Imaginets

I am starting to put together ideas for my youngest one during next years school season. Right now I set our table up with mini-stations for him to work through while I do lessons with my daughter. He has enjoyed these stations but as we re-use the same materials over and over his attention span is slowly dwindling. He is getting a bit older to where I will put our a bit more art, basic science exploration and letter work this year -- he is ready for it.

One new learning activity I recently picked up is called Imaginets. It is a wooden case with a magnetic white board and colorful wooden shapes that are magnets. He can free play with it or use the cards included to create shapes, things or animals. There are very easy cards that we will use to start and much more challenging cards he can work up to. I have let him try this out a couple of times now and he loves it! I love that it is very well made, thin for storage, age appropriate but will grow with him and can even work for travel in our trailer. It should make for a great addition to our home and learning table!

Q-Bitz Game

I try to incorporate a lot of games into our learning, to spice things up and honestly -- you can learn a lot from games! We own a ton of games, they are used well in this house and I am always on the look out for something a little bit different.

This year for Holly's birthday she got a couple of new games. Q-Bitz is one of her new games that we have already spend a good period of time enjoying. This is a great puzzle game that works on some logic skills, pattern recognition, memory skills and general math.

The game has four little wooden boards with 16 different patterned dice. You flip a card with a pattern on it and race to see who can complete the pattern first (or enjoy alone). Then you can spice it up a bit with rolling your dice to complete the pattern or using your memory to complete the pattern. It is challenging and fun - a hit for us for sure!

If you are enjoy games or are a fellow home schooling family or instructor this would make a great addition to your learning!!!

Graphing Pattern Block Pictures

Each week we do some work with pattern blocks. I either set up some hard patterns for her to work on, she builds me some hard patterns to work on or I challenge Holly to a picture of some sort. I came across this wonderful graph to use when creating pattern block pictures: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B8bTZllX7s9pZjZmMDA1MzgtZjg2OC00OTI3LTk4MmUtODMxYWY1NjMzNmFh&hl=en

This was a great addition to Holly's pattern block play -- so, we'll be breaking out this graph occasionally. On this day she had to build a small garden picture, pretty easy stuff.

Rainbow Patterns

Holly did some beading work for fine motor skills and practiced creating patterns within the rainbow color scheme. As simple as this project appears to me, it took her a long time to bead - she grew tired of beading and her fingers got sore she said. This was a good little project for her as she practiced some patience skills, thoughtfulness, reinforced our rainbow theme and incorporated a bit of pattern skills for math.

The goal was to create a unique pattern for each color. It is hard to tell from these photos however she did accomplish that. Whenever she started a new color she had to stop and look at the other and determine a new pattern. The beads were solid, shimmery, glittery and opaque - making it hard to really see the full differences in the photos.

Cool Mosaic Game

I had picked this game up for a recent road trip we took. Holly spent several hours playing with it in the car and since being home several more hours. Honestly, I think it has had more use then many of our more 'main stream' items.

It is a magnetic mosaic tile game or puzzle. It has a few films of designs you can follow. Place it on the metal black lid and then follow the pattern, placing all the magnetic mosaic pieces on. You can also create your own designs or try and figure out some other ideas they share on your own. This game really works your fine motor skills, is creative, artistic and fun!!! I have fun with it.