Numbers Book for Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten

Here's a free printable book to help your preschooler or kindergartener learn his or her numbers! I left the top half of the page blank except for the number, because, I like to have mine glue or add items to the page to correspond with the number. Then, the bottom is for practice writing those numbers. Great for teaching one-to-one correspondence and fine motor skills in a tactile way! Some items we have glued to the pages include: beans, rice, cereal, or sequins. You can have them put stamps or stickers on the pages, or just have them draw in items to correspond with the number. Mix it up to make it fun!







The book covers from 1-20. It is a very simple layout, but, the kids were excited about having their very own book to decorate throughout the year. You can print it, staple it together at the top, and you're done!

Fun Methods For Memorizing Math Facts!

Need a new ideas on ways to get your child to memorize his or her math facts? Want a way to help your child have more exposure to math? Play with them!

Math Bingo

Make Bingo cards by printing out this Bingo Template Page and filling in with numbers or math facts! Call out the math fact or number and have them fill out the card!

Race The Clock

We have started this, and G loves it! We started with a stack of 5. He was required to give answers to the 5 flashcards in 15 seconds. When he was able to do this, we added 5 more in 30 seconds. He uses the timer on my smart phone and does it himself. He loves a good competition, so, we haven't had any incentives yet except to get more cards. However, a little incentive might go a long way! Maybe each level would allow them into a "Math Facts Club", or they could earn computer time on a math website of their choice! 

Math Speed
Remember playing the speed card game as a kid? Why not use flash cards to battle it out in this high "speed" game of numbers?

Here's how you play:

1. Place 2 cards in the center in front of the players. 
2. On both sides of the 2 cards, place a pile of  5 cards each. 
3. You should now have 4 piles of cards in the center, two piles in the very center with one card in each of them and a pile on each side of these two with 5 cards in each pile.
4. Now, divide the remainder of the cards between the two players. 
5. Each player draws five cards from his deck of cards and places them in his hand.
6. To begin the game, turn over the two cards in the very center. 
7. Each player then tries to play their cards from their hand onto the two cards in the center by either going up numerically or down. For example, if I had a 1+1 in my hand and one of the cards in the center is a 1+2, I can play on that card because the sum of my card is 2 and the sum of the card in the center is 3. I would play on that card because it would be in numerical order. 
8. Keep laying down cards until someone runs out of cards and thereby wins!
9. It is called speed, so, you don't take turns, you are laying down cards as quickly as you can!

Math War
Check out this card game called Math War that uses math facts! It's played just like you played war as a child, except you have to solve the math fact to find out who has the highest number!

The cards cost less than $5, but, I'm sure you could create your own by using flashcards. Mine like the cards because they are something different from the flash cards they learn on.

Go Fishing For Math

Go Fish with flash cards is a lot of fun! Use a set of flash cards that are blank on the back. You will probably need two or three stacks. Play just like Go Fish!

Clothes Line Spelling Activity

This spelling activity was a big hit!  It is a hands on activity for kids who need the extra reinforcement!  

Just hang a rope or string, get out the clothes pins and alphabet letters flash cards.  

G hardly knew he was practicing spelling!  You can also use this idea for vocabulary words or math facts!  

Free Teacher Appreciation Printable!

Check out this Free Teacher Appreciation Printable for that special teacher in your life!

Spelling Around The Room - A Multi Sensory Spelling Activity

We were super excited to get these small white boards! We used them to categorize our spelling list this past week.

We word mapped then categorized each word the day before. So, we were ready to practice!

This week, we categorized the words by vowel sound (i.e. short 'i', short 'e', short 'a'). Each board had a different vowel sound on it. G then placed the words on the right board as I called them out. The "tricky" words we put on a separate board, then reviewed the English spelling rule that makes these words "tricky".

By placing the boards around the room, G was able to move around a bit. You could even place them farther apart and have your child jump, run, or skip to the right board. If you don't have multiple white boards, you can use small chalk boards, or just sheets of paper! This makes for a great multi sensory spelling activity! You can also use this multi sensory idea for categorizing and reviewing other subjects.

10 Great Online Learning Sites

We use these sites regularly! Check them out!

Informational Sites

Mom to 2 Posh Lil' Divas: For a great site with a lot of learning activities, go to Mom to 2 Posh Lil' Divas!

This Reading Mamma: This Reading Mamma is a great site that has a lot of information on reading, how to teach reading, reading for struggling readers, and more.

Reading Rockets: This site is all about reading! It has articles on helping struggling readers, blogs,tips and more at readingrockets.org


Online Learning Games

Adriene Bruce's Educational Teaching Resources: Great site with lots and lots of reading resources, games, printables, and activities!

StarFall: Great site for reading! My children love it! They have enough games and books on StarFall to keep your little one busy learning!

abcya.com: This site has games about every subject. My children really enjoy a lot of the games and they are all educational.

Spellingcity.com: Great spelling practice for those who are drawn to the computer! You can even make your own lists!

Homespellingwords.com: Another good spelling site! 

Sheppard Software: A great site for learning mathematical concepts!

Cool Math For Kids: My kids love this site! There are a lot of fun mathematical games. They don't even know they are learning!

Why The Multi-Sensory Approach Works

Our brains are making connections every day. The process of learning is one thing. Then, we store the information learned when we commit something to memory. Multi sensory learning is so effective because it engages the children in both the learning process and the retaining process.

Using our visual, auditory, and tactile senses when learning and memorizing gives us context and reinforcement. Furthermore, if our learning is repeated, the memory of the message can be imprinted and further learning can take place.

Many people choose to teach their young children using this method, but, our brains can benefit from repetitive, multi-sensory learning at all ages! 

Check out some of our great multi sensory SPELLING, WRITING, and MATH activities that have worked for us!

Writing and Spelling With Fizzy Side Walk Paint

This multi sensory learning activity is a big hit at our house! 

Mix the fizzy sidewalk paint inside plastic squeeze bottles and let your kiddos write their spelling words or practice writing the letters of the alphabet!

When they are done writing, have them spray vinegar on the paint and watch it fizz! Great way to mix language and science in one activity!



The sidewalk paint is super easy to make. All it takes is some baking soda, cornstarch, and food coloring. You can find the recipe at Learn, Play, Imagine!

Spelling in the Sand - A Multi Sensory Spelling Activity

Here's a great multi-sensory spelling activity! My children look forward to getting their "hands dirty", so, when it's time to practice spelling, we pull out our tub of sand or flour and have fun!

You can use any pan or container with a lip. Have your child spell their words out loud while writing them in the sand with their finger. You can put colored paper on the bottom of the pan to make the words stand out!

Check back for more multi-sensory ways to learn!

Our Study of History

We have really enjoyed studying History. I have been surprised at how interested my children are in history and geography.

We use the book written by Susan Bauer, author of The Well Trained Mind, entitled: The Story of the World. It takes a chronological and story like approach to learning history. One of my issues with the history taught in schools is that they don't progress chronologically, so, the children aren't given the chance to see the progression of history through time. If learned in a chronological way, they are able to piece the picture together and it makes more sense. Bits and pieces of history here and there aren't remembered as well. Also, the book allows children to learn through stories. Children love stories and remember stories. Textbooks just don't do History justice! We also use E.H. Gombrich's: A Little History of the World as well any other book we can find at the library on the particular historical event or people that we are studying. I have not invested in a good timeline of the world book, but, we try to check one out when we discuss the timeline of events.

We put together our own chronological history of the world books. Last year, I used printables from Tending Our Lord's Garden. She really did a wonderful job and we were super grateful to find these!

I will be posting more ideas and things that we do as we study History soon!

75 Ways To Practice and Learn Spelling

Want some ideas on practicing spelling words that will really shake things up? Mom to 2 Posh Lil' Divas came up with this amazing list of 75 Fun Ways to Practice and Learn Spelling Words! Thanks, Mom to 2 Posh Lil' Divas!

New Ways To Use Math Facts Flash Cards

We have been using flash cards as one of our methods to learning math facts. Need some new ways to use those flash cards as well as other math fact memorizing ideas?

Check out these Fun Methods for Memorizing Math Facts on ADDventuresinlearning! Many of them involve using flash cards!

15 Fun Ways to Learn with Alphabet Magnets

I was so excited to find these magnetic letters at the dollar store! They are made of wood. The entire back of the letter is magnetic! That means no little magnets that fall out and make the letters useless! They didn't stick to my cookie sheets, but, they did stick to the refrigerator and our magnetic white board!

Here are some really fun ways to learn with magnetic alphabet letters!

1. Sing the Alphabet while your child sings along and places the letters up on the refrigerator.
2. Scramble the Alphabet and have your child arrange them in order.
3. After arranging the alphabet in order, have your child try to arrange it backwards.
4. Have your preschooler practice creating his or her name with magnetic letters and the names of family members.
5. Have your child look at a word and copy it with the magnetic letters.
6. Have your child sort a few sets of magnetic alphabet letters by letter.
7. Have your child sort a few sets of magnetic alphabet letters into vowels and consonants.
8. Call out words and have your child distinguish the beginning or ending sounds and put them up with the letters.
9. Word map with the magnetic letters by breaking words into their parts.
10. Have your child play name that sound with you.  Name a sound that one of the letters in the alphabet make and have them identify which letter(s) can make that sound. If you are doing vowels, make sure you specify long or short sounds. If they are older, have them tell you when certain letters are used, such as "c" or "s" for the /s/ sound, or you teach them.
11. Practice spelling words by having your child arrange the letters to spell each word on their list. 
12. Scramble spelling words and have them unscramble them. Have a race to see who can unscramble first!
13. Race to the refrigerator and see who can spell a desired word first.
14. Learn sentence structure by having your child create a sentence with the magnetic letters!
15. Spell each spelling word out on the refrigerator, then line the words up vertically by placing a common letter over each other. 

Using A Ball To Spell - A Multi Sensory Approach to Spelling

Who says spelling practice can't be fun! We love using these methods because the kids love it and its super easy! All of the ideas are pretty simple, but, great ways to reinforce sound-letter sounds, syllables, or phonemes. Instead of spelling out each letter, have them spell out each phoneme or syllable at one time!

Bouncy Ball
Have them bounce a ball for each letter in their spelling word list!

If you want to go even farther, word map the word before hand and have them bounce the ball on the sidewalk in the correct box. We, for example, made two boxes with chalk on the sidewalk. In the first box, I wrote 1st Syllable, in the 2nd, I wrote 2nd Syllable. They would have to walk forward for each syllable in the word.

I then divided the syllable boxes in two. I wrote "C" for consonant and "V" for vowel inside each syllable box. You could also have them count phonemes instead of syllables. This is especially helpful for those who get in a hurry and leave out a letter or sound! It also reinforces word patterns and spelling rules!


Kick Ball
Kicking a soccer ball or kick ball back and forth for each letter is a great way to have fun and practice spelling!

Shoot The Ball
Shoot the ball into the basketball goal as you spell out the letters in your spelling words! We've done this even without a basketball net! We used a basket and a small bouncy ball, you could even use a piece of paper crumpled into a ball!

Pass The Ball
If your child is a baseball fan, throw a baseball back and forth and spell as you go!

Make Sentences With Blocks!

Learning how to construct a complete sentence can be fun with blocks!

I typed out a variety of words from spelling tests and included enough conjunctions and prepositions to put the words together to form sentences.

After you have gone over the parts of a sentence, have your little practice! Have him or her make a sentence, jokes, or a story.

This is a great way to learn!

Math Wars!

I was excited to get Math War in the mail yesterday! It is played just like the card game, war, that we all played as kids, except you have to solve the math problem to see who has the highest number!

It was a big hit! Anything that will get my kids to have fun and learn at the same time is a really good deal!

7 Benefits of Puzzles

We have a relative who keeps a thousand piece puzzle out at all times. I was excited recently when I discovered that my children are just old enough to begin large puzzles together. We keep our puzzle on a large cardboard box lid and take it out whenever we get the chance.

Besides being entertaining, puzzles have a big positive impact on the brain! And I'm not just referring to jigsaw puzzles, there are many different types of puzzles, such as word searches, crossword puzzles, or sudoku. They are all beneficial!

Although there are many benefits to doing puzzles, here's a list of 7 that might get you to start your own puzzle fest!

1. Putting puzzles together actually has a calming, meditative effect on the brain. As you focus, your mind is able to "get in the zone", which is a great way to improve attention and focus while providing your brain a break from the many stimuli that  compete for our attention all day.
2. Puzzles provide mental exercise! In fact, the cognitive skills required to solve a puzzle include: deductive reasoning skills, abstract thinking, critical thinking, and problem solving!
3. Puzzles provide fine motor skill practice and hand-eye coordination. These are really important for younger children who are learning to write!
4. Puzzles can give a child a sense of accomplishment! 
5. If a child learns to enjoy solving a puzzle because of the sense of accomplishment or because it's fun to do with a parent or by him or herself, she or he learns persistence!
6. Puzzles can be difficult! Puzzles offer a chance to exercise control over our emotions when it seems tough or when we have to start over.
7. Puzzles are fun!

Sidewalk Spelling - A Multi Sensory Spelling Activity

My children have requested this multi sensory method of practicing spelling more than once! All you need is sidewalk chalk and an empty sidewalk!

Write the alphabet, or better yet, have them write the alphabet! Then let them hop or throw a small rock onto the correct letter to spell out their word! Get them to spell the letters out loud to make it more effective!