We really, really enjoy books by Ellen Stoll Walsh. In Balancing Act, the little mice make a teeter-totter (we call it a seesaw) and have fun balancing. More and more friends come along and they all have to figure out how to balance on the teeter-totter. As usual, we love the cut paper illustrations; someday we have to do an art project in that style to go along with her books.
This book was a great excuse to pull out our Learning Resources Primary Bucket Balance and our Monkey Math game.
We have a set of ten weighted numbers that we often use with the bucket balance, but we also use liquids or little toys in the buckets and make guesses about how much or what we can add to make them balance. In the above photo, R is trying to balance Squinkies toys - do your kids have those? R loves them, but seriously, why do kids love little pieces of plastic junk so much?
Monkey Math is a fun game with a monkey scale and banana numbers. To get the scale to balance, you have to use simple addition when placing the bananas on the monkey's arms. If the scale does not balance, the monkey's eyes look silly - C and R think this is pretty funny. This game is also great for teaching greater than and less than.
I think I was originally inspired to do this by a post at Joyful Learner, but it seems to have disappeared, or at least I can't find it!
11 comments:
We would have to follow that lesson up with another trip to the park! I love that monkey - how funny.
I know you aren't a homeschooler, but you might as well be! Your ideas are always so awesome! Years from now, your kids will not remember the school stuff as much as they remember the cool learning activities Mom did!
We have that same scale!
@Almost Unschooling Mom: If it ever stops raining here, we will definitely follow this up with some playground fun!
Look at you go!!! I'm seriously sending my kids to your house! Look for a package in the mail soon! LOL!
We love this author, but we haven't read this book yet. These look like wonderful learning activities!
http://littlewondersdays.blogspot.com/
I am going to have to look for this book. I knew just from the cover that Selena will love it. So many possibilities for extension lessons!
I love her books too.
I need to buy a balance scale. Maybe the next time I get a coupon from Lakeshore or something like that.....
That balance bucket scale looks great! And the book sounds fun =)
We have this balance scale too and never really used it yet. I will be looking for this book. You are amazing with extending your children' learning at home.
We love all sorts of books here and these look really fun! Thanks for the tip...
Sandy
You just happened to have all those cool scales...your kids are lucky to have you for a mom!
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