Sorry! And Other Games
I didn't have a plan for our day and following their lead found us playing a lot of games today! We had so much fun learning together this way.
Evan and I read Happy Pig Day! together. He did amazingly well today. I don't think I helped him with more than five words in the whole book.
Evan then left to go play Word Monkey on the kindle and get some practice in with phonics and sight words.
At some point this morning Evan and I played addition war. We each flipped over two cards, added them up and the one with the highest sum won. I had taken out all the face cards and showed Evan an example of how we play. He just took off after that.
Many times he didn't even add up his sums but would say I won because we both have 7's and I have a 9 but you have a 5 so I have more. He quickly saw the pattern when adding with 10's and knew that 10 + 5 would be fifteen before adding it up.
It was fun and great practice adding on with sums up to 20. Alec had wanted to play with us but Evan didn't want him to so I offered to play fraction war with Alec as soon as I was done with Evan.
To play fraction war Alec and I also flipped two cards over but put the smaller number on top of the larger number to make a fraction. The one with the larger fraction won.
The only time we deviated from our rule was Alec flipped over an ace and told me he'd rather place it under the card and make a whole number that would beat any fraction and I agreed with that. If we could reduce fractions, we did. We compared denominators first and then how many pieces secondly.
He showed great understanding of fractions and often could tell me right away who's was larger and why. It was fun and when we were done and I offered to play with Ian. Ian struggled a bit more with the concept of comparing fractions and I think it took him a good half- way through he game before he was really seeming to catch on.
We all really enjoyed this game though and I hope we'll definitely play again.
It was such a fun and engaging way to learn about fractions and compare them.
We all sat and played Sorry! Sliders. It was a very lively game and we played two different rounds. We enjoy this game and like that with four different game modes to choose from there's a lot of variety.
We, of course, use any and all games to teach good sportsmanship, honesty, and manners. When we were done a few rounds Ian wanted to go play with his trucks and the other two asked me to play regular Sorry!
We had lots of fun and giggles and Alec told me it was math too since they were counting and subtracting (when determining how many squares they had left to get home).
We cleaned up and had some lunch. I read another chapter in Harry Potter to the boys and then we got ready to head out to the library.
On the way home from the library we stopped to get some wood glue for a project Ian's working on. We listened to our book on cd in the car; The Dragon- Rider. The boys are really enjoying the story and have a lot of fun listening to it.
Once home Ian set to work on assembling his wooden model plane. He read the instructions and put the plane together on his own. He had to stop so all the glue could dry and started planning out what kind of paint job he'd like to put on it once it's dry.
Alec spent a portion of his day drawing with his markers and paper and making up pictures. I offered to help him set up all the paints and things to finish up his peacock drawing but he didn't feel like it today so I let him be. I know what it's like to not feel artsy or crafty some days and certainly wouldn't want anyone to make me sit and create anyway.
They spent the rest of the dark, rainy day watching a few Magic School Bus movies. We learned about outer space, rot, and digestion. We watched The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space, The Magic School Bus Meets the Rot Squad, and The Magic School Bus for Lunch.
That's a whole lot of science in one afternoon.
Evan and I read Happy Pig Day! together. He did amazingly well today. I don't think I helped him with more than five words in the whole book.
Evan then left to go play Word Monkey on the kindle and get some practice in with phonics and sight words.
At some point this morning Evan and I played addition war. We each flipped over two cards, added them up and the one with the highest sum won. I had taken out all the face cards and showed Evan an example of how we play. He just took off after that.
 |
| Fraction war-- comparing 2/4 with 3/8 |
It was fun and great practice adding on with sums up to 20. Alec had wanted to play with us but Evan didn't want him to so I offered to play fraction war with Alec as soon as I was done with Evan.
 |
| 9+1 and 8+2; that means --War! |
The only time we deviated from our rule was Alec flipped over an ace and told me he'd rather place it under the card and make a whole number that would beat any fraction and I agreed with that. If we could reduce fractions, we did. We compared denominators first and then how many pieces secondly.
He showed great understanding of fractions and often could tell me right away who's was larger and why. It was fun and when we were done and I offered to play with Ian. Ian struggled a bit more with the concept of comparing fractions and I think it took him a good half- way through he game before he was really seeming to catch on.
We all really enjoyed this game though and I hope we'll definitely play again.
It was such a fun and engaging way to learn about fractions and compare them.
We all sat and played Sorry! Sliders. It was a very lively game and we played two different rounds. We enjoy this game and like that with four different game modes to choose from there's a lot of variety.
We, of course, use any and all games to teach good sportsmanship, honesty, and manners. When we were done a few rounds Ian wanted to go play with his trucks and the other two asked me to play regular Sorry!
We had lots of fun and giggles and Alec told me it was math too since they were counting and subtracting (when determining how many squares they had left to get home).
We cleaned up and had some lunch. I read another chapter in Harry Potter to the boys and then we got ready to head out to the library.
On the way home from the library we stopped to get some wood glue for a project Ian's working on. We listened to our book on cd in the car; The Dragon- Rider. The boys are really enjoying the story and have a lot of fun listening to it.
Once home Ian set to work on assembling his wooden model plane. He read the instructions and put the plane together on his own. He had to stop so all the glue could dry and started planning out what kind of paint job he'd like to put on it once it's dry.
Alec spent a portion of his day drawing with his markers and paper and making up pictures. I offered to help him set up all the paints and things to finish up his peacock drawing but he didn't feel like it today so I let him be. I know what it's like to not feel artsy or crafty some days and certainly wouldn't want anyone to make me sit and create anyway.
They spent the rest of the dark, rainy day watching a few Magic School Bus movies. We learned about outer space, rot, and digestion. We watched The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space, The Magic School Bus Meets the Rot Squad, and The Magic School Bus for Lunch.
That's a whole lot of science in one afternoon.
I love the idea of doing math with cards. My daughter is in grade 1 and her "homework" is to play cards with us to explore patterns. I might move into the adding game and the fractions for my older daughter. What a fun way to practice math!
ReplyDelete~Jess
#FabFriday
Thanks! We try to play a lot of card games. One of our favorite books is called Games for Math by Peggy Kaye. She suggests tons of fun games for elementary school using everyday household items.
DeleteI have an 11 month old and I'm already trying to find educational activities because I refuse to let my little one sit on an iPad or play video games. This is brilliant! Thanks for the ideas!
ReplyDelete#fabfriday
I totally understand, my kids didn't even watch TV until they were 4 or so. I used to let them "paint" with cool whip or pudding or other edible sensory type things. We also had a small water table that I left dry and kept in the kitchen every week or so I'd change out what we put inside it; dry pasta with measuring cups and spoons from the dollar store, cornmeal with toy trucks, rice with toy animals, etc. We read a lot of book and took a lot of walks.
DeleteHi, I love the idea of playing maths with playing cards so many options are available for all ages #fabfridaypost
ReplyDeleteWe have lots of card games we use for math; it's lots of fun.
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ReplyDeleteI love the card game ideas. My daughter loves playing games and she's much more engaged that way when we do learning games.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe your boys wanted to play Sorry! so much! That game is so freakin' aggravating! lol #fabfridaypost
They love Sorry and Sorry Sliders; neither one is a favorite of mine but they play it all the time.
DeleteWhat a great way to incorporate math! We do that, or try to incorporate it in everything. To make it fun (I'm a geek, os it already is fun) all the time, and not a chore. Getting comfortable with math increases self esteem in school. Love this post! #FabFridayPost xoxo
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteI love your maths cards idea. Its really simple and fun. I haven't heard of the Sorry game yet. Need to find out a bit more about this. Well done Evan for adding the numbers. Looks like he really enjoys the game. Lots of great ideas fora rainy day in this post. Thank you for linking up with us again on #FabFridayPost x
ReplyDeleteHe really does. We tend to play a lot of games; no matter the weather. :)
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