{This Moment}

{This Moment} - A SouleMama Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. We wish you a weekend full of joy filled moments!

::Right Now::

Right now we are:

::beaming with pride over Grace earning her final Daisy petal!

::reveling in the amazingness that was the last two days weather (thanks Mother Nature!).

::grateful for friends who truly"get it".

::anxiously awaiting the official arrival of spring.

::in awe that one week ago our world was covered with snow.

::talking about all the wonderful things we want to do/bring to Unschoolers Rock the Campground this summer (July cannot come fast enough).

::loving how naturally the girls are learning all sorts of wonderful things and how full our days are!

::contemplating adding some hamsters into the mix.

::constantly reminded how the girls will do things in their own time and when they are ready.

::looking forward to all the adventures that tomorrow holds.

Unschooling Tools::Math Play

When Stephanie posted that todays Unschooling Tools post would be about math, I began to wonder what we do that would  be interesting to people that would fit under this category.  Anyone that knows us knows that we do alot of baking.  And baking is math.  And reading.  And then I sat down and made a list and realized that there are lots of things that we do that fall under the category of math (including a fabulous new game that we bought yesterday)! 

Legos:The girls, especially Grace are really into Legos. They are way better at building with Lego's than I ever was (which just goes to show that they have a much more mathematical mind than I do)! Their ability to create things from these wonderful little blocks is just incredible and I love that Grace (and on occasion Emma too) will follow the diagrams shown in the books that come with each set to make the creations that make up each set.  Too cool!

Baking: We do lots of baking in our family. Not only is it fun, but it's yummy too! When we bake the girls have started to read the recipe (with help from mama). They love to locate each fraction on the various measuring cups and spoons, and we have started to talk about what fractions are. Grace even made up a little song that "two halves make a whole" and then she clanks the half cup measuring cup twice against the one cup measuring cup. Pretty smart if you ask me!

Beeswax: Very handy for creating numbers so that littles can see what each number "feels" like. And honestly, it's just super fun to play with! We have used our beeswax numbers to play all sorts of grames we've made up.  Games like: putting the numbers in a bag and then having one of the girls reach in, feel around and see if she can identity the number in her hand before taking it out of the bag. Choosing a number and then getting the corresponding amount of items (the girls love this one, especially if the items that they get are edible ones), and having a number hunt!  The possibilities are endless.

Games:  Games like Uno, Candy Land, The Ladybug Game, various puzzles, and now Number Hunt are wonderful and are all mathematical in their own right.  Number Hunt was purchased yesterday and has quickly become a beloved game.  It's a great way to work on number identification, counting, one to one correspondance and addition.  It gets two thumbs up for our family (and as an added bonus it's eco-friendly)!  

It's funny how at first I didn't think we had much to offer in the way of fun ways to incorporate math into our days but looking at this post we surely do!  And looking at all these super fun ways to experience different mathematical concepts sure makes me wish that this was the way I learned math. It's definitely way more fun (and natural) than completing lots of math worksheets!

Dancin' With Gramma

The girls were so excited that Gramma came up to go folk dancing with us on Sunday!  We had not been in a long, long time and thought that since there were only a couple more sessions that we should go back before it was done for the season.  We arrived and discovered that it was dances from around the world this time (as opposed to traditional New England contra dances which is more our speed) and so we were a little out of our element. No worries though, we had fun nonetheless!  I was happy when Em decided to take a break 'cause it meant that I could capture the fun of Grace and Gramma dancing together! 



Sledding

Nothing like a new sled (or two) to make winter even more fun!

{This Moment}

{This Moment} - A SouleMama Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see. We wish you a weekend full of joy filled moments!



Unschooling Tools::Games

My friend Stephanie over at Ordinary Life Magic is doing a series of posts on tools that unschooling families are using in their days.  The first in the series is about games.  Games are something that we love, and lately Dave and I have been on a quest to find new, wonderful games to add to our collection. So much of what we have come across just does not seem to be what we are looking for and so it was with that in mind that I had recently asked Stephanie what some of their favorite games are. I was thrilled to see this wonderful post about all the games in their home, and have already started making a list of ones to add to our game cabinet.  So without further delay here's a peek inside our game cupboard:

We don't have nearly as many games as we'd like yet but the ones that we have are indeed well loved.  Some of our favorites are:

Uno.  This was the girls first card game (and as you can see by the fact that Em's hair is super short these pictures are old).  When we first started playing Uno with the girls we had to hold the cards for them but now they are able to play without much help from us.  Such a great game for color and number matching! 

Candy Land.  Another tried and true favorite (and another old picture. This time from the October Nor'easter). 

Balancing Moon.  We bought this from Magic Cabin a couple years back.  It's a simple game.  All about color matching and balancing.  It's great for the very young but also is just as much fun when your a mama (or older!)! 

 

The Ladybug Game is simply fabulous! What makes it so fabulous is how simple it is. Since reading is not required kids can easily learn the rules and play on their own. 

And we love to put our alphabet blocks to good use and play Alphabet Hide and Seek.  A game that I made up one day when the girls had their Easter baskets out and were going on treasure hunts.  Why not hunt letters?  It was a blast! You can read more about it here. 

If you have any games to recommend to us we'd love to hear about them.  So far, as a result of a trip to the lovely toy store in Concord this week, and reading Stephanie's post we're looking forward to playing Blokus, Boggle Jr., Qwirkle, Mystery Garden, Math Animals and Mighty Mind.  Can't wait to see what else we discover along the way!