Place Value Cards

Understanding place values is an important concept in mathematics. It lays the foundation for understanding how numbers work, and later how to combine them and split them apart. Number cards can be help students see how place value works together to create a number. You can buy these cards pre-printed, but why bother when it only takes a few minutes on the computer to make your own? I created two versions.

The first has underline marks to help your child see which places still need to be filled in. If they see an underlined spot in their finished number, they can see that they missed a value. Click here to download.

I realize that for some children, the place holding lines might feel too cluttered. You can also download a plain version without the lines.

Both sets print on standard-sized paper. Print on heavy cardstock and cut along the lines. You can laminate them, or just print a new set once the old one has been well loved. If you decide to laminate the cards, cut them out first and then laminate them, otherwise the lamination will peel apart.

Each set contains 0-9 cards for units (ones), tens, hundreds and thousands. It also includes one 10,000 card, one 100,000 card, and a couple blank cards in case you lose a card. To build a number, simply stack the cards - one for each place.

Happy building!

Fun with Word Clouds

I am a bit of a computer junkie. Recently I discovered Tagxedo, where you can design free word clouds. I may be enjoying myself a little too much! I made this using the Pledge of Allegiance, which the girls are learning in our civics time.

The girls were intrigued when I showed them the website. They made one for their room - think loads of pink and purple and their names repeated over and over again - and also one for their dad's birthday. (I can't post that one until after they give it to him.) Word clouds are the "it" thing at our house right now!

During our school days, I have to be careful to limit my time online, or it is likely to overtake teaching time. However, my oldest also loves the computer, so it can be a valuable tool for encouraging her in subjects that she is reluctant to tackle. When she was working on the cloud for her bedroom, I had an idea about how I could transfer this to school time. By far our most challenging book in Year 1 has been Parables from Nature. The language is advanced, the ideas are challenging, and because I am reading it as a free Kindle download, there are no pictures to "help" her imagination. That being said, she has wrestled valiantly with it, and we have ended up enjoying most of the stories. Today, I decided to let her do her narration in a different kind of way. She created a word cloud for the parable "The Light of Truth." The story centers on a boy named Arthur, his father, and their experiences with the Will-o-the-Wisp - who, as everyone knows, wants to lure travelers to their deaths in the marsh... or does he? Do I even need to say that she thought this was a grand idea?!

I love how she chose colors and a shape that illustrated ideas from the story. Not only did she have a great time designing it, it also shows me that she really understood some of the key ideas. (As an aside, notice the word "beneficent" in there? It makes me smile when kids grab hold of big, impressive words. You can practically see them rolling the word around in their mouths - getting a feel for it, relishing the sounds of the syllables.)

If you have some free time, click on over to Tagxedo and see what you can come up with. If you post your finished cloud online anywhere, please include a link in the comment section.

Happy designing!

Hymn Study - For All the Saints

One of the beautiful "extras" that our family loves about a Charlotte Mason education is the music studies. The girls and I enjoy classical composers, hymns, and folk songs. This year, we have chosen to replace folk songs with patriotic songs, and all the kids love their Wee Sing America CD.

The first hymn that we are learning this year is For All the Saints Who From Their Labors Rest. Like the rest, this hymn is new to me. I didn't grow up in a church, and our current church isn't big on traditional hymns!

Hymn "study" at our house is pretty low key. The kids and I found a YouTube performance of the song that we like. I copied the lyrics from HymnTime and created a song sheet to help us learn the lyrics. I will laminate this and put it on the wall so we can look at it during our song time (and whenever else we choose to). Like most hymns, the performance we are listening to includes only a few verses. To help us keep the lyrics straight, I put the verses that are included in the YouTube video in bold type. You are welcome to download this song sheet for personal use.

We will listen to the song a few times a week, and the kids can join in if they choose (typically they don't). My littlest pumpkin likes me to sing to her before bed, so I often sing the hymn we are learning. We sing one hymn a month, and also listen to the others we have previously learned. Eventually I plan on creating a YouTube playlist that I can play in the background, but that has not happened yet.

That's about all there is to it! The idea is to expose them to beautiful ideas, language, and music. When a picture, song or idea speaks to their heart they will take it and make it their own.

Happy listening!

So many books, so few bookmarks!

One drawback of a literature-based education is that we never seem to have enough bookmarks. I stumbled on these images from Karen's beautiful website, Karen's Whimsy. They turned out to be the perfect ratio for small bookmarks.

You can download these bookmarks here. Print the page out on heavyweight card stock, and you will have some lovely, durable (and colorable!) bookmarks.

Happy Reading!

Art Cards: Term 1, Renoir

This is our second year in Ambleside, but we did not do picture study last year. I'm very excited about the possibilities. During our first term, we will be enjoying 6 painting by Renoir.

When we start school this year, each of my older kids will receive their own art album - a simple pocket album where they can put a 4x6 print. Eventually, they will have a beautiful album of all the art prints they have studied.

 

The process of a picture study is so simple. The children look carefully at a picture for a few minutes, until they can close their eyes and "see" it in their minds. Then we turn the picture face down, they describe what they saw, and we look back at the picture to confirm or clarify. Simple, right?

However, according to Charlotte Mason,

“We cannot measure the influence that one or another artist has upon the child’s sense of beauty, upon his power of seeing, as in a picture, the common sights of life; he is enriched more than we know in having really looked at even a single picture.”

 I am excited about this new step in our family's educational journey. Please feel free to copy these prints and use them for your own family.