Shark School - A PreK 5 and Beyond Homeschooling Adventure: December 2010

SharkMan has a new favorite Christmas Game - Roll A Gingerbread (Reindeer and Elf.) Our first game was Roll a Reindeer. We did the addition choice in order to practice math facts. SharkMan would roll two dice. He could choose to add the two numbers together and color the sum or he could color each of the numbers rolled on the dice. The first one to color all the sections on the reindeer wins. He loved the game and begged to play it again. He was delighted that I already had Roll an Elf printed out and we played it right away.

We did change the rules. After spending quite a while trying to roll our last number, in order to hurry the game along, we changed our last number to any number of our choice. SharkMan learned that it was better to choose a low number rather than a high one in order to have more opportunities to roll the needed number.

SharkMan enjoyed the game so much he wanted to play Roll A Gingerbread with Papa Shark when he got home from work.

Another fun activity was Christmas Pattern Blocks and SharkMan insisted on doing all the designs today - so much for my ideas of doing one a day.

We also are enjoying reading the Nutcracker aloud this week. Here is the version we are reading:

While I read today, SharkMan worked on a Nutcracker ornament for the tree. I am really surprised how much he is enjoying the book. Today we learned how the Nutcracker became a Nutcracker. I grew up enjoying the ballet of the Nutcracker, but the book is very different than the story I grew up with.