This eco activity isn’t an overnight project, but it’s one your children will enjoy from beginning to end. Actually, the fruits of my son’s (and 19 other children in his preschool class) labour will pay off big tomorrow when they make French Fries in class. Sorry, I’ve skipped ahead; let’s start at the beginning of this project.

♥ Find free tires that can no longer function on a vehicle
♥ Place the tires in a shady spot in your garden and fill with potting soil and plant potatoes
♥ Water and nurture your potatoes for several months
♥ Pick all the potaotoes from the soil in the tires
♥ Discover that potatoes can be made into French Fries from amazing and inspiring teachers
♥ Lastly, talk about nothing else for all of the hours you are awake after hearing the news that you will be making French Fries in class the following day. <grin> Also, make your older brother jealous that you get to do these cool things in preschool, while he is stuck learning all day. <big grin>

What do you have at the end of these steps? A very happy child.  My 4 year old son that helped plant the potatoes last Spring, visited the preschool weekly over the summer to ‘tend’ to the garden and water the tires of dirt. He worked so hard to dig up all the potatoes today and was rewarded with the news about French Fries. He is so excited and will see, taste, and watch his love of planting making it onto the snack table, ready to dip in ketchup. This is his first week at preschool and he loves it! The imaginative teaching and concepts used by his teachers are simply magical and best of all…effective!

Back in April, I wrote an article highlighting an eco-friendly project for kids - Kid Friendly Eco Project.  The activity involved storm drain marking with fish decals to remind the public that water ways lead to fish.  I was very excited to reserve my marking kit with the city, but because of a fish decal shortage, I only received it this week.  I’m wanted to report back on the success of the activity.

Well, my sons and I loved marking the drains.  Actually, there is nothing my boys didn’t enjoy with this project.  I think I feel a paper route coming in their near future because they loved delivering the educational literature to the houses the most.  Of course at the beginning of this adventure, hitting the fish decals with the mallet was pretty fun too.  <smile>

The entire process of storm drain marking is wonderful for a family project. You put on a reflective vest, brush away debris from the road where you plan on putting the decal, then you pour the glue onto the road, peel and stick the fish decal, then pound it with a mallet approx. 100 times.  When you see the roadway bumps coming through the decal, you’ve done a good job.  These decals need 48 hours to completely stick to the road, so I’m really hoping people don’t lift them up before this time.  I guess this is another wonderful thing about having children. 
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My 6 year old loves playing card games and prefers cards over toys or any other stationary activity at the moment.  Thanks to Debbie from The Village Toy Shop, we’ve recently discovered THE BEST card game ever and my entire family is more than slightly addicted.  If you have a child with an interest in numbers, memory, and logic…this game is a perfect choice.  The brand is Gamewright and they have great card, board, dice and party games. Rat A Tat Cat won the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Toy Award and I can see why.  The age on the front of the box says it’s from ages 6 and up.  My 4 year old can play, so has a good range for different ages, although 5 - 7 years old is probably the perfect age to introduce the game.  Okay..here’s how you play.

There are 54 rat and cat cards, mixed with a few ‘peek’, ’swap’ and ‘take two’ cards which add a fun twist.  The goal of the game is to have your cards add up to the lowest number. You are dealt 4 cards and only initially can you peek at the two end cards, then you draw from the discard or draw pile and have to use your memory to replace cards with lower numbers.  The high cards are the rats and the low cards are the cats.  Obviously 0 and 1 cards are the best to get and when you’re confident you have the lowest number of cards, you tap the table and crow “Rat A Tat Cat”!  The other player goes one last time then you flip your cards over and determine who has the lowest number after you add up the 4 cards.  Francesco is so good at this game now - he’s tough to beat!  I’m a big fan of the card game Uno, but Rat A Tat Cat is hands down the best card game I’ve played with my boys.  Locally they can be found at The Village Toy Shop or online via Amazon.

The boys (and some special friends) conducted a cool science experiment today.  Francesco makes me so proud when he suddenly remembers something interesting that he learned months ago in Kindergarten.  His teacher was amazing so it’s no surprise that he remembered something fun he was taught! 

Also handy for this imprompto activity are the main ingredients already reside in most households (vinegar and baking soda) and you end up with a cleaning agent after the experiment is over.  The ages that helped with the experiment ranged from 2 - 6 years old. Really, what child won’t enjoy watching a balloon blow up and mixing ingredients that fizzle?  Sound interesting?  Read on…

Blow Up Balloon Activity

What do the kid’s learn?
When baking soda and vinegar are combined, they produce a gas called carbon dioxide.  The gas created blows up the balloon when it runs out of room in the bottle.

What do you need?
~ A balloon
~ A funnel & spoon
~ Baking soda (although we used baking powder and it still worked)
~ Vinegar
~ A small plastic bottle

Here we go!
↔ Stretch out the balloon to prepare it to blow up.
↔ Insert the funnel into the mouth of the balloon and scoop in 2 large tablespoons of baking soda.
↔ Fill up your bottle half way with vinegar.
↔ Pinch the upper neck of the balloon so that the baking soda doesn’t fall into the vinegar and stretch the bottom neck of the balloon over top of the bottle
↔ Now slowly hold up the balloon and let the baking soda drop into the vinegar/bottle.  Wait until the balloon starts to fill with air, let go, and watch the gas fill up the balloon.

Children can walk away from this experiment learning 4 new science terms.

A solid - which is the baking soda
A liquid - which is the vinegar
A gas - the carbon dioxide that is produced when the two are combined

I love activities that are this much fun and the kids learn at the same time.  A great afternoon.

My friend Jackie is an elementary school teacher and a fireball of energy with great ideas.  She shared a few teaching tips because Francesco has shown such an interest in math lately.  Also, since I purchased a calc-u-colour book for Francesco at Pedagogy Toys, he has been adding and subtracting like crazy.  These tips and his calc-u-colour book have really kick-started a love for math. I wanted to share these ideas which have worked so well for him.

Tips for Introducing Math:

Counting by 2s
Counting by 5s
Counting by 10s to 100.

Learning even and odd numbers.  To help a child understand which numbers are even, have them say the number 1 in a normal tone, then number 2 very loudly.  Repeat with number 3 (in a normal tone), then number 4 in a loud voice.  It helps them distinguish a difference in the number sequence.  Switch the tones and have them repeat the odd numbers loudly. 

Counting by 10s.  Don’t just encourage your kids to only count by 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. try starting at 13, 23, 33, 43, etc. so they learn that it’s just the first number that is changing when counting by 10s.

Learning when adding two numbers in their head or on fingers to always start with biggest number.  So if you ask “4+8= ?”, so which number do you put in your head?  The child would visualize the 8 and then tap out 4 or put 4 fingers up and proceed to add on the 9,10,11,12.

Cut out numbers from scraps of paper, mix them in a hat, then ask your child to put them in order from smaller to largest.  Then start again and try largest to smallest.

Working with math squares.  You can print off a 100 square chart like this and ask your child to highlight all of the even numbers from 1-100. Next day re-print and try all of the odd numbers. Count by 5s, etc. A great tool on this site for practicing writing letters and counting is this chart that have fill in the blanks or this one that counts by 2s. They have loads of free printables, especially for grades Grade 1-4.

This site also has a blog called Homeschool Math Blog and I loved the categories where a parent like me that doesn’t have a teaching background can check what level (based on age) a child should be at.

If you are highly dedicated to working on math at home with your child, there is this site with a membership fee ($9.95 per month or $79 per year) and your child can complete practice drills and the questions will even increase in difficulty as they improve. That’s pretty cool although there is a cost, but worth it for a child that’s keen on the computer and math. Here is a link to this site. ** If any teachers have tried this site and would like to comment, please feel free using the comments feature of Mommy Footprint. **

Francesco is really enjoying a calc-u-colour book by Buki that I picked up at Pedagogy Toys. This is one of the best workbooks I’ve seen for the 5-7 year old range. It is a picture broken up into small shapes with math problems and based on the answer, you color that section of the picture a specific color. Each number from 0-10 is a different color and when you’re finished with the math problems and coloring, you can see what the picture is. Just fantastic! A great purchase if you are going on a road/plane trip this summer. Locally, you can try the Village Toy Shop or Pedagogy for Buki work books. I found one on Amazon called Calc-U-Draw - Fun with Arithmetic, but it was hard to source them on-line. We’ve also tried their dot-to-dot and maze books..my kids love them!