Monday Math: Number Fishing

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Tie string to paper clip and use as fishing rod for magnetic numbers.

Use for:

Number recognition

Comparing numbers: greater/less than

Adding, Subtracting, Dividing, Multiplying 

Sunday Science: Brain Hat

We made a brain hat to show our girls that our brain has different parts and different jobs to do. It is the control center for our body.

We found this brain hat template through Scholastic's Human Body- Easy Make and Learn Projects. It is full of manipulatives and models to help kids learn about the human body.

Click on the link below to access a PDF version of the entire workbook:

http://www.ahabitatforlearning.org/files/4009556/uploaded/Scholastic%20Human%20Body.pdf

Here is another great resource with tons of brain and neuroscience activities and lesson plans:

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/experi.html

You can also check out the play dough brain we made by clicking on the image below:

Friday Phonics and Language: Alef Bet Flashcards with Vowels

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Love this set of Hebrew Letter Flash Cards we got at our local Amazing Savings Store.

You can find a similar item on Amazon.

They are big and come with an easy to turn wheel with Hebrew vowels under each letter.

Note: This set doesn't have the phonetic transliterations on the back of the cards. Made more for a Hebrew speaking teacher to help a child or adult to learn Hebrew.

It seems to make sense to teach the letters with the vowel at the same time. This way the child is already "reading" Hebrew just by joining for example the /b/ sound from the Bet with the /ee/ sound from the chereek underneath it.

The truth is we have not been that systematic with our teaching of Hebrew sounds and would love to hear from others about the order they use to teach Hebrew reading and writing.

Thoughtful Thursdays: Caught In A Lie

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I have to admit that I have been guilty of telling a few too many white lies to my kids.This was recently made very apparent to me while struggling to convince my 2 year old to go down for a nap, my older daughter whispered in my ear, "tell her that I'm going to take a nap too".

AAAAHHH!! My 4 year old was now giving me tips on how to lie! 
I took a major pause.
My daughter knows that I lie and is following in my foot steps. Not OK.

As parents we tell many lies:
- "if you don't come with me right now, I'm leaving you here."
-"you were the best dancer in the whole show"
-"if you watch too much TV, your brain will turn to mush"

Unfortunately, our hypocrisy will come back to bite us. How long can we lecture our children on the importance of telling the truth  if we are fibbers ourselves?
Children do not respond well to the "do as I say, not as I do approach", nobody does.

We lie at different times and for different reason. Some are justifiable due to child's age/maturation.

But, I do not want to risk losing my child's trust over my silly lies.
Usually there is a valuable lesson in giving them the real reason why they must come right now, work hard to be a great dancer, and not watch so much TV.

Wild Card Wednesday: Play Dough Brain

In preparing for our upcoming unit on human anatomy, I created a play dough brain.

Using the recipe I blogged about here, I made a really quick and simple no bake homemade playdough. Just add more flour if texture is too sticky.

 Started out by covering a ramekin with play dough

 Roll dough into long snake like ropes and loop them in sections across one half of brain.

Continue same process on the other side and your brain is ready to go. 

I froze our brain so that it would harden and the kids could play with it without mushing it. Check back on Sunday for our investigation into the brain's functions.