Educational creativity

     My daughter got this bunny gumball machine in the mail from my mom for Easter.  I really had no intension of filling it with gumballs for my daughter to just empty.  I saw this cute idea to use a gumball machine for a center game.      So, we made it into a game I could use to help my kids at school and to push my daughter to the next level of reading without using the paper flash cards she came home with.  We put letter sticker, number stickers, and some site word stickers on these little glass beads found at the dollar store.      They fit nicely into the gumball machine, so when you pull on the lever you get a bead with a surprise letter, number, or word on it.  The children have to find the symbol on a pre-made letter, number, or word list.  They could use a stamp or sticker to cover the symbol, but I decided to get some hand muscle strengthening work in, too.  They have to use t...

This has been one of my favorite home made games so far.  And surprisingly all the kids enjoyed it, too. All you need are some number cards, some kind of marker, and dice.  I made this number strip in my word program by adding a text box and giving it a neat border. I made this game to assess whether or not the kids who knew how to match numbers to sets could immediately recognize a set up to 5.  (In the Creative Curriculum assessment books)  It did a good job of assessing this objective.  But, to my surprise it attracted other children who weren't interested in numbers yet.  (3 year olds) The child rolls the dice and counts the dots.  Then they put a marker on the number they rolled.  We used pom poms here. Now that I am going to be with 4 year olds, I am going to make a new set of number strips using dots.  I found this dice that has numbers 0-9. The game will be played the same way only opposite.  The kids will recognize th...