Making Play dough

Easy, Affordable, Play Dough!

Play dough is a fun, clay - like substance that kids love! It is very easy to make, and provides hours of fun! It can be expensive to buy at stores, but it's very easy and costs nothing to make it at home! The only materials you will need are:

1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup water
1-2 cup(s) flour

3 TBSP oil

2 TBSP Cream of Tartar

1-2 packs of no sugar Kool-Aide for color and smell


It only takes about 10 minutes to make ....mix dry and wet and then dump out on table and kneed

Snowflake Art

Materials

• three glass containers for primary colors
• pippets (or eye droppers)
• large baking sheet
• paper towels
• scissors
• white coffee filters
• tempera paint or food coloring

I used a baking sheet to frame the activity and avoid spills. I allowed the colored snowflakes to dry on the cookie rack.

Animal Tracks

Lesson One:

We read the following books together:

I also had a reference book that had a lot more detail of every animals tracks of North America.

After the reading, I wrote down animals that we may be able to "track" around our farm. Then Devon copied the words onto card stock.

Lesson Two:

Using the animal name cards and a camera we tracked out into the snow looking for animal tracks.

Lesson Three:

Animal Tracks Cards

Writing ABC's

Using handwriting without tears sheet for uppercase and 1-9 numbers. I had Devon circle the letters that start in the middle and square the letters that start on the side. Only 9 and 4 start on the right.

Vision Therapy: Think Tracks

Think Tracks

Devon has to jump according to the arrows direction and say it's direction. For example, up, down, right, and left. She must do the direction while visual tracking to the next arrow.

Geoboard

First I create a triangle on the geoboard and I talk my way through it out loud. For example, "I am going to start my triangle in the top corner and pull it down to the third dot. Then for my third point I am going straight across the bottom of the geoboard.

Then I ask Devon to to look at the triangle while I count to 10 and then I flip my geoboard (purple) over so she can't see my triangle. She has to use her visual memory, recall and produce her triangle. She was so proud of herself. We did several triangles on top of each other with different color rubber bans.

Words and word families

Word Families--

Devon decided to "write" her -ab and -ace words on flashcards to play a game. So we turned all her words face down and each player got to pick a card and "say" the word. This game was a lot like flash cards, but it was Devon's idea so she was trilled.

Next we played her game again, but this time we matched with moma's word family cards to the cut out moma's cards and matched the words.

The "boxed" flash cards are helping Devon to see that words and its shape. This strategy is helping to recognize the words with greater speed.

Geoboard

Our girls got geoboards (oriental trading company) for Christmas. Caroline makes straight lines and plays the rubber bands like a guitar. With Devon, I make a shape and have her make the same shape. The possibilities are endless.

Cracking and Picking Nuts

This nut cracker is perfect for the Montessori practical life skill of cracking nuts. This is a great activity starting at ages 3 or 4.

Mt. Vernon Trip

Wow, what a trip. We will be going back to the home school open house next year as well. The girls learned how George Washington, the farmer, grew wheat and went away from tobacco. Caroline is making butter.

Making Flower Arrangements

Need: 1 cheese shaker (from the dollar store) and two bunches of flowers cut into single flowers.

Allow your child to arrange. I keep all materials in a plastic (dollar store) basket.