaimed 'calculator  of the important stuff'.

Here's the method I wrote for the Piwis to follow

1. Have a grown-up peel, core and slice 2 apples into thin pieces.

2. Line a baking pan with baking paper and ask Mama to turn the oven on to 200 degrees

3. Weigh the slices from each apple and record the measurement for each one

 4. Lay the apple slices on the pan

5.  Ask a grownup to put the pan into the oven

6. Wait patiently :-) for about 1 hour until the apple slices are dry.

7. Ask a grown up to remove the pan from the oven at let tthe apples cool

8. Weigh all the dried apples to find their new total mass.

 9. Eat the apples!

There are so many things you could have kids calculate from this activity. We kept it fairly simple and I asked Miss K to find:

1. The total mass of the apples before they went into the oven
2. How much mass the apples had lost from the drying

Another calculation that occured to me (after we were done) was the mass of the core and/or peel we had removed.

 The Piwi's really enjoyed their snack and even Miss K declared that this kind of math was actually fun.