Educational Games

 I find the teacher in me comes out every so often as a Mother. I like to wear my teacher/Mummy hat at the same time. Short of sitting down and teaching Maths, Reading and Writing, I do try to cash in on opportunities that come up in an authentic and natural way. That's always the way kids learn best and it's so much less stressful than sitting down and forcing learning upon someone. Here's some games/activities we do to 'feed our brains' cause sometimes they get hungry just like our tummies do (or so I tell the girls)

Faith unknowingly started an alphabet game last week. She was  in the back of the car on a kindy run and she started going 'b b b braces, that starts with b aye Mum'. And that's the game. We decide on a letter and take turns saying words that begin with that letter. She's getting quite good at it and I'm sure it will help her with reading/writing/spelling.
b b b ball
b b b bathroom
b b b balloon
b b b brown
b b b bed

One we do at the dinner table is count the things on our plate, like 3 carrots, 2 brocolli, 3 pieces of chicken and 2 potatoes. And if we're extra clever we add them altogether. That was such a hard concept to start with, and 'counting on' can be a hard thing for kids into junior primary, but Faith's got it now....yeeyah!

Memory Game - look at objects, cover them and then recall what was there. I love seeing their minds straining to recall what's been covered. I'm sure I can see the cogs ticking....

Numb3rs - How many legs on a chair? 4
                 What's Grandie's address? 18
                 How old's Mum? 29
                 How many sleeps until Church day? 2

Groups -goat, horse, cow, sheep are all alike because they're farm animals
              car, bike, bus, truck, scooter are all alike because they've got wheels
              milk, cheese, ham, eggs are all alike because we keep them in the fridge.
               jacket, socks, shorts, t-shirt, dress are all alike because they're things we wear

I love it when we find something new to do that's educational and fun. One of those things at the moment is colouring in
                

This was the best effort Ella's given to colouring in (on paper at least!)