Hello,
I wanted to share with you one of the first activities, I did for Monkey, that really got her to enjoy learning. We did a treasure hunt, where each stop along the way had a different subject to cover. Monkey’s friend Lion was over, they are both 7, though Lion is in first grade and Monkey is in second grade. So I did have 2 different sets of Math for them. Though I think it worked out great because then they could help each other out.
Our word for the day was Bubbles, I had most activities focused on bubbles. We had ten stops along the way, the tenth stop being the Grand Prize!!!(Ice cream)
Here is a list of the clues I used.
I printed them all out and then just cut up the paper, and each time they finished a station, they got a new clue.
Our first stop was, writing station, I wanted to get this one out-of-the-way quick. Both girls don’t like to practice writing too much, but they were still excited about the idea of a treasure hunt, so they didn’t complain. For writing, I had them write their ABC, I didn’t make this one I got it from,
what the teacher wants, blog. (Clue was under her shoes)
Our next stop was coloring station. The picture they colored was from bubble guppies, I think. I just Googled bubbles coloring pages and picked my favorite ones. (Inside her art set)
This is about the only picture I took that day =/
Color station
The 3rd stop was Math, honestly I didn't put much thought into this one. I just needed something for math. That weekend we had been working with Monkey a bunch with math, so I didn’t want to over load her here. I did make it so that the answers would un-scramble the word bubbles. This was a little difficult for them to understand at first, but after I showed them the first letter they were racing to put their letters in place! (Under her pillow)
For the 4th stop I had a word search, and had them find bubbles 6 times. (In the bathroom, by her tooth-brush)
The reading station was 5th. I used the
Hello Kitty A Collection For Early readers (Hello Kitty Early Readers) book. I kept it simple so both girls wouldn't have a problem reading it. This probably took me the longest, I wanted to find a story that said the word bubbles. I think I read every story in the book until I found bubbles, I ended up using the story, Hello Kitty Loves School (I got lucky the word was even there). I also had them answer some questions about the story. (Inside the book, and I had the book sitting out)
For the 6th station, I reused the coloring pages from station 2, to make the puzzles. I just cut them in to 8 pieces. The girls were real surprised that I had used their coloring page for this, but enjoyed it. I think they felt like it was really their own puzzle because of it. (By the front door)
With the 7th station, we did a little science experiment. The traditional vinegar and baking soda trick, we had to make bubbles, of course. I used,
mom to 2 posh lil divas, idea to add food coloring to the spoon and then add baking soda. The girls really loved this. (At the dining room table)
Now that we have talked about bubbles all day, I had them spell it on the white board for the 8th stop. This was really quick and I was extremely happy they both were able to spell it without any help. I know it wasn’t much but they didn’t know how to spell it before we started. It was the glimpse that they were learning and having fun. (The white board)
Our 9th and last stop, before we made it to the treasure, was our art station. I kept our theme going and we painted with bubbles. I got this one from,
Housing a Forest. It didn’t work quite as well as theirs did. The colors were really light, however I just guessed on the measurement, which could have been why. This station did get a little messy though, luckily I put a drop cloth down and we did this on the floor. Monkey had a little ooppsey and we now have a blue drop cloth. Overall the girls still loved it, Monkey is my little artsy girl and she didn’t want to stop. Lion is a bit more girly and was content after just a couple of bubbles. (On the floor)
Finally we completed our hunt, with our treasure, crazy cookie dough!
Here are you can download any of the pages I had made. I apologize they are not the best, I put this all together while the girls were in the bath tub.
Treasure Hunt Clues & Station order
Reading station & Word search
Math station & Coloring pages/puzzle
All in all I think the day went great! Both girls had a great time, Monkey asks me all the time for another treasure hunt (Probably a birthday treasure hunt is in our future =]). I tried to make sure that there was something fun and not to schooly every other time. I would not suggest doing reading, writing and math all in a row, the little ones probably would have got bored and not had fun. It can become over whelming to them that way.
A couple of things I would do differently next time though:
1. Have some kind of default thing to go to when one kid finishes first. Lion was just racing through the coloring and writing and would complain she was bored. So having something on had to occupy that free time, would be a plus.
2. Do the bubble art outside if possible, it can get messy.
I hope you enjoy doing your own treasure hunt and thanks bunch for stopping by,
-Hannah
p.s. I'm trying to figure out if I like word press or blogger more so I am jumping between them both still.. but I promise everything will be posted to both until I decided who to stick with.
