Rush Hour Jr: A fun Workout for young Minds!

If you're a parent, you know there are times where need something to keep your kids quietly occupied. For me, it's often when I need to make a phone call or help my oldest out with her schoolwork. It can be easy rely on technology. Coloring books and simple crafts sometimes work for our preschooler but it depends on the day. Thankfully I now have a new way to keep her busy and learning...and it requires no screens or electricity!

Recently Thinkfun sent us the kids version of the Traffic Jam Logic Game Rush Hour® to see what we thought of it.

Just like the classic version Rush Hour Jr. you need to shift 3D cars and trucks around on 'streets' in the correct sequence in order to help your ice cream truck escape the gridlock.

It's easier said than done!

Included in the game are 40 challenge cards, 15 vehicles, and the grid. 

To begin the player selects a card at the level of play they are working at (there are four levels from beginner to expert). 

The card will show how the vehicles need to be initially arranged on the grid. From here the player can begin sliding the vehicles forward or backwards to try and get the ice cream our of the traffic jam.  If you get stuck you can always refer to the solution on the other side of the card.

Both kids really enjoyed this game. To begin with I played it with our 4 year old as she had a little trouble setting up the board. As far as the game play, she really took off with it. It held her attention and was content to sit quietly and figure it out several cards at a time.

When our 8 year old managed to get a turn she thought it was 'pretty cool'. This is definitely not just a preschool game. The upper level cards are challenging for her and I think this Jr version of game will be fine for both of them for a good while. As for Grown-ups it gave my brain a good workout too. I would seriously look into adding the adult version to our board game collection as a family christmas gift too this year! I especially liked that is sturdy and the vehicles chunky enough for little hands to hold. The size of the base makes it extremely portable. A little cloth bag is included to carry the fun with you to pull out at restaurants or at the Doctor's waiting room.

You can find  Rush Hour Jr. at  Thinkfun's Online store! It would make a great gift for birthdays and other special occasions. Grandparents and Aunts might like to get one to keep at their place for when the little ones visit too! 

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Charlie the Ranch Dog goes to School by Ree Drumond

This post contains affiliate links; I was not compensated for the following review. All opinions expressed are my own.

It is almost the end of the month, and that means we have a new book to share for the Poppins Book Nook!

The theme for September is School!

At the end of this post be sure to enter the giveaway and visit all the other fun ideas the Poppins Book Nook bloggers have for you! 

Ree Drummond has written a series of books featuring her lovable Basset Hound Charlie. The kids and I love them all!

The latest one Charlie Goes to School  is our new favorite.
Why?
Because not only does Charlie's family have a Basset Hound as we do, they also homeschool. Charlie the Ranch dog sees all the fun and learning that is going on and decides he should start his own school for farm animals. It is a funny story full of illustrations which make you want to go join Charlie on his ranch.

We read it at bedtime and then the next day the kids treated our Basset, Butter, to a very comfy Story time.

We decided it would be a great idea to write to the real Charlie the Ranch Dog and his mama Ms. Drummond to tell them how much we loved the new book. Miss K wanted to let them know all about Butter and how much he loves chicken and playing with our kitty Perry. We have them all ready to post, I just need to track down a good address.

Some online resources you might like to use if you want to hear about the adventures of Charlie the Ranch Dog and write him a letter too!

• Listen to Ms. Drummond read Charlie the Ranch dog at Barnes and Nobles Online story time (Free)
• We have a previous post about teaching letter writing skills.

Thanks to Enchanted Homeschooling Mom the Poppins book Nook bloggers are co-hosting a giveaway for It's Back To School We Go!: First Day Stories from Around The World .

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Here are the participating bloggers this month!

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom - 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 - 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 - Preschool Powol Packets - To The Moon and Back - Our Craft ~N~ Things - Fresh Farm Adventures - Are We There Yet? - Afterschool for Smarty Pants

Goliath's Secret: A Review, Giant Frogs, Lifecycles & Sign language

I am so pleased to be able to share a great Picture book called Goliath's Secret written by Bonnie Feuer and illustrated by Sharai Platt. Following the review are some fun ways we 'stretched the book' and it's message.

Told in prose and rhyme, this story is about a group of West African animals watching a Goliath Frog. At first they are confused when he will not respond to them. Throughout the day each Animal tries to get him to say something using they way they each think is the best. Still the Goliath says nothing. By nightfall all the Animals are feeling sorry him until he ultimately shows them that he has no problem making himself understood.

The illustrations are beautiful and show off the beauty of the African river habitat. Overall the book spreads an important message of Caring, Diversity and Acceptance. It teaches an important lesson: we should not assume that there is 'something wrong' with someone that does not behave how we expect they should. It also touches on the need to respect all people regardless of their abilities.

 Learning more about Goliath Frogs:

• Endangered Animals for Kid from Konicaminolta.com provides a very good overview of the Goliath Frog and the reason for the decline in Population.
• A Short video showing a Goliath frog up close from Arkive.com..what an amazing animal!
• Animal Diversity Web from The Musuem of Zoology (University of Michigan) is an Amazing resource! It is a lot of text and perhaps a bit much for younger grades but still worth a read together for lots interesting facts,

Here is what Miss K discovered when we did some research together on the Internet.
The Goliath is the largest Frog in the world, weighing around 7 pounds and up to a foot in length! You might think it would have a very loud croak. However, this species does not have a vocal sack and so is mute.

Different ways to communicate:
We discussed what it might mean if a Person is unable to speak. Both kids were able to think of different ways to communicate without their voices. Together we all learnt how to sign 'Frog' in American Sign language and Finger spell our names.
Some other methods of Non verbal communication we talked about were Body language, Written words, Braille and Art.

Making a 'Pond Life cycle flap book'

There are so many amazing Free Montessori Frog resources available. Here are the ones I used with Mini Piwi (Pre K)

• Frog Match up and Memory game from Montessori Print Shop
• Parts of a Frog Nomenclature Cards & Book from Montessori Print Shop
• Frog Life cycle sequence cards from Montessori Mom (these are the images we used on the Pond craft)

One of my favorite resources this week was only 99c. 'A Life Cycle App' is full of information about the Life cycles and Cycles of a variety of Insects, Frogs, Rocks, the Moon and more...it was will worth a download on my Kindle!

As chance would have it, a few days after this project we had a visitor on our front porch...

This guy was 'only' around 3 inches long and a Toad but we decided that was as close as we were going to get to a Goliath Frog in Texas!

I come from a long line of Reptile 'Phobs' (ironic since New Zealand is Snake and Giant Lizard Free). My kids are fascinated with them...from a safe distance. How do you feel about Frogs, Snakes and Lizards?

Follow all the Fun and Learning!

Butterfly Unit Study & Lap Book

Our Earth day inspired project focused on helping local Monarch butterflies. If you haven't seen all the fun and learning we have been having then please go and check out Our Save the Monarchs posts and Pinterest board.

Miss K wanted to know more about all the local butterflies not just the Monarchs. All her reading and observations culminated into a colorful lap book.

The final product contains the printables from two free lap book as well as some of our own mini books.

Free Butterfly Mini Helper lap book by Home school bits

Butterfly Lap book from Home school Share

Title Page

We had just finished with a Hans Christian Andersen unit so Miss K added this quote from 'The Butterfly' to her title page.

The Lifespan tri-fold book was for Miss K to record the number days 6 different species spend in each stage of their life cycle. The Host plant flap book listed 20 different plants and the Caterpillars that use them as food sources.

Life cycle, Host Plants, Life span

Anatomy, Anatomy Glossary

The Anatomy of the Butterfly had us all amazed. Miss K would have happily spent several weeks learning about each species. A trip to Butterfly house got everyone even more excited!

Butterfly feeding

Butterfly or Moth, Wingspan, Texas Butterfly species.

Miss K is on the look out now for a pocket Butterfly Identification guide (and a flower guide...and one for trees). At the moment I am trying to decide between the Caterpillars, Bugs and Butterflies: Take Along Guide for younger kids or get one that will be good for years to come like the Peterson First Guide to Butterflies and Moths.

Mini Piwi had a week of Butterflies too!

Preschool Butterfly science and Food art

We have been seeing a lot of Monarchs and Painted Ladies in the park this week. What Butterflies have you noticed near you?

Hans Christian Anderson Unit Study & Lapbook (Free download)

Source for book title Image

The theme for the Second month of the Poppin's Book Nook is Wizards!  Our "Magical' book this month was 'The Perfect Wizard' by Jane Yolen and illustrated by Dennis Nolan. 

This whimsical picture book is a biography of story telling Wizard, Hans Christian Andersen. It introduces us to a young, awkward and eccentric Hans and describes how he overcomes the odds to become one of the best known children's fairy tale authors. Small excepts from his stories throughout the book cleverly highlights how much of his inspiration was drawn from his own experiences. Dennis Nolan's beautiful illustrations are whimsical and dream like. To see them for your selves you can click on the book cover to see inside the book on Amazon (affiliate link).

Miss K and I read the book together because it does contain some themes that she would have questions about. (eg.Losing loved ones, Mental health and Poverty). This book is full of life lessons like not giving up and believing in your dreams. I am still surprised the library wasn't keeping it for their collection!

I had planned a craft to go with this book. However, after reading the book, Miss K  read some of the other fairy tales quoted in the book. Our project become a Lap book and Unit study. The Mini books I made for the Lap book focused on five topics. I have included the links do you can download them too.

1. Timeline: We used the picture book to create a Time line for many of the Major events in Hans Christian Andersen's life. Download time line 

2. Paper Art: To amuse his audience Han Christian Anderson made his 'Paper cuts'. We read about this on several websites (see below for links) and Miss K is practicing so she can add one to this mini book. Download Mini Book.

3. Reading Log: In side this flap Miss K listed the stories she read and the year they were first published. Download Mini Book

4. HCA's Legacy: Andersen's stories have been adapted into new versions and inspired Stage, Ballet and Movies productions. Miss K investigated this further and found examples. Download Tri fold book

5. Fairy tales: Miss K chose her six favorite HCA Fairy tales. For each of these I made a Mini Book which used to summarize the story or write about the Main Character (s). Download Mini books
  

To make our lap book we used some of beautiful vintage images from The Graphics Fairy.

All our online resources can be found on our Hans Christian Andersen Pinterest board

The Poppins Book Nook is hosted by The Enchanted Homeschooling Mom. 

Here are the participating bloggers: 

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 - No Doubt Learning

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.