Traveling Number Sticks

It's late so I'll make this short and sweet: I stole this idea from education.com and loved it so much I had to do it for myself.  I modified them a little bit because my son is in kindergarten and doesn't really get the idea behind the "teens".  

To get started you'll need Popsicle sticks, pens and/or number stickers and rubber-bands or duct tape.

 Number your sticks 0-9 and count out 10 sticks, rubber band or tape together and label 10.  

Write + and - and  = signs on three more--adding higher math symbols as appropriate for your student.

 

Shove sticks in ziplock bag or box with label on it.  

The bag may be less durable, 

but it will fit in your purse easily and make math practice in the waiting room at the doctors office much easier.

 Show to your kids and have fun!

What day is it, Mommy?

All last month I was plagued with questions from my home-school kindergartener: "What day is it?" "When will it be Christmas?" "How long till uncle Branden comes?"  "Is it my birthday yet?"

The reoccurring answer was "soon" accompanied by a field-trip to the calendar to discuss what day it actually was and how many days there would be between now and the event he was asking about.  For those of you who are wondering, his birthday is in February and he was not happy about that.

As a result I set out to make him his own calendar to help him learn the days, months and seasons of the year.  This is what I came up with.  If you want to make one yourself, all the materials were either on hand or purchased at Walmart.  Check it out and don't forget to comment!

 

 

I started with an old picture frame.

Spray-painted it green as green is my son's favorite color.

Painted a bunch of "craft sticks", they are thicker then regular Popsicle sticks.

Originally I chose blue for winter, green for spring, yellow for summer and red for fall; after painting one sick yellow I decided orange was better for the project.

Notice I painted extras in each color, I am a bit of a perfectionist and I didn't want to have to start over if I messed one up.

I used scrap-booking alphabet stickers to label the months.

The popcicle sticks have both the number and name of the months on there to make it easier to explain the order they go in.

This is everything laid out so I could see it.  

The fabric in the background is an old flannel sheet, I plan to change the fabric by the seasons.

I added velcro tabs to the popcicle sticks  and glued velcro to the glass.  The velcro enables him to swap out names of the month and makes it more fun.

After everything was all in place and the back secure, I used dry erase marker to write in the days of the month.  I love dry erase and this way I don't have to swap out for a new calendar every month. 

There you have it, the finished project!

 

What do you think?

UPDATE:  After working with him on writing date a few times, I decided to put the year on the bottom to make it easier.  This is the final product:

Don't look at the glue--I didn't a razor blade to scrape it off with.