Crative math games

Uno
Yatzee
War
Monopoly (using "checkbooks" instead of or in addition to cash)

When we were working on pairs that add to 10 I'd remove all the 10s and picture cards and lay the rest face down. We'd take turns turning over 2 cards. If they added to 10 we'd keep them. If not we'd turn them over.

For place value also remove the 10s and picture cards. Decide how many places you want to deal with - we'd start with 2 or 3 and draw that many dashes on your page. Take turns turning over a card and deciding where to place it . We mainly used to aim to make the largest number so the 8s and 9s would go in the hundreds place. Modellling the thought process aloud in a game situation really helped learning I found. Sometimes we'd try and make the smallest number instead.

Rainbow Maths. Draw an arch and divide in into sections number 2-12. You'll need 1 per player and 2 dice. Roll the dice and add the numbers. Now comes the choice. If you have rolled a 3 and a 4 you may choose to colour the 7 section or any sections that add to 7 - the 3+4 that you rolled or 1+6 etc. The winner is the first person with a beautifully coloured rainbow. Stereotypically my girls loved this and my boys couldn't see what all the fuss was about.

Give and Take is great for money skills - all you need is a pile of coins and a dice. If you roll 1-4 you take that number of coins from the pile. A 5 means miss a turn/take noting and 6 means take 3 from the pile and 3 from your partner. When all the coins have gone or after a set number of turns count to see who is richest.

Also on money give the kids a oupon book or other junk mail and a pile of real or toy money and see what they can buy. We had heaps of fun furnishinga house with money from Life or Monopoly. Much less of a budget constraint than real life!

Book list for grade Levels 1-3 with book levels.

King School's Accelerated Reader Quiz List - Reading Practice

I found this on line while looking for information about my local library. I think in may be helpful because it lists books according to the reading level.

If you don't know, the reading level is a number that corresponds to the grade and month of the school year that a child should be able to read a book of such-and-such complexity. For example, if the Reading Level is 2.3, he should be able to read this book in his 3rd month of second grade. They get this number by a mathematical formula that considers the variety and difficulty of the words used, the average sentence length, and so on.

The Reading Level as such will be pretty useless to home schoolers, I guess, but it is nice to have a list of kids' books ranked in order of complexity. I will be referring to this frequently as we advance out of "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons."

Helpful books for home school parents

Helpful books for home school parents

The Well-Trained Mind by Jesse Wise and Susan Wise Bauer
•Teach Your Own by John Holt
•How Children Learn by John Holt
•How Children Fail by John Holt
•Dumbing us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Education by
John Taylor Gotto
•The First Year of Homeschooling by Linda Dobson
•The Homeschooling Book of Answers by Linda Dobson
•The Art of Education by Linda Dobson
•The Homeschooling Book of Answers: The 88 Most Important Questions
Answered by Homeschooling's Most Respected Voices by Linda Dobson
•Fundamentals of Homeschooling, Notes on Successful Family Living by
Ann Lahrson-Fisher
•The Complete Homeschooling Resource Book by Rebecca Rupp
•Homeschooling and the Voyage of Self-Discovery: A Journal of Original
Seeking by David Albert
•The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real
Life and Education by Grace Llewellyn
•What about College? : How Homeschooling Leads to Admissions to the
Best Colleges & Universities by Cafi Cohen
•The Dan Riley School for a Girl: An Adventure in Home Schooling by
Dan Riley
•Homeschooling for Excellence by David Colfax and Micki Colfax
•And the Skylark Sings with Me – Adventures In Homeschooling and
Community-Based Education by David H. Albert
•Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma
•Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series by Charlotte Mason
•The Unschooling Handbook, How to Use the Whole World as Your Child's
Classroom by Mary Griffith
•When Children Love to Learn: A Practical Application of Charlotte
Mason's Philosophy for Today by Anderson, Macaulay, Beckman and Scott
•For the Love of Learning: Information and Resources for Combining
Charlotte Mason and Classical Education by Jenny Sockey
•The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook by Dorothy and Raymond Moore
•A Sense of Self: Listening to Homeschooled Adolescent Girls by
Susannah Sheffer
•What Your 1st Grader Should Know by E.D. Hirsch [entire series
recommended]
•Family Matters by David Gutterson
•The Latin-Centered Curriculum by Andrew Campbell
•Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn
•Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky Bailey
•Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves by Naomi Aldort
•Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen
•There Are No Shortcuts by Rafe Esquith
•Teach Like Your Hair Is on Fire by Rafe Esquith
•Who Killed Homer: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery
of Greek Wisdom by Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath
•Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin by Tracy Lee
Simmons and William F. Buckley
•100 Top Curriculum Picks by Cathy Duffy
•How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and on to Learning by
Carol Barnier

"The Complete Home Learning Sourcebook" (by Rupp)

"Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers"

by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate

Upside-Down Brilliance by Linda Kreger Silverman
Raising Topsy-Turvy Kids by Alexandra Shires Golon.

'Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful
Parenting' by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn

Genius Denied by Jan and Bob Davidson

Prehistoric Book list 1st grade level.

Reference

1. Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World
2. Parragon Encyclopedia of World History
3. Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of World History
4. DK Eyewitness
5. Leap through time
6. Children's History of the World (I liked the secular nature of History Odyssey and having all the books organized for me).

Fiction

1. The First Dog- Jan Brett *This one was really neet to read
2. Ugh- Author Yorunks
3. Your Mother Was A Neanderthal- Jon Scieszka (And other Time Warp Trio books)
4. Little Grunt and The Big Egg- Tomie dePaola **I really like this book***
5. Mik's Mammoth- Roy Gerrard
6. Stanley- Syd Hoff ( I have a comment about Stanley by Syd Hoff. I got this book from thelibrary when we were doing pre-history last fall and although it is a nicelittle first reader my five year old pointed out several inconsistencies.The one I remember were the cartoon illustrations show the cave men running around with dinosaurs, which of course was not possible)..
7. Sunset of the Sabertooth- Mary Pope Osborne
8. Quennu and the Cave Bear- Marie Day
9. The Cave Painter of Lascauz- Roberta Angeletti
10. A is for Aarrgh!- William J. Brooke
11. First Painter- Kathryn Lasky
12. The Kin (series)-Peter Dickinson
13. In The Ice Age- J.C. Greenburg
14. Great Big Guinea Pigs- Susan L. Roth
15. Good Times Travel Agency Series by Linda Baily. (You can also find them by searching under "Adventures in xxxx" They have an Ice Age one, Ancient Greece, Ancient China and more. We love those. They are kind of comic book style but do have good information in them.)
16. One Small Blue Bead" by Baylor
17. Right Here on this Spot" by Addy
18. "Maroo of the Winter Caves" by Turnbull (read aloud -- middle grade
    fiction and not for sensitive kids)
19. "A Cartoon History of the Earth" by Bailey and Lilly (four slim volumes, not to be confused with Gonick's "Cartoon History of the Universe," which is another excellent resource, but not appropriate for younger kids)
20. "Life Story" written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton
21. The Stone Age Sentinel. (It's one of that series of psuedo newspapers/tabloids. It might be a bit over the head of a 6 or 7 year old, but they're fun.)

Activites

1. “Lift the Lid” kits
2. Making a footprint
3. “Cave Painting” on Rocks (grind pigment and mix own paint)
4. Dinosaur excavation kit