Preschool Bean counter | MapleSeeds Home Blog

Here's something we did last year for Pre-school (yup just getting around to blogging it now!)

I just took an egg carton, and numbered each section, then let little L count some dried beans into each one.

 Hard to believe he is in Kindergarten now! :(

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Perler Bead Star Wars Magnets | MapleSeeds Home

I know today is Tuesday, but I just couldn't wait to share these little guys with you! :)

The kids and I made these adorable little Star Wars characters for my sisters, for Christmas (we gave gifts early this year, when we visited them) So now I can share the pattern with your! My inspiration came from a pin on Pineterst. We also created a few more of our own characters (I think the original only had 5-6 characters). You can down load my printable chart HERE.

We hot glued some magnets to the back, aren't they the cutest little Jedis, princesses and aliens you have ever seen!!? :)

Action shot of how we made them.  The kids did most of the layout and I did the ironing. They thought it was great fun!

Don't forget to download the free printable chart from the link at the top! 

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Coconut Oil Chocolate Chocolate Cookies | MapleSeeds Home Blog | Recipes

It was a rainy day and in this house we bake on rainy days. Buuuut, sadly I was out of butter! What to do! I had a ginormous jar of coconut oil in the pantry and I figured I could try to substitute that in place of the butter! Let me tell you, it was DELICIOUS! Almost better than butter.... almost! 

Ingredients:

1/2 c coconut Oil
3/4 c brown sugar or sucanat
2 eggs
1 1/2 c flour
1/4 c cocoa
1 t salt
1 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1T vanilla
1 c chocolate chips or chunks ( we used chopped up chocolate easter eggs)

Cream coconut oil and sugar until well blended.  Mix in eggs and vanilla, blend well. In separate bowl mix dry ingredients, then add to wet ingredients. Blend and then stir in chocolate chunks by hand.
 Don't forget to lick the spoon! Bake at 375 F for 8-10 minutes and let cool on the pan for a few minutes before you remove them.

 MMMMM!

Enjoy! :)

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Homeschool: Volume

In the morning we talked about different volume measurements and colored, cut and pasted Mr. Volume Robot from HERE.

In the afternoon I was feeling a little Montessori and decided to break out a HUGE bag of rice and the measuring cups!

We talked about the different sizes of measurement and they had great fun playing in the rice!

Nothing a good vacuum cleaner can't clean up! :)

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Printable: Math Dot Helper

Math has become a bit monotonous around here lately, so I've been trying to make things fun and give my first grader a few different strategies for adding and subtracting.

Here is my Math Dot Helper printable! You can print this and have your child place it in front of them when they are doing some math facts. Instead of counting on their fingers you can teach your child to used the dots inside the numbers and eventually transfer this to the numbers on their worksheets!

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Make It Monday: Bird Seed Feeders

Materials:

• 4 cups bird seed
• i package gelatine
• 2 T corn syrup
• 1/2 c flour
• 1 C water
• containers or cookie cutters for molds

Combine the water, flour, gelatine and corn syrup in a large bowl. Stir in bird seed and mix well.

Spray your molds with cooking spray so the seed mixture doesn't stick

Scoop the mixture into your molds and press it down firmly.

Be sure to make a hole somewhere in the middle so you can tie a ribbon or sting through to hang it up. Allow the seed feeder to dry for 3-4 hours, then remove from the mold and dry for 24 hours.

Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of our seed feeders in action, because it rained and they dissolved! :P Bummer! Silly central IL weather!

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Spiral Math Fact Race Game

I have to thank TIPS blog for this game idea!! We didn't glue the cards to a poster board like she did, that way I thought we could change it up every time we played! The game was a big hit with my kids, although we may need a few lessons on sportsmanship and being a good sport even if you lose! Competitiveness runs in our family :). 

Here is what you need to play!

• 1 dice
• 1 deck of cards
• start and finish labels (optional)
• markers (we just used whatever the kids wanted, Lego man, blocks and a pencil sharpener)

First decide if you are doing addition or subtraction facts. Roll the dice and move forward in the spaces between the cards. Have the kids say the whole number sentence out loud for practice. First one to the end wins! 

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Who's on the Money US Currency

 We're learning about money again! In the past we learned about what money was worth, this time we are learning who is on the money and why! I whipped up some printable work sheets for filling in information. I plan on getting some books from the library and also doing some internet searches with my first grader so we can find the answer to who is on the money?! Since we are Canadian's living in the USA, I plan on making some Canadian currency sheets also! Stay tuned for those! 

You can download the COINS, BILLS and BILLS 2 for yourself! :)

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