Learning Activities for Kids

The -at Hat: Word Family Game

March 22, 2017 By Terri Thompson

What is a word family?

It’s a group of words that have a common sound (i.e. a group of rhyming words) like “at” or “in”.

Knowing how to see this pattern and decode it is one of the many skills your child will have to work on when learning to read.

Today, we’re going to break it down and start with the -at family with this fun word family game.

Practice your -at words with this fun word family game, The -AT Hat

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Grab your -at hat!

Um, -at hat, you say… what is that?

Well, it’s a hat full of words from the -at word family.

Practice your -at words with this fun word family game, The -AT Hat

Let’s start with the -at word family. What are some words that fit in?

Just start rhyming: at, bat, cat, sat, that, hat. Can you think of more?

Think of your own, or you can download and print this set of -at Word Family Cards.

Practice your -at words with this fun word family game, The -AT Hat

How to set up your word family game

Print out your word list, cut them out, then grab a hat. Why a hat? It rhymes, of course!

Fold up all the words and then put them into your hat.

You’re ready to play and there are so many fun variations of this game.

Practice your -at words with this fun word family game, The -AT Hat

Ways to play with your -at hat

The simplest way to play is to just add all your folded up words to your hat. Have your child a word out of the hat one at a time. Have them say the word and move on to another word.

Do they need to practice writing? Have them pick a word and then write it down on a sheet of paper.

Print out two copies of the -at word family. Leave one of the copies whole. Have your child draw a word, say it, and then match it to the uncut list.

Practice identifying -at family words. Print out cards for one or more additional word families. You can find other examples at this page of Reading and Writing Printable Resources. Mix all the cards together. Your child will need to pull one word at a time. Is the word part of the -at family? Add it to the hat. If it’s not, add it to a discard pile.

Add your own words to the hat. Provide scraps of paper or sticky notes. Have your child brainstorm and write down words from the -at word family to add to the hat.

How would you use the -at hat?

Practice your -at words with this fun word family game, The -AT Hat

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Practice your -at words with this fun word family game, The -AT Hat

Domino Addition

March 13, 2017 By Terri Thompson

Look in your game closet and I bet you’ll find two of my favorite tools for math practice.

Playing cards and dominoes.

If you don’t have them, it might be worth your while to pick up a set of each. Not only are they completely versatile when it comes to learning games, they’re also completely versatile when it comes to family game night.

I picked up this idea for Domino Addition from my kids’ school. It’s easy and fun. My girls have always loved it, whether they were playing at school or at home.

Domino addition is a fun and simple math activity to at home to practice adding.

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Set up is simple.

You just need some dominoes, paper, and pencil. That’s all you need to play domino addition.

If you’ve got a large set of dominoes (such as a double 12 set), you may want to sort through and find dominoes that fit your child’s ability. If they haven’t started adding double digits, you may want to stick with single digits on each side of the domino.

Pick out about 10 dominoes (or fewer). There’s no need to overwhelm your child with too many dominoes.

Domino addition is a fun and simple math activity to at home to practice adding.

Now let’s do some math.

Spread out a selection of dominoes and give your child some paper and a pencil.

They will need to choose one domino and add the two sides together. They can use the pencil and paper to write down all their sums.

This is a great activity for kids who have just been introduced to addition. They can use the dots on the dominoes to count and get their answers.

Domino addition is a fun and simple math activity to at home to practice adding.

Extend the fun.

Turn the dominoes face down instead of face up so your child can’t see the problems before they draw a domino.

Two or more kids can take turn drawing dominoes and working the problems. You may want more than ten dominoes in your pile if you’re working with more kids.

Race against time. How many dominoes can you add in two minutes? This is a great for kids that are practicing fluency with addition. (It’s also a great way to get comfortable with timed tests if your child experiences those in school)

Domino addition is so much fun. My girls were always so eager to do math as soon as I pulled out the dominoes.

Domino addition is a fun and simple math activity that is fun for home and the classroom. It's a hands-on math activity that makes addition fun.

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Domino addition is a fun and simple math activity that is fun for home and the classroom. It's a hands-on math activity that makes addition fun.

Making Ten with Cars

March 9, 2017 By Terri Thompson

Do you have a toy car loving kid?

Channel that interest into a fun math activity to practice making ten.

Grab those cars and let’s have some fun!

Use toy cars to practice making ten with this fun math activity for kids.

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Prep the activity

You’ll need 12 toys cars, painter’s tape, and a marker. Make sure you have a tape that will peel off easily. You don’t want it to be stuck to the car permanently.

Put a small piece of tape on top of each car.

Write the numbers zero through ten on each piece of tape. On the extra car, write the number five again. You’ll need two cars with the number five. (Remember: 5+5.)

Use toy cars to practice making ten with this fun math activity for kids.

Play the game

Mix up the cars. Challenge your child to match up the cars so that each pair adds up to ten.

It’s so easy!

Let them use their imagination while they play. Park the cars in a parking lot in the correct pairs. Or maybe each pair of cars lives at a different house.

Let your kids drive the cars around, have fun, and practice making ten all at the same time.

Use toy cars to practice making ten with this fun math activity for kids.

Extend the fun

Pair up the cars in the wrong pairs. Have your child put them in the correct pairs.

Don’t just make ten. Pick any two cars and add them together. What is the total?

A younger child would enjoy lining the cars up into the correct order from zero to ten.

How would you play with these cars?

Use toy cars to practice making ten with this fun math activity for kids.

This game is the perfect excuse to get out the toy cars.

Just add a few numbers and suddenly you’ve turned learning into a game. And, when you’re done, just peel off the numbers and have fun playing cars.

Use toy cars to practice making ten with this fun math activity for kids.

If you enjoyed this post, the above photo can be share on Facebook. Or, you can Pin the photo below.

Use toy cars to practice making ten with this fun math activity for kids.

You may also like one of these math activities:

Making Ten with Green Eggs and Ham

Paper Plate Addition

Wacky Mixed Up Hundred Chart

Pick Two – A Fun LEGO Math Game at Creative Family Fun

Car Parking Math Game – Count by 5s at Inspiration Laboratories

Making Butter – Little House Inspired Science

March 7, 2017 By Terri Thompson

Have you ever tried making butter?

It seems far-fetched, doesn’t it?

But, actually, it’s not. It’s all about science.

Once you know the science behind butter, you can make it any time. All you need are a few simple supplies to do this fun kitchen science project.

Learn the science behind making butter with this fun kitchen science experiment inspired by the Little House book series.

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My girls and I have been reading the Little House series every night at bedtime. I loved this series as a child, and I’m so happy to be passing along this series to my own kids. They love it too.

The many detailed descriptions of pioneer life in the books has inspired us to do a few science experiments.

We were struck by how many times the Ingalls family had to make something that we are used to buying in a store, especially some of the food products, like butter as described in Little House in the Big Woods.

Ma didn’t know the science behind making butter when she taught Laura and Mary how to do it. But, science it was. You don’t make butter by mixing together a few ingredients. You make butter by changing one ingredient, cream, into something else, butter.

Learn the science behind making butter with this fun kitchen science experiment inspired by the Little House book series.

Gather your supplies

You only need a few simple supplies for this project. The most important supplies are some heavy cream and a mason jar with lid.

You will also need a measuring cup and a strainer.

To add a bit of math and technology to the project, have a timer or a timer app on hand.

Learn the science behind making butter with this fun kitchen science experiment inspired by the Little House book series.

Make the butter

Use your measuring cup to measure 2/3 cup of your cream.

Pour the cream in the jar and put the lid on tight.

Now, it’s time to shake and you’ve got to shake a lot. We passed it around between three of us, so no one got too tired from the shaking.

We used a time app on my phone to see how long it took us to make butter and it came in at a little over 8 minutes. That’s a lot of shaking!

Learn the science behind making butter with this fun kitchen science experiment inspired by the Little House book series.

What does the shaking do?

While we were shaking, the molecules in the cream were moving around. The agitation caused the fat molecules to separate and join together.

We accomplished this by shaking a jar. Ma, Mary, and Laura accomplished this with a butter churn. The motion of the churn’s stick moving up and down had the same effect as our jar shaking.

Our cream started out as a liquid and as we shook it started transforming. When we stopped hearing the liquid move around, we stopped to observe what was happening. We took a peek and found whipped cream.

When you hit the whipped cream stage, you’ve got to keep going. The shaking is harder to do, so shake as hard as you can. Suddenly, in a split second, everything changes. You’ll hear a solid substance plopping about inside your jar.

Stop the timer, you’ve got butter. You’ve successfully rearranged the molecules in your cream.

Learn the science behind making butter with this fun kitchen science experiment inspired by the Little House book series.

Our conclusion

Once we had butter, we opened up the jar to see the butter sitting in a liquid.

We used our strainer to separate our butter from the buttermilk. (That’s how buttermilk got it’s name, it’s the liquid left over from making butter.)

We took it one step further and used our measuring cup to see how much buttermilk we had. We measured 1/3 cup of measurement. So our 2/3 cup of cream split in two. One half was fat molecules which made our butter and the other half was the remaining buttermilk.

Learn the science behind making butter with this fun kitchen science experiment inspired by the Little House book series.

You’ve just made butter. Can you believe it?

This is one science experiment that results in a completely safe and edible product. So get out the bread and spread a little butter on it. You’ve got to taste your results.

Storybook Science

We did this project as part of the Storybook Science series from Inspiration Laboratories. Click the image below to see all the science projects inspired by favorite children’s books.

Storybook Science

Learn the science behind making butter with this fun kitchen science experiment inspired by the Little House book series.

If you enjoyed this post, the above photo is perfect for sharing on Facebook. Or, you can Pin the image below.

Learn the science behind making butter with this fun kitchen science experiment inspired by the Little House book series.

You may also like one of these fun science projects:

Erupting Mount Vesuvius: Combing History with Science at Creative Family Fun

Hot Chocolate Science at Creative Family Fun

Color Mixing Lab at Creative Family Fun

Fun Word Scrambles for Kids

March 1, 2017 By Terri Thompson

I love word scrambles. Actually, I adore all word puzzles. Do you?

They’re fun, low-prep, and great for taking on the go. What could be better?

Over the years I’ve been creating some fun word scrambles for kids and are listing them here for a one-stop shop. I know you’ll find some that your kids will love.

Disclosure: There are Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links in this article which means, at no additional cost to you, we could receive compensation for our recommendations. You can read our full disclosure policy on our Disclosure Page for more details.

Word Scrambles for Kids

Are you looking for a fun holiday word scramble? I’ve got you covered. Click through the titles to download and print each word scramble.

Valentine’s Day Word Scramble – Unscramble ten Valentines and love themed words.

St. Patrick’s Day Word Scramble – Ten fun scrambled St. Patrick’s Day words.

Easter Word Scramble – Unscramble these ten Easter and spring themed words.

School Supplies Words Scramble – Unscramble these common school supplies. This word scramble is perfect for back to school time!

Halloween Word Scramble – Solve these nine spooky mixed-up words.

Thanksgiving Word Scramble – You can find a fun Thanksgiving Word Scramble in this fun printable activity pack.

Spelling Word Scramble – Check out this post to find out how to make your own word scramble based on your weekly spelling words.

Family Word Scramble – Unscramble ten words that are all about families.

I love word scrambles for their simplicity. You don’t need to buy a bunch of supplies because all you need to do is print and go.

They’re perfect for classroom use, waiting rooms, quiet time, or any time your kids need to wait. I don’t know about you, but I would rather have something to do while waiting instead of just sitting and staring into space. So take along a word scramble. It’s perfect!

Keep coming back for more fun word scrambles for kids. I’ve got many more in the works!

You may also enjoy some of these fun printables for kids:

Road Trip Word Search for Kids at Crayon Freckles

Fall Themed Mazes at Powerful Mothering

Dot to Dot Printables for Children at 3 Boys and a Dog

Print and Color Farm Animal Bookmarks at Sunny Day Family

Learning Activities for Kids