Creative Family Fun

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Learning Activities for Kids

Making Lists: After School Writing Practice

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I’ve got a reluctant writer. I’m sure I’m not alone. Miss First Grader is usually very confident when it comes to school. She loves math and thinks it’s fun. She’s a voracious reader. But writing… well, she’s just not feeling very confident with her abilities. Writing is so important for school success. It crops up in just about every subject. I want her to feel comfortable with the process.

In order to boost her confidence, I’ve decided to start adding a little bit of writing work into our after school learning. I promised her I’d make it fun and it wouldn’t be a big chore. I want to ease her back into the world of writing.

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The first thing we’re tackling is lists. Lists are fun! (Or at least I think so.) I decided to begin with lists because they only require words. She doesn’t have to construct sentences yet. We’ll get to that later. My goal is to get her thinking and brainstorming.

I created a simple list template. The lists are small and not too scary. I also brainstormed a list of topics. Some are imagination-heavy. Others are based in reality. Choose whatever you think will spark your child’s interest.

Example lists:

Flavors to sell at [your child’s name]’s ice cream shop
Animals to see at the zoo
Things I want to learn how to do
For sale at [your child’s name]’s toy store
The best pizza toppings
Rooms in a castle
My favorite foods
What I need for school
These are a few of my favorite things…

These are the ideas that work best for my daughter. Think about the things that get your child excited. You might choose such topics as: items to take on a camping trip, Rainbow Loom bracelets I want to make, favorite vehicles, favorite sports teams, etc. Really, anything works.

My goal is to get her to stretch her brain a little. We don’t spend a lot of time on this now, just one list a day. Eventually we’ll move on to other writing activities. But for now, this is the perfect warm-up exercise.

Do you want your own list-making sheets? I’ve uploaded the one I created for your convenience. Click the link below to download a copy. It prints as one page (landscape) with three lists on each page. Cut them apart and start creating lists.

The Gigantic Turnip Story Sequencing Game

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 Enhance your learning with this fun reading game to go along with the book The Gigantic Turnip. This Gigantic Turnip story sequencing game is easy to prep and so much fun to play.

This week, we’re taking a virtual trip to Russia.

Since we’ve been watching the Olympics lately, the girls have had a natural curiosity about the host country.

So, this week we’re going to explore Russian culture through folk tales and art.

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.

We began with our favorite Russian folktale… let me correct that… one of our favorite folktales period, The Gigantic Turnip by Aleksei Tolstoy.

Enhance your learning with this fun reading game to go along with the book The Gigantic Turnip. This Gigantic Turnip story sequencing game is easy to prep and so much fun to play.

We work a lot on reading comprehension at home. Most of this is covered by our nightly chapter book readings.

But, sometimes I like to play games to make sure the girls are listening and understanding when we read. This time, we tried an easy story sequencing game.

In the book, a series of people and animals come to help pull the gigantic turnip out of the ground.

Before we read the book, I took a pile of index cards and wrote each helper on a separate card. Then, we settled in to read the story.

Enhance your learning with this fun reading game to go along with the book The Gigantic Turnip. This Gigantic Turnip story sequencing game is easy to prep and so much fun to play.

Once we were finished the story, I laid all the cards on the floor.

I challenged the girls to put all the characters in order from the first person who started pulling the turnip to the last.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how quickly they rearranged the cards.

Even if your child is not able to recall the order, let them look back at the pictures in the book.

No matter the process, you are getting them to think about the book and remember what they read.

Enhance your learning with this fun reading game to go along with the book The Gigantic Turnip. This Gigantic Turnip story sequencing game is easy to prep and so much fun to play.

This is such an easy way to enrich a book and to sneak in a little learning at home.

My oldest is in school all day, so I don’t want to be duplicating the work of the teacher. I want our learning at home to be different and fun. This simple game fit the bill!

Olympic Mapping Activity

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You know what’s great about the Olympics, besides all the awesome sports events?

It’s a wonderful introduction to world geography.

I took advantage of my girls’ natural curiosity about the athletes to show them the countries each one represents with this simple Olympic Mapping Activity.

Locate different countries on a world map and learn about their flags with this fun Olympic mapping activity you can do while watching the Olympic Games.

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Prep Your Olympic Mapping Activity

I began with a simple map of the world, which I pinned on a cork board.

We printed ours out at Maps of World. I was looking for one with the countries labeled, but didn’t have the busyness of latitude and longitude lines.

Locate different countries on a world map and learn about their flags with this fun Olympic mapping activity you can do while watching the Olympic Games.

Make Your Flags of the World

We then settled in with the computer and tiny flag making supplies.

We used the official Sochi 2014 Website, teams section to find the different countries participating in the Olympics along with a picture of that nation’s flag.

Another bonus to using the Sochi Website was that we were also able to see pictures of the athletes and could place them with their country.

Special Note: You can find the PyeongChang 2018 website here if you want to do an updated version of this activity for the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Locate different countries on a world map and learn about their flags with this fun Olympic mapping activity you can do while watching the Olympic Games.

We began with some of the top medal winners (Norway and Canada), our country (the United States), and the host country (Russia).

We then moved on to other countries that the girls found fascinating.

Locate different countries on a world map and learn about their flags with this fun Olympic mapping activity you can do while watching the Olympic Games.

To make our flags, we used pins and tiny pieces of paper. Each piece of paper was 1-inch wide by 3/4-inch tall. We used markers to create our flags.

It was a bit of a challenge creating some of those tiny flags (hello, Canadian maple leaf), but we worked at it.

We left the stars off the US flag cause we didn’t have room, but we did the best we could do on them all.

Once each flag was made, I taped it on a sewing pin (see the example in the above photo).

Locate different countries on a world map and learn about their flags with this fun Olympic mapping activity you can do while watching the Olympic Games.

Map the Olympic Games

Once each flag was finished, we placed it on our map.

We took note of the size of the country and where it was located. My girls could already find a few countries (US, Canada, Mexico, China, Australia), and were fascinated to see where other countries were located.

They took note of just how tiny some countries are when compared to a huge country like Russia.

Locate different countries on a world map and learn about their flags with this fun Olympic mapping activity you can do while watching the Olympic Games.

We’ve been gradually adding flags every day now. In fact, we’re still not finished with this Olympic mapping project. Quite frankly, I hope it continues for quite awhile.

Have you been taking advantage of the Olympic Games for learning opportunities?

For More Fun and Learning:

Create flags of the world puzzles. You can find the instructions at Inspiration Laboratories.

Work the atlas puzzles at National Geographic. So much fun for puzzle lovers!

This fascinating infographic at Colour Lovers show the colors most commonly used in flags around the world. You have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the full infographic. It’s so interesting!

Locate different countries on a world map and learn about their flags with this fun Olympic mapping activity you can do while watching the Olympic Games.

10 Ways to Play and Learn About Polar Animals

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Animals are always a popular subject at our house and the cold, cold winter we’ve been having has made this the perfect time to learn about Arctic animals.

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We learned fun facts about puffins, Arctic foxes, and reread one of our favorite books, The Three Snow Bears.

Here are 10 more fun activities all about polar animals.

Make a simple Arctic animal craft using the free printables from Learn Create Love. (You’ll find a narwhal, polar bear, walrus, and everything in between!)

Do a little polar bear science and find out how a bear with black skin looks so white with this experiment at Sugar Aunts.

Make simple paper plate polar bear masks with Creative Family Fun.

Play Polar Bear Race, a DIY board game from Little Family Fun

Do an experiment to find out how blubber keeps whales warm at Frugal Fun for Boys.

Play with an Arctic snow dough small world sensory bin with Crayon Box Chronicles.

Create sponge-printed penguins with Teach Preschool.

Do a little math and compare the sizes of Arctic animals with Gift of Curiosity.

Play in an Arctic ice sensory bin with No Time for Flashcards.

Play a fun gross motor polar bear game with Sugar Aunts.

Which one do you want to try?

The Three Snow Bears: A Compare and Contrast Game

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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.

One of the most read books in our house over the past month has been The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett.

The Three Snow Bears is a beautifully illustrated retelling of the classic fairy tale, The Three Bears, except this story takes place in the Arctic with polar bears and a young Inuit girl named Aloo-ki.

To extend the story, we decided to play an easy-prep game where we compared and contrasted The Three Snow Bears with Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Before reading the stories, I prepped the game.

I took three sheets of construction paper and labeled them at the top. One was labeled The Three Snow Bears, another was labeled The Three Bears, and the last was labeled Both Stories.

I then took 15 index cards and wrote down several elements of the story. Some were specific to one of the stories and some were elements of both stories. I’ve listed the elements below.

The Three Snow Bears

Boots
Igloo
Aloo-ki
Dog sled
Polar bears

The Three Bears

Chairs
Porridge
Goldilocks
Cottage
Brown Bears

Both Stories

Papa, Mama, & Baby
Beds
Too hot!
Just right!
Bowls

Before playing the game, read both The Three Snow Bears and a traditional version of The Three Bears (we like Goldilocks and the Three Bears by James Marshall).

Once you’ve read the story, hand your child one card at a time. Ask them to determine whether it came from one of the two stories or if it was in both stories.

Have them place the card on the correct sheet of paper. That’s really all there is to it.

This is a simple game, but it helps with reading comprehension as well as learning how to compare and contrast two different stories.

For more learning fun:

Download and print the Goldilocks and the Three Bears mini book at Scholastic.com. Let your little ones color the pictures and put together the book. (Plus, you can use it for this activity if you don’t already have a copy of the book!)

Make a mural all about The Three Snow Bears. Jan Brett’s website has all the pieces you need. Print, color, cut, and create your own mural about the story.

Tell the story with props. Learn Create Love has a free, printable storytelling set for Goldilocks & the Three Bears. Turn them into puppets and let your child tell the story.