Workshop Wednesday: Pipe Cleaners

May 9, 2012 by 1 Comment

A supply of pipe cleaners, also called chenille sticks, in various sizes and colors provides a great quiet-time activity that will keep almost any child busy for a good, long time. For teaching purposes, pipe cleaners can be formed into a variety of shapes as versatile manipulatives for your tactile students who need to get their hands on something to be able to learn it. The activities listed below can be used interchangeably for letters, numbers, or geometric shapes. Some students may need to try just a few of these activities, while others may want to try all of them… repeatedly.

Bonus tip: It helps to store the pipe cleaners in a shoebox or other container that is large enough to hold several of your students’ artistic creations! You can also take pictures of the more complex creations, enabling the student to dismantle the project and straighten out the pipe cleaners for their next use, while still saving proof of his hard work and imaginative designs.

• Challenge an early learner to duplicate the letters made by Mom or an older sibling.

• Use multiple pipe cleaners to make bigger letters. Using several colors can help younger students recognize the various components of each letter as the separate pencil strokes required to write it.

• Make multiples of each letter in various colors and sizes, and then play a matching game by grouping all the matching letters together. Students can also match pipe cleaner letters to other sets of letters: magnetic letters, letter tiles from games, flashcards, ABC books, etc.

• Match upper & lower case letters together as big brother/little brother pairs.

• Make letters to match those shown on letter tiles from games or on letter flashcards (even home-made). Shuffle cards and place stack face down, turning up the top card for the challenge letter, or put letter tiles in a clean sock or paper bag, then draw one tile at random for the challenge letter.

• Another version of the letter challenge game is to make the opposite case letter of the challenge card or tile. If a flashcard shows a lower case letter, challenge the student to make the upper case version of that letter; if a letter tile shows an upper case letter, make its lower case counterpart.

• Show how flipping a lower case “b” can transform it into a “d,” “p,” or “q” to help children learn to differentiate between the letters. The same principal works for turning a lower case “n” over to become a “u,” or turning an upper case “M” over to look like a “W.” Demonstrating that certain letters do have similar shapes can help children understand which is which and be certain they are using the correct one.

• Twist the ends of several pipe cleaners together to make a long line of pipe cleaners and bend it into the shape of cursive letters or entire words in cursive script.

• FEEL the letters blind-folded or with eyes closed (no peeking!) and try to identify them correctly. This can be tricky if the letter is held upside down or backwards, but turning it over and all around will help students learn to identify and distinguish between similarly-shaped letters. Some students may enjoy the challenge of trying to identify letters that are purposely positioned upside-down or backwards.

• Challenge students to “reproduce this pattern” of geometric shapes, numbers, or letters, even repeating the same colors used. This same activity works well for teaching pattern recognition when stringing beads, but mistakes can be corrected more simply in this version by moving a few pieces around, instead of un-stringing the entire project, and can therefore be less stressful for a sensitive student.

• Numbers made from pipe cleaners can be used to illustrate early math problems in a fuzzy, tactile way, providing a helpful transition between the “counting beans” stage and doing written problems.

• Lay a sheet of paper over any flat pipe cleaner creation and rub across the paper with the side of a crayon to create a “rubbing” image of the letter, number, or shape.

See also:
ABC Flashcards
Letter and Number Recognition

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Learning Styles, Math, Phonics, Tactile Learning, Visual Learning, Workshop Wednesday

Workshop Wednesday: Macaroni as Manipulatives

May 2, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Have you ever found yourself wishing you could afford hundreds, or maybe even thousands of letter or number manipulatives? Head for the pasta aisle in your favorite grocery store—a bag of alphabet macaroni contains both letters and numbers! The pasta is low-cost, so if you have several children who would each enjoy their own supply, you can buy several bags. Letting each student store his macaroni in a large zipper bag will help to make clean up simple and easy.

I sorted through a bag just to see if all the letters and numbers were represented, and yes, they were. My adult-sized fingers found the task a little tricky, but a set of tweezers made it simpler. Children’s small fingers are much more suited to this assignment, and tactile learners will really love digging in. Muffin pans, egg cartons, or cookie sheets are great receptacles for sorting!

Let your students play with the uncooked macaroni at first, and see what activities they devise for themselves. If they need a little encouragement or a starting place, suggest sorting the letters, forming spelling words, making random words (like “magnetic poetry” but without the magnets), or writing sentences. If they’d like to save their work, the words can be spelled out on a line of white glue on a piece of cardstock or an index card. The glue will be invisible when dry, and the cardstock can then be cut into appropriate sizes, creating miniature word-cards (add small magnets to the backs of the cards for even more versatility; a steel cookie sheet makes a good lap desk). These cards can be arranged into sentences, poetry, or lists of rhyming words or spelling patterns, and saved in a zipper bag for another day. Be serious, get silly, have fun with nonsense words, or use the letters to form the answers to lesson worksheets, and the learning will take on a whole new dimension. Don’t stop with just phonics, spelling, and grammar, however. Use these letters to practice spelling place names for geography, complicated scientific words for science or chemistry, or important people, places, and events for history. The letters can easily be scooted apart to break words into syllables or prefixes, suffixes, and root words—a great method for word study, and it adds a memory link for better recall later.

The tiny pasta numbers can be used for sorting and matching or set up as math statements by writing operation symbols on paper, leaving blank spaces for the numbers. Select specific numbers or grab random pieces for a new twist on math problems. Younger students will enjoy the challenge of putting the numbers in order or experimenting to see how many different numbers can be formed from just a few digits. Keep the pasta dry and away from toddlers and the family dog, but rest assured that a new supply is readily available in case too many pieces get stepped on, eaten, or sucked up by the vacuum cleaner!

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Learning Outside the Books, Learning Styles, Phonics, Spelling, Tactile Learning, Workshop Wednesday, Writing

Workshop Wednesday: Play Money

April 25, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Time to head for the game closet and dig out some play money! This stuff is a fabulous tactile learning tool that can be used for much more than just collecting $200 for passing “GO.” Use play money to practice counting by 1’s or skip-counting (by 5’s, 10’s, 100’s, etc.)with the littles,  demonstrate place value and the substitution needed for arithmetic with the middles (borrowing, carrying, trading, regrouping, swapping, bundling, or whatever you choose to call it in your lessons), practice making change, or discuss money management with the olders. You can get more creative and challenge your students to grab a handful of play money and calculate the amount, then write out the amount in both digits and words. Some of you may take up the challenge to grab several random amounts and use those for addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problems. Here’s another challenge: let your students make up their own story problems for random amounts of play money—they’ll be getting math practice and writing practice at the same time.

If you have several games that contain play money, pull it all out and pool it together: sorting by denomination is good math practice. As seen in the picture, not all games use the same denominations, so your students can learn to adapt their math practice to the supplies that are available. I even threw in a large handful of real pennies from the coin can that serves as a doorstop here—if you have a coin can or jar, you might want to borrow some of its contents for a little more math practice. (My kids paid much closer attention to math discussions if the problems involved money or food instead of just meaningless numbers!) When the math lesson is over, let the kiddies continue sorting and counting the play money: setting up a pretend “store” is great “stealth” learning! Maybe they’d like to invent a new game that uses all this play money, plus several other random pieces from a few games. Setting up the game instructions offers writing practice, determining the rules is problem-solving practice, and playing the game will give even more practice in counting, adding, subtracting, making change, and whatever other math skills their new game includes. When the time comes, sorting all those game bits and play money back into their respective games is excellent experience for the sorting required in algebra and other higher math studies, and it gets the kids involved in putting things away, instead of leaving all the clean-up to Mom.

For more tips, see also:
Building Blocks for Success in Math
Sorting Toys Is Algebra
Gee Whiz! Quiz

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Learning Outside the Books, Math, Tactile Learning, Workshop Wednesday, Writing

Workshop Wednesday: Building Blocks for Success in Math

April 18, 2012 by 3 Comments

Math is called a foundational subject for good reason: if you don’t have a solid foundation, anything you try to build on top of it is in danger of falling apart. Math is also called a sequential subject, meaning that math skills must be mastered in sequence, each skill building on the skills before it. This picture represents my view of math skills and the order in which they should be mastered, starting at the bottom and building up, one skill upon another.

No one starts teaching math by instructing their preschoolers in differential calculus. The first math skill we teach is Sorting: Which ones match? Is this one like that one? We may start the sorting process with colors or shapes, but Sorting is still the basic skill being learned. Sorting is the #1 most important math skill, used from recognizing number value to solving the most complex equations. Counting is an extension of sorting, assigning a number name to each different quantity. We “know our numbers” when we can group the correct quantity of pieces to represent any given number. We have mastered counting when we can recite the quantities in ascending order. The ability to count backwards is preparation for further skills yet to come.

Place Value might be considered to be an extension of Sorting by placing 1-digit numbers together in one group, 2-digit numbers as another group, yet another with 3-digit numbers, 4-digits, and so on. Children who are learning to count past 10 are learning place value, even though they are not yet adding or subtracting large enough quantities to require carrying or borrowing. Those skills work hand-in-hand with addition and subtraction, but an understanding of place value has to come first. Using a large quantity of identical small manipulatives, such as toothpicks, you can demonstrate the quantities represented by numbers in the ones column and numbers in the tens column to show how and why we write numbers the way we do. As your student gains skill with addition, you can revisit Place Value to demonstrate carrying into the tens, hundreds, thousands, and as many columns as your child wishes to add.

The next natural step after Place Value is Addition. Your child may already be using his counting skills to inform you that since he already has 1 cookie, if you would just give him 2 more cookies, then he would have 3 cookies! He may not recognize 1+2=3 on paper, but he certainly understands cookie quantities! Addition facts are best learned through using real-life objects, manipulatives, or even diagrams, rather than just expecting a young mathematician to transfer immediately to written problems. Hands-on practice makes subtraction easily evident as the un-doing process for addition, thereby taking away the stigma that subtraction is yet another new skill to learn. If a student knows addition facts to the point of quick recall, that same student will be able to perform subtraction. Therefore, a student who struggles with subtraction is a student who has not mastered addition facts.

Multiplication is often presented as one more new skill to master, but when presented as a “short-cut” to repeated addition, the student will see multiplication facts as a convenient tool, not as an obstacle to further learning. Multiplication facts can be demonstrated with a large quantity of small manipulatives that can be grouped into repeated rows (½” squares of heavy paper or cardboard work very well). Some quantities of manipulatives can be rearranged to show various factors which result in the same amount, such as 1×12, 2×6, 3×4, 4×3, 6×2, and 12×1. Grouping and regrouping the manipulatives will give your student a deeper understanding of multiplication facts as he sees the groups (visual), arranges them with his own fingers (tactile), and repeats the facts aloud (auditory). A kinesthetic learner will prefer standing or kneeling to do this activity, providing yet another sensory element.

Why isn’t Division listed in these Building Blocks? Simply because Division is un-doing Multiplication, just as Subtraction is the un-doing of Addition. The only tricky part to Division is that sometimes things don’t come out completely even, and we get “left-overs”—but every child who has tried to share 5 cookies with 3 friends understands that concept already. Division uses the quick recall skills for multiplication facts to regroup as evenly as possible, and the “left-overs” will be dealt with in more detail later on as these skills progress even further into the concepts called fractions and decimals. By the way, fractions, decimals, and percents are all “nicknames” for the same amounts—they are just different ways of looking at the same quantities, such as ½, .5, and 50%, and those all mean that you and I are sharing equal amounts of the same cookie!

The final Math Building Block to be mastered is Logic. Logic means making sense of things, so they come out right. Logic may come in the form of “If/Then” statements, such as the block in the picture shows: If all cats have 4 legs, and Fido has 4 legs, does that then mean that Fido must be a cat? Fido might be a cat, but we also know that other animals besides cats have 4 legs, so we cannot assume that Fido is a cat until we have more information. That is logic: using information to prove a point, but sometimes you realize that you don’t have enough information yet, and the point you prove could be wrong. Another use of logic is in balancing equations. A very simplified example is 7-2=5; if we add 2 to each side, we’ll see 7-2+2=5+2 or 7=7, a true statement. What we do to one side of an equation must also be done to the other side to keep it balanced, as if the equals sign was the pivot point on a balancing scale.

If your student is struggling with any of these building block skills, back up and practice the previous block’s skills until they are mastered. Recall of these facts should come as easily as a reflex action before the student is ready to move on successfully to the next building block. Don’t worry that other students may be moving ahead already—they may not be ready either, and their “progress” will soon result in more struggles. Remember that a student who cannot do division does not know multiplication facts well enough. A student who struggles with multiplication does not know addition facts well enough, and neither does the student who struggles with subtraction. A student who has trouble with addition does not understand place value or number values well enough. Success in math is achieved by mastering skills in sequence and building a solid foundation with each skill before attempting more challenging skills.

For more tips, see also:
Looking for the “Hard Part”
Why Does Math Class Take SO LONG?

Filed Under: Auditory Learning, Homeschool How-To's, Kinesthetic Learning, Learning Styles, Math, Roadblocks to Learning, Tactile Learning, Visual Learning, Workshop Wednesday

Workshop Wednesday: Sidewalk Art

April 4, 2012 by 1 Comment

What better way to incorporate drawing lessons into a beautiful homeschooling day than with chalk on the sidewalk or driveway? We often took our favorite storybooks outside with a bucket of chalk (and maybe a folded towel for under the knees) and picked some simple illustrations to duplicate.

Our favorites included the Little Miss and Mister Men characters by Roger Hargreaves and all of the fanciful creations of Dr. Seuss. Actually, we discovered that you can turn nearly any smiley-faced character into a Seuss-ian delight by adding an outcropping of tall feathers to the top of its head, a long, long, long tail, and brightly colored fur in zig-zaggy stripes. Now that’s a great lesson in cartooning! Encourage your budding artists to make a game of adding more and more features to their creatures by calling out “Heads” or “Tails” and supplementing those traits. Give each character special talents or accessories, such as juggling ice cream cones, wearing a polka-dot necktie, or holding a dozen strings tied to gigantic balloons.

Be sure to take the time to admire each other’s masterpieces and praise their unique qualities. Give each artist a turn to tell about his or her drawing, pointing out details and describing techniques used, for informal practice at oral presentations. Most of all, have fun making silly drawings and enjoying the chalk antics.

Sometimes we made several individual drawings, and sometimes we connected multiple parts into a long scene that filled our front sidewalk for the full width of our property. One summer day when lots of neighbor kids were looking for something to break up the boredom, I drew a very basic chalk outline of an old-fashioned circus train that stretched out over several blocks of our sidewalk, assigning each block (one box car) to a different child. We discussed as a group what sort of things our train should have (planning and problem-solving skills), and the children chose what they wanted to draw (delegating skills). One drew a box car with two giraffes sticking their long necks out the top. Another drew a lion in a cage, and another chose to draw the train’s steam engine with great puffs of smoke billowing out the smokestack. Our train had a few clowns, bright colored flags and pennants, and the words “Circus Train” on the side of yet another box car. The kids spent most of the afternoon drawing and coloring with the chalk and adding special touches. When anyone finished his own section, he would go help someone else, giving them all a great feeling of teamwork. The finished sidewalk “mural” received lots of admiration and compliments from neighbors and was the object of several photographs by parents. The kids all put so much work into their circus train, that we were all very glad that we had no rain for several days afterwards! However, rain was usually seen to be a magical eraser that tended to bring new inspiration for more drawings instead of disappointment that the previous masterpieces were gone.

Obviously, a variety of chalk colors makes drawing more delightful, but don’t underestimate the value of plain white chalk. Your art students will discover shading on their own, as they go over and over a section to make the color more intense, and having a limited palette of colors will make them more creative with using patterns. Be careful to use chalk marked “sidewalk chalk,” as others may not wash off as easily. I once bought a box of beautiful colored chalk at a garage sale, only to discover that the intense colors left permanent stains on the clothing we were wearing when we used it! The knees and elbows and sleeve cuffs had deep colors ground in from kneeling and leaning on the drawings, no matter how careful we had been. One more point: chalk is soft and gets used up quickly on rough surfaces, so buy in bulk! No one wants to stop in the middle of drawing an enormous stegosaurus, just because he ran out of chalk.

Whether your creations are large or small, simple or elaborate, you can enjoy a nice day outside with chalk, learning to copy drawings from books or making your own creations. Starting with simple line drawings from a favorite storybook will help beginning artists gain confidence, since they don’t have to rely on their imaginations for inspiration. After all, a large blank sidewalk can be rather intimidating! Making your drawings LARGE increases the number of details that can be added: a small face may not have room for much more than eyes and a smile, but a big face can also hold eyelashes, freckles, glasses, or a handlebar mustache!

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Homeschool How-To's, Kinesthetic Learning, Learning Outside the Books, Tactile Learning, Visual Learning, Workshop Wednesday

Workshop Wednesday: Take It Outside!

March 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Homeschooling does not have to mean exclusively house-schooling. When the weather is favorable, taking a lesson outdoors can revitalize learning, whether you take a nature walk around the neighborhood, sit on a blanket for read-aloud time, or do worksheets at the patio table.

When my kids were old enough and responsible enough to complete an assignment on their own, I rewarded them with the privilege of taking a lesson away from the school table and doing it elsewhere. Sometimes they took work to their bedrooms, but one location my daughter loved was her “reading ledge.” She had asked Dad to use a couple of extra boards to build a shelf in the corner of the fence in our backyard. It’s just the right size for a child to sit and read a while, nestled into the corner, listening to the birds and squirrels and the occasional car pulling up in the neighbor’s driveway. Notice that my husband also added a slim “step” board, about halfway between the ledge and the ground, for just the right amount of a boost to climb up onto the ledge.

For a few years, we had a tree-house in another part of the yard—more of a platform up in a tree, but there were a few boards attached to the trunk for steps, and it was high enough to give a lofty view of the neighboring yards. The kids would climb up there with a book to read or a math lesson to work on, and they were transported from just another homeschool day to the Swiss Family Robinson’s island.

Even a child who is not thrilled about reading can suddenly find it an enjoyable activity when it takes place in a unique environment: inside a tent, under a shady tree, in a make-shift clubhouse in the attic of the garage, or anywhere else out of the ordinary “school” locale. Whether reading for pleasure or reading an assigned passage in a textbook, whether writing a short essay or writing out math problems, taking the lesson outdoors can free the mind to think deeper thoughts and understand greater concepts just because the realm of ideas is not limited within four walls and a solid ceiling. The sounds of birds, leaves, wind, and other ambient noises can actually stimulate more thoughts than a quiet room. Yes, sometimes those thoughts may be slightly “off topic,” but that freedom is why we chose homeschooling in the first place. And there is always the bonus of new lesson ideas that come from time spent in nature: studying the busy-ness of an anthill, learning the names of all those parts of flowers, discovering that bees won’t notice anyone watching them while they work at collecting pollen from every blossom on an apple tree, focusing the sun’s rays through a magnifying glass to burn your initials into a piece of scrap wood, and seeing who can bite into the first stalk of spring rhubarb without puckering.

Ready for some learning style applications? A kinesthetic student may be more prone to reading when his surroundings require him to balance or brace himself against the tree limbs or fence corner or while swaying a swing. A tactile child may enjoy the feel of the grass on his fingers and toes, the leaves brushing against his face or between his fingers, or feeling the smooth rocks he chose to use as a bookmark or paperweight while reading his book in the breeze.  The visual learner may appreciate reading his biology textbook in the tree-house because he can look around the neighborhood from his lofty perch and see if he can glimpse an elm, an eagle, or imagine he can see the photosynthesis of the sun on leaves as it happens.  An auditory child may find that the songs of the birds help him to concentrate on his math problems because his ears aren’t busy wondering what his siblings are up to at the moment, or that the music from the radio of the neighbor working on his car will help to remind him of the correct formula when he needs to recall it later.

Homeschooling does not have to mean exclusively house-schooling, and life does not take place between the pages of a workbook. When the weather cooperates, take your homeschooling outside and meet life face to face.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Encouraging Your Student, Kinesthetic Learning, Reading, Workshop Wednesday

Workshop Wednesday: ABC Flashcards

March 21, 2012 by 2 Comments

Anyone want to upcycle some of that ubiquitous cardboard packaging that passes through our homes and turn it into teaching/learning tools? You’re on! Let’s make some flashcards!!

DIY flashcards from upcycled cereal boxes

This week’s photo actually shows three related sets of alphabet flashcards that measure 3” square. Call these approximate measurements, because no one needs to waste precious time obsessing over the precision and exactness of something we’re making for free. I collected cereal boxes, brownie mix boxes, popsicle boxes, tissue boxes, pudding cup boxes, and pretty much every flavor of thin cardboard box that was large enough to cut up into something else. Confession: I made these with a paper cutter, but only because I saved up and treated myself to one. During most of our homeschooling years, I used a ruler and scissors for projects like this, and the results were just as good.

Open the boxes flat and start measuring and cutting. Again, don’t let perfectionism sidetrack you with thoughts of non-90-degree corners or less-than-perfect sides. Your students can learn from playing with these cards even after they are rescued from an eager-to-play-fetch-with-anything puppy. When you have a decent supply of cards cut from the cardboard, grab your Sharpie marker and write on the blank sides. Here we have one set with upper case letters (upper left), a set with lower case letters (lower center), and a set with both upper and lower case letters in pairs (upper right). I have also made sets with numbers 1-100, states and capitals, and many other topics that I hope to address in future Workshop Wednesday posts. (Anticipation!)

Bonus Tips:

  • I favor teaching letter recognition with upper case letters first, since reversals are less likely; then introducing the lower case letters as the “little brothers” of the capitals. Kids get it, even when the big brothers and little brothers don’t look exactly alike. Learning to group the larger and smaller letters as pairs is another method for avoiding reversals.
  • Making multiple sets of letters will allow your students to spell out vocabulary words, play word games, or leave traces of their newly-acquired knowledge all around the house as they spell out the names of every lamp, vase, and throw pillow.
  • If your students have mastered letter recognition, you can make 3×5” word cards and practice turning sounded-out words into sentences.

Learning Style Activities

Visual learners will appreciate flashcards with color, so you can either use colored markers for the main information or let your visual student draw designs on the edges and corners of the cards with colored pencils or fine-point markers to jazz up the natural gray or brown of the cardboard.

Auditory learners will love to read each letter aloud, no matter what activities or games you play with the cards. Switch things up by asking them to say the sound of the letter instead of (or in addition to) its name.

Tactile learners have already grabbed your new supply of flashcards and are spreading them out on the floor or table, rearranging the letters into words. That’s how you can confirm that you have a tactile student: their hands and fingers are into everything, learning as much as they possibly can about texture, heft, and balance. Please don’t scold them for grabbing and touching—it’s how they learn best. A tactile learner who is forced to keep his hands in his lap is like a visual learner wearing a blindfold. Seriously.

Kinesthetic learners will adore playing games with these cards, especially if you spread things out. Drop the stack of upper case letters on the floor in the living room. Drop the stack of lower case letters on the kitchen table. Now shuffle the “pairs” cards and place that stack in a neutral location somewhere between the other two piles of cards. Ask your student to look at the top card and run to find the matching letter cards from each of the other locations and bring them back. (Beginning students may need to take the pairs card with them for reference.) Grouping all three cards together will prove he brought the correct ones. Your energetic student can repeat this activity until he is worn out enough to sit down for reading time or some other lesson that requires seatwork.

Combine all learning styles into challenging activities that will help your students learn from all situations and all styles of teaching. Let your imagination run free with ideas and adaptations for your own students, living quarters, and academic needs. If the weather is agreeable, take the cards outside and combine relay races with spelling or vocabulary words. Mud puddles can’t destroy your prized set of flashcards, since replacements are easily made from the next empty box. You may soon find yourself rescuing cardboard boxes from the recycling bin and calling them your “homeschool supplies” as you think of more and more uses for homemade flashcards!

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Auditory Learning, Kinesthetic Learning, Learning Outside the Books, Learning Styles, Phonics, Preschoolers, Spelling, Tactile Learning, Visual Learning, Workshop Wednesday
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