So, yesterday I found myself in Target. I don’t usually shop there, but I was looking for a specific toy for Charlie’s birthday and it was one place I looked. When I do go to Target I always check the Dollar Spot. You know. Because I’m cheap.
Anyway, they had a bunch of school supplies (because it’s about that time) but we don’t use a lot of folders and spiral-bound notebooks. Not too many pencils either, if it comes to that. However, at the end of the shelves they had something I love: dry erase activities!
Ah, how I love the dry erase marker. I love how I can buy a resource once, and not only can both of my boys use it, but they can use it over and over again. We bought an adding game (two spinners, add the resulting numbers) and a money-value game (it works similarly). There were also writing games with spinners and such, but we have plenty of dry-erase alphabet and handwriting workbooks already.
We also got this:
We used to have a foam clock, but the hands and the numbers popped out like puzzle pieces and were eventually lost. The boys are really excited to have a new one, and even happier to have a game to go with it. We actually played Time Bingo this afternoon and it was a hit! The cards are covered with clocks of different styles showing different times; you draw a little card with a digital clock on it and try and match the time. Since we haven’t really worked on clock-reading before, I showed them the time and then turned the hands of the clock to it so all they had to do was match it. It’s really good practice, and they made me play it with them four times before they got tired of it.
There were other, similar games in the Dollar Spot, but again, most of them were for reading and the alphabet. There was also a little 24-piece puzzle with a map of the world on it that would be excellent for little children learning general world geography.
Finally, we picked up a couple of sets of flashcards, and here was where I really had to hold myself back.
I only got the U.S. Animals and United States cards, but they had World Landmarks, Animals, Insects, Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Letters, Sight Words, U.S. Presidents and I’m sure there were more. The boys like the cards – so far we’ve only looked at the animals – and I’m going to see if I can craft some sort of board game that we can play using them. I already have a board, and I intentionally left it blank of specifics or words so that we can reuse it for multiple games.
Ahh, I love homeschooling. I get to play with all the fun toys.
