Easter Tot School Activities

I can't believe it is almost Easter! We have been doing some themed activities, I just forgot to post about them! Here is some of what we have done!

Easter beginning letter matching from Tot Schooling. This is the first time she's done this type of activity, so I only gave her 6-7 cards at a time. She did really well, though! We will have to continue with this type of activity!

Bunny pattern block template. This was a good size for her. Too much bigger and I think she would have lost interest.

Shape tracing. She's not great, but she likes it. She'll get there.

Some spring themed wooden puzzles.

Easter play dough tray.

Easter egg word family. This was another activity we tried for the first time. She did fantastic for her age and pretty well overall. Definitely needs more practice.

Sensory bin with little bunnies. 

Easter Vocabulary Cards

Easter Egg Pattern Matching Activity

Butterfly gear puzzle

Easter pin punching. We hadn't done this before, either, but she did great! She seems to like fine motor activities.

You can print the Easter Resources Here

 

Leaf Board Game Review

 

Leaf

Players: 1-4

Play Time: 30-45 minutes

Ages: 8+ 

If you were to ask me my ideal game, I would say cozy tile laying, cute animal/nature theme, plays well at 2-3 players and plays in under an hour. Leaf, designed by Tim Eisner and published by Weird City Games definitely checks all those boxes!

Gameplay
In Leaf, you are the wind guiding leaves to the forest floor. Depending on the connections you make between your leaf and the ones already played, you may get cards, grow mushrooms, advance the sun, gain animals or move your squirrel further up the tree. Multiple connections grant multiple actions, so you need to place your leaves with care. Whoever balances these actions the best by winter has contributed most to the health of the forest and wins.

Thoughts

I love how this game takes something very simple, like placing a leaf tile onto the table, and makes it very strategic by making you think about the type of leaf, how to orient it and the colors you’re touching. It takes a cozy tile game and elevates it, without taking away the coziness. Having multiple ways to gain acorns (points) means there are no bad turns, but you definitely need to optimize your turns to win. It seems to strike the perfect balance of a relaxing game you can play on a weeknight without feeling overly light.

The theme is wonderful and familiar, while still feeling unique. The beautiful artwork by Angela Rizza unifies the various components as well as makes this animal game stand out amongst the others. The hedgehog is totally my favorite! All of the components are nicely done. And there are TUCK BOXES! Tuck boxes within tuck boxes! (I'm a sucker for organization

*Game provided by the publisher for review, but the thoughts are all my own!

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Animal Anatomy Puzzle

We own a few Got Genius Games that we enjoy and my middle son really enjoys puzzles, so when I had the chance to try one of their animal anatomy puzzles, I jumped at it!

What is neat about these puzzles is that on one side, they are just a cool looking shaped and detailed animal puzzle. If you flip it over, it shows the inside anatomy of the animal. They also come with fact sheets and a labeled diagram of the anatomy image.

Archer picked the turtle puzzle, but there are other animals too! We might have to get him the tiger, frog or fish to be able to compare anatomies! I also think it would be neat to get their human body puzzle and compare them side by side to see similarities and differences.

The pieces are thick and sturdy and the illustrations are detailed and vibrant. I also really liked the Velcro closure to keep the box shut!

*The puzzle was kindly gifted to us, but all thoughts and content are my own.

Homeschool Science: Space Unit

For science this year we are doing units based on the Next Generation Science Standards for 1st grade. We usually do more than just what the standard says, but try to hit it at minimum. There are two space standards, but they're pretty simple, so we just broke out all of our space books and kind of divided them into two sections and read some with the first standard and some with the second.

Section 1:

Standard: 

1-ESS1-1: Use observations of the sun, moon, and stars to describe patterns that can be predicted. [Clarification Statement: Examples of patterns could include that the sun and moon appear to rise in one part of the sky, move across the sky, and set; and stars other than our sun are visible at night but not during the day.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment of star patterns is limited to stars being seen at night and not during the day.]

• I had trouble finding a lab for tracking the movement of the sun that I really liked. I ended up having him build a tower in the window and then drawing the shadow at three different times in the day. Sadly, clouds came in for the last time, so there wasn't much shadow. We were able to talk about the patterns and he could predict what direction the shadows would go at different times of the day.

• Books:

The Moon Book

If You Decided to Go to the Moon

Magic School Bus Takes a Moonwalk

What is the Moon

Moon's First Friends

Earth! My First 4.54 Billion Years

The Sun is Kind of a Big Deal

Sun! One in a Billion

Barefoot Books Solar System

Solar System: By the Numbers

Going Around the Sun: An Engaging Astronomy Book for Kids with a Fun, Musical Twist

Magic School Bus Our Solar System

Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System

Postcards from Pluto

Science Comics: Solar System

Magic School Bus 3D Solar System

ABCs of Space

• While we read about the moon and moon phases, we also made them out of Oreo cookies. I just printed the sheet from the internet. A lot of websites have it.

Solar System Floor Puzzle

• Videos:

Section 2:

Standard: 

1-ESS1-2: Make observations at different times of year to relate the amount of daylight to the time of year. [Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on relative comparisons of the amount of daylight in the winter to the amount in the spring or fall.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment is limited to relative amounts of daylight, not quantifying the hours or time of daylight.]

• I broke out a lamp and a ball in a dark room to help demonstrate how the amount of sunlight affects the seasons (Similar to this demo). I was able to ask him questions along the way to think about how the sun affected day/night and seasons.
• Books:

See Inside the Universe

The Skies Above My Eyes

Glow in the Dark Space Sticker Activities

How Do You Burp in Space?

How Do Satellites Stay in Space?: A Book About How Satellites Work

Meteors

Little Comet

Living in Space

24 Hours in Space

Wow in Space

The Planets: Musical Books

Professor Astro Cat's Space Rockets

Stars! Stars! Stars!

Star Stuff

Star Gazers

Watching the Stars

What Makes Day and Night (actually read during section 1)

• We played Gravity Superstar (you can read my review here)

Videos:

 

Unlock! Kids Irish Folklore Game Review

Unlock! Kids Irish Folklore

Players: 1-4

Play Time: 20-60 minutes

Ages: 6+ 

My husband and I have enjoyed escape room style games for years, but I had never tried one of the kids versions until recently. We have now completed all the stories from Unlock! Kids Irish Folklore, so I thought I would share our thoughts.

Gameplay:

The whole Unlock! series play as escape style puzzles you're trying to solve. You use cards and some other components to find clues, leading you to more cards and objects until you complete the entire puzzle. The kids version has no words, just numbers to find. There are also some additional hidden numbers which lead you to star cards, giving you points at the end rather than advancing the story. This box has three different adventure decks with two stories to solve each. The difficulty increases as you progress through them. There is also a hint book and an online walkthrough for if you need a little help.

Thoughts:

My 6 year old, who can sometimes be a reluctant game, absolutely loved playing these! He would have done multiple stories in a day had his sister's naps allowed it. He loved combining the objects with the cards to uncover new cards as well as finding the hidden numbers. 

The components were so nicely done. I was impressed at the creativity and variety that came out of games centered around regular cards, translucent cards and some cardboard pieces. Sometimes we were building three dimensional objects and sometimes combining cards in unique ways.

The illustrations were beautifully done, telling a story in a unique way. However, the lack of words was a mixed blessing. It makes it more accessible for non readers and it really lets the artwork shine, however, there were a few spots where, even with the online walkthrough, I wasn't sure how they arrived at a particular solution. That didn't seem to bother Archer in the slightest. 

We both really enjoyed the experience together and will gladly play other adventures from the series in the future! In fact, I liked it so much, I got an adult version of the Unlock! game to play with my husband and teen!

Game provided for content creation purposes on my Instagram account, but the thoughts are entirely my own. I also enjoyed it enough to find it worth sharing on here.

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Tot School: St Patrick's Day

Here are some of the Tot School activities we have done recently. Juniper is 2.5

A play dough tray had some gold nuggets, shamrock buttons and cookie cutters.

We did a dot page from Making Learning Fun

St Patrick's Shape Tracing (print here). She's not great at it, but she enjoys it.

We also did some line tracing (print here).

Shamrock pattern matching

Measuring activity. This was her first time doing an activity like this and she did well, not perfect.

This was her first time digging star pony beads out of  therapy putty. She ended up loving it! We did not do the questions that went with this activity because she's so young.

St. Patrick's Graphing

I got out her activity board with some green straws, pipe cleaners and pony beads.

This was also her first time doing a 10s frame activity. I don't know that she fully understood the point, but she did great counting.

Roll and Cover printable from Totschooling. We did some of it before she got distracted. It wasn't much of a challenge for her though.

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Gravity Superstar Game Review

Gravity Superstar

Players: 2-6

Play Time: 15-30

Ages: 6+ (officially 7+)

How do you turn an ordinary game night into a great childhood memory? Add blacklights! The first time I saw the components for Gravity Superstar, I knew I had to make it happen! Granted, we did play in regular lighting a few times first.

✳️Gameplay✳️

In the game, your little Superstars characters are trying to collect stars around this little planet with crazy gravity. You have double sided cards to play which let you make different moves, fall through the platforms or even change the direction of gravity. Your Superstar falls down (a la Ender’s Game) until he lands on the next platform, collecting stars and tokens along the way. Sometimes that means falling off one side of the board and coming back on the other! You get points for the stars you collect, but extra points for the pairs of the same color.

✴️Thoughts✴️

First off, the components are phenomenal! They’re all chunky and neon and look fantastic against the dark board. You cannot see this game on the table and not be interested. They look even better under blacklight (although, a couple of the colors look pretty similar and had to be verified during scoring). He even wore his star pajamas from @littlesleepies for extra starry glow! It made for a great family game night experience!

Components aside, this is such a great kids game! My husband and I both enjoy playing it with my son (and I think my teen will like it when he gets a chance to play). The gameplay is simple but fun and unique in our rather large collection. While you can bump into each other, it does not feel too aggressive to our sensitive young player. The way you use up your cards and pass to reset them feels like good training for some grown up games, which is always a plus. I don’t see us culling this one as the younger kids get older like we will a lot of the “kids” games.

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