Kids Wednesday: Planning a Pokemon Party

My son declared that he wanted a Pokemon party for his birthday so I drove right into Pinterest and found way too many ideas. It was overwhelming to say the least so I decided on a plan on what we had time for during the birthday party.

I wanted to make a sign that said Happy Birthday with pokeballs and there are tons of ideas.  I decided to take the easy way out and just do the printed one here.  All you have to do is download and print and I will put holes in them and thread on curling ribbon to hang on the wall.

We looked high and low and found a Pin the Tail on the Pikachu. There is one that is already separated so that it can be printed on papers and put together but my husband has acess to a large format printer so I actually wanted to get one that was one image and enlarge it so I was little sad but I figure that this is probably better for 99% of the people which you can find here.  I actually downloaded the image and made my own!!!  Loved the picture so super happy to find it and use it.

I also thought that it would be really fun to make our own Pokemon cards.  I found this awesome card template here.

We decided that we were going to make pokeballs but had to figure out a plan to make them that won't get them thrown around at the party but that they would still like to use.  I found these and thought that they would be fun but they needs the special plastic ornament which I couldn't find so they were out but still super cool.  You can check out these here.

We decided that it would be fun to use duct tape and frisbees to make them so that the kids would have to use them outside to get the distance but can hold them like a shield which is totally fine by me!!

I found an awesome popcorn container and since we were planning on having popcorn, it seemed like a good idea even though it would take a lot of work on my part (as most of the things would).  They were super colorful and I thought the kids would enjoy them.  Check them out here.

Another fun one is the poke ball designer page because this can be a great station for creativity or copying the basic balls that they know.  If we do some ahead of time then we also have some fun decorations so I think that I am going to have some coloring fun!!  Check out this site to get your own copy.

There is a really cute box that the kids can cut and fold themselves.  It is super easy to print and if we don't do it at the party, I will put it in their bags to bring home to make at home.  If you want to make your own, download it here.

There is another great site with a pokeball and lots of pokemon to put inside it here.  This looks like something that my son would love to have and play with all the time.  I could print it and laminate it to have hours of fun with!!!

 I found a memory game that would also be fun to print and laminate to play with for awhile to come.

There is a interesting maze that you can download here.  I looked every where for coloring pages and dot to dot pictures.  There are lots out there but none that made me really happy.  There are a ton of different downloads and this was a great site for some great resources.

There is another great activity that I wanted to do but wasn't sure if we had time to do it but it seemed like a lot of fun.  It was Pokemon eggs which I would make ahead of time with my son and then each group of kids would have the chance to hatch their own.  Here is the site that made them so if I don't get time to do it at the party, my son and I are totally going to make them!!

I thought that I would get a few activities that got their wiggles out including a little follow the leader with what the Pokemon would do. Super easy to print out and pull out of a hat and we will have it ready if we need.  You can print your own here.

There is this blowing activity where the kids blow through a straw to make the Poke Ball move from the start to the end.  There is an example here but I have also seen it with a ping pong ball so we might try to do this activity.

I hope that you enjoy some of these ideas to have your cheap Pokemon party.  We got clearance cups, plates and napkins in red from Christmas so we had tons of paper goods.  I grabbed a bag of red and white balloons at the Dollar Tree for the decorations and games.  With a little work, we have entertainment and goodies for everyone to do at the party and bring home with them.  I know that I have enjoyed searching around for the best ideas that work on a tight budget!!  I hope that my work has saved you some time!!!  Hope that you have a great time with these ideas for your own children or birthday party.

Kid Wednesday: Teaching Letters to Preschoolers

Teaching preschoolers letter by letter is a great way of introducing the letters and having them have contact with different letters through art, reading and more.   There are many ways to do it whether starting at the beginning and working your way through from A to Z or easier to learn letters first.  I have used the method outlined in Handwriting without Tears which has an order of letters (found here) that suggests an order that might be easiest to learn capital letters.





I think that it is nice to mix up the letters instead of doing them in order but it has an added benefit that this makes it easier for the kids.

The lower case letters are different orders but we do both capital letters and lower case letters at the same time.

When I was teaching my son, I made a list of all the words that started with a certain letter and a list of all the books that had things to do with that letter.  There are great resources all over the internet but I love the list of the books from Measured Mom because there are so many different ideas.  We had a rough idea that we would use a lot of different ideas to learn the letter such as:

• reading books with the letter
• doing arts and crafts to make things with the letter
• learning math dealing with the letter (my son's favorite subject)
• using writing with the letter
• using fine motor skills with the letter
• using sensory items with the letter
• incorporating science with the letters
• singing songs or learning rhymes with the letter

The hardest part for me was to get so involved in planning that we didn't get anything done because I had too many ideas.  Remember that preschoolers are young and want to have fun so as long as you make learning fun, they will enjoy the process!!  Pick a few things to do and don't feel like you need to do everything with every letter.  I will be sharing letters with you each week with links to find some interesting files and information for yourself.

Enjoy and have fun!!

Kids Wednesday: Learning About Florida

My son has been doing a few states every summer and during the breaks if we get a chance.  We have already learned about Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and Pennsylvania.  Together we decided that we were going to learn about New York and Florida which are the two states where his grandparents live.We have a binder with all the states in it so the information goes in and out of there as we are working on it.  The finally binder gives all of the information that we get to have a finished copy of all the work that he has put in so that he could look at it.

He was excited to get started this summer and learned all about New York in the first half of the summer and Florida in the second half.  I got all the books from the library that we available from the NEA book list by state.  The books include the following:

• Florida
  
  • Donald and the Fish That Walked by Edward R. Ricciuti
  • Panther Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner
  • Bigmama's by Donald Crews
  • Shortcut by Donald Crews
  • Sam the Sea Cow by Francine Jacobs
  • Stealing Home by Mary Stolz
  • Sunken Treasure by Gail Gibbons
  • Michael Graves by Eric Kudalis
  • Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

My son read the two Donald Crews books by himself during his reading time one more.  We read the Sunken Treasure and Sam the Sea Cow together snuggled on the couch one afternoon.  We enjoyed the Because of Winn Dixie Book on CD as a family in the car when we went different places.  My son fell asleep and my husband and listened to the last few chapters and quickly went back and paused it near where my son fell asleep.  All the books were entertaining and there are always other books that you can find at your libraries to fill in the spaces or expand the learning.

We found a book on our shelves at home that was about the Manatees in Florida so we added that to the pile.  Manatee Blues #4 (Vet Volunteers) by Laurie Halse Anderson was an interesting find in our own books that we were going to read and learn more from after finishing all of the library books.

These are our wonderful at home resources so we can start on any state at a moments notice or look up additional questions about states or capitols.  This is a great start to any state learning.

I download and print the information from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom which includes the following:

• Creative Writing (Make a Travel Brochure)
• Door Hanger (Completion Certificate)
• Handwriting Practice
• Puzzles
• Research Project
• State Bird
• State Capital
• State Flag
• State Flag Wall Card
• State Flower
• State Location
• State Landmarks
• State Wall Card

 We use almost all the information except the travel brochure because my son has never been really interested in doing those and it is a little too flexible a structure for him so I thought we might be able to take it on as he got older.

There is a wonderful cover for the state including a picture of the state with lots of the cities labeled.

This research fact sheet is usually completed in three different times because there is a lot of writing and research for our purposes.  The beginning is basic information that helps get to know about the history of the state.  The next section has different things that can be found in the state.  The last section is usually one of the last things that we do with the things that make this state unique.  It helps include all of the information that we have learned and add anything else that we might have not put anywhere else.

The first sheet that is completed is the state and the capitol with the practice on writing.  We try to write these are a few times which always depends on the mood that my son is in because he wrote this one three times after tracing the first.

The main part of the information is on these four sheets.  My son likes to cut out all of the pictures and glue them on the bottom of the sheets.  The next step is writing the words at the top in pencil.  Then there is coloring and fact finding which are normally done in another two stages.  These are the main part of our state learning.

The coloring of the flag is always something that is interesting.  We have a scrap piece of paper to test the color against the picture on the sheet of paper.  We worked on matching colors and finding the best to match the picture.  The detailed picture is always harder to do so my son pictures the color and I color in the sections that he tells me so that the final picture looks similar to the sample.

I also found another picture that I thought looked very interesting to add a little more creative aspect to the project and I went back and printed all of the states that we have already done.  I am not sure if we are going to get all of the past ones done but I do plan on adding these going forward but feel free to add them if you are interested.  You can find these pictures here.

Hope that you take some of this wonderful information and learn about the states with your kids!!  I promise that you will learn as much as they are because there is ton of information   Hope you enjoy all the learning!

Kids Wednesday: Learning about New York

My son decided that he was going to learn about all the states at a very young age.  He liked the maps and the puzzles which quickly moved to state capitols.  We decided that we were going to learn more about each state of the summer and school breaks.  He started with Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and Pennsylvania which are the states that we live by and have visited.  After finishing those, he decided on New York and Florida where his grandparents live.

We started with New York.  I got lots of books about New York both fiction and non-fiction so that we can learn in new and interesting ways about the state.  I usually get some books from the NEA list by State.  Sadly, most were about the city and not a lot about the rest of the state which is where all of our family lives. 

The list included the following books for fun options:

• New York
  
  • How Pizza Came to Queens by Dayal Khalsa
  • Hessian's Secret Diary by Lisa Banim
  • Tar Beach by Faith Ringold
  • Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
  • Adventures of Ali Baba Bernstein by Johanna Hurwitz
  • And Still the Turtle Watched by Sheila MacGill-Callahan
  • The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden
  • Ruth Law Thrills a Nation by Don Brown
  • The Adventures of Taxi Dog by Debra Barracca
  • When Jessie Came Across the Sea by Amy Hest
  • The Matchlock Gun by Walter D. Edmonds
  • Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
  • Hattie and the Wild Waves by Barbara Cooney
  • Hey, Al by Arthur Yorinks
  • Lyle, Lyle Crocodile by Bernard Waber
  • Remember Me to Harold Square by Paula Danziger

After reading the library books, my son was really interested in the Brooklyn Bridge so we got another one about that which was still in the pile of books to be read.  We like to have some short ones and some long ones so that he is kept reading when he wants to read a certain kind of book.  We add and subtract books based on what is the most interesting.

We also got the fact books about New York State and all of the things that we needed to reference.  These books all lay things out differently so it is nice to have options especially since they are all from the library.

We also have our 50 State Book and the 50 States Fandex which we find a lot of information.  The book was purchased at the Dollar Tree and I got the State Fandex at a yard sale so those are great resources to look for at low prices to keep at home!

My favorite book because it included lots of fact in an easy to read format and was about thge whole state was the E is for Empire book.  In the back of the book, there were questions and answers.  Those made it is a great discussion that night at dinner as well as the reading we had done during the day.

I also use the wonderful resource from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom that gives you a nice outline of things to learn about the state with a great cover with a picture of the state and a nice reminder page that gives the different pictures of the flower, bird and others colored in.

There is one sheet to practice writing including a page to complete about the state and the capitol.

A page about the flag and matching the colors to the colors there.  The insides of most of the flags are hard to color so I normally help out and color with the markers that my son picks out where he tells me to color.

There is a page about the whole state which usually gets the top filled out at the beginning of our learning and it is done in three parts because my son needs to have a little break in between to try to put in his best work.

There is a sheet about the state outline and where it is on the US Map, one with the state bird, state flower and state landmark.  The first thing that we always do is cut out the circles and glue them on the sheets that they are ready to be labeled, colored and information written.  These can be done one at the time or batched by different thing like we do them. Here are a few pictures of the finished product.

The last thing that we do is the puzzles and the door hanger.  My son likes to hang up the door hanger on the front door when we finish so that my husband knows that we are done with the state.  It is a great exercise to do over the summer so the kids focus on something like school work and learn fun and different things about the states that they might not otherwise known.

I love using lots of free resources to get into the details of the states and learn lots more information without having to buy many items with the use of the internet and the library with a little planning, we have been able to learn lots of information about the state and its history.  I hope that you use some of these resources and others to learn more about your state and others across the wonderful United States.  I know that we have enjoyed our learning and can't wait to learn some more!!

Kids Wednesday: Pretend Library

My son has made a ton of books which he loves to set up and make them into a library.  Obviously we spend too much time at the library because he then decided that he needed to make the scanner on the back of the books so that people could check them out.  If you want to make your own library at home with homemade books or ones that you own.  Try this to make a library check out system and a pretend scanner to check them all out.  It is great to have a little library fun at home sometimes and this is the perfect way to do it!

I started by cutting out all of the items that were printed on the color printer.  It took a little bit of time to get in all the nooks and crannies but I think that it looked pretty good.  I took the finished product and glued them on card stock from extra folders that I had.  I cut those out which took a little bit more work and time but I think is well worth it for a toy that is going to last.  My husband laminated them to make them even more durable. Isn't this book scanner cool?

There are cards that he can write on with the dry erase markers and use over and over.

He decided to do just that and make his own library card.  We also took this opportunity to go to the library and get his own library card there.  He filled out part of the form and I filled out the other part to make sure it would fit in the small places but he was super excited to sign his name on the back of the card.

My son saw them while I was gluing and sticking and couldn't wait to use them on his own library.  He likes to make books and uses them for his library with scanners drawn on the back of all of them.  This toy not only brought out his love of the library at home but lets him grow his own creations with some new books that he is ready to make.  I hope that you print out these great resources and see if your kids enjoy them as much as mine did!!!

Learning by State: Maryland

My son was very interested in learning more about the states so I decided to set up a summer learning program for a few of the states near us that we were going to visit and start from there.  We started with Maryland.  The great thing about learning is that you can expand on anything that your child is interested in and make it appropriate for their age or learning level.  My son is 6 years old so I am aiming this at something he would be interested and learn something from including some interesting facts about states we are going to visit.

I downloaded and printed the great resource from Enchanted Homeschooling Mom (found here).  It is very detailed and includes the following:

• Creative Writing (Make a Travel Brochure)
• Door Hanger (Completion Certificate)
• Handwriting Practice
• Puzzles
• Research Project
• State Bird
• State Capital
• State Flag
• State Flag Wall Card
• State Flower
• State Location
• State Landmarks
• State Wall Card

You can use the things that are helpful for your children's learning and leave out the ones that you might not want to use.  If you are looking for a different state, here is the page with all the states here.

There was another Maryland worksheet (found here) which is nice and simple if you want to print in black and white and just want an easier sheet to fill in with some details on the state.

That same website also had some great word searches which is something my son enjoys and it helps him to slow down and take his time (which is something we are constantly working on).  If you would like to download the Maryland word search, click here.

I also checked out all the books about the state from the library and found them to be mostly boring.  The best ones that I kept were these two.  They didn't have the one that I was looking for so I settled for one with boring pictures and one that might be a little too long.

Then I went to another library and found one of the series that I like.  It is a good length for kids to find the information themselves and not have too much.

Then, I looked at a list of books that were set in the state that gave you a different look at the states from the NEA.  (You can find the list here).  We checked the books out of the library and read one in between some of our worksheets and other learning.

Since we are doing a lot of different things to deal with the states (and tons of other summer things like going to library programs, playgrounds and pool), we are stretching this out to a few weeks for each state depending on how much we get done.  I think that we had a lot of fun doing the worksheets and starting our state binder which we are excited to add information to as we learn about more states. I am aiming for Maryland, Delaware and Virginia for our summer states.  We might do a few through the school year to keep is going but not sure if there is going to be time.  If we only finish three states a summer then we might get through all the states before college!