Q is for Quarter

We had another "take it easy" week.  Did we do a lot of academics?  Not so much.  Did we have fun?  Yes, of course!  During our learning time, we worked with the letter Qq and the theme of quarters.

The roll the dice, cover a letter game that we did for Rr week was such a hit with the girls that I repeated it for Qq week, except I made sure there were more spaces to cover this time. 

To make this game, simply cut out squares (or whatever shape you'd like).  Write a lowercase q on half of the squares and an uppercase Q on the other half.  Glue the squares to a larger piece of paper, alternating the upper and lowercase letters. 

To play the game, each player is given one playing board and a pile of quarters.  The first player rolls the die and covers that amount of letter Qq's on their playing board with quarters.  Then the play goes to the next player.  The first player to cover her board wins.  So simple, but the girls seem to really enjoy this game.

Next, we did a quarter toss.  I cut out a large letter Q and laid it on the floor.  One at a time, the girls took 10 quarters and tried to toss them into the center of the Q.  I tried it too and it is harder than it looks.  Arin was good at it and she was able to get three of her quarters into the center.

Arin really had fun with a game of Heads of Tails?  She made her prediction of which she'd flip the most.  She guessed Tails.  Then, she flipped a quarter ten times, recording the results each time.  She was right, tails won.

Then, we played a quick game of drop the quarter in the jar.  The girls took turns.  Each had 10 quarters that they were to drop into a jar.  Ella went first and she sat for the beginning of the game.  It proved too easy while seated, so she stood for a bit more challenge.  She did really good at this and Arin thought it would be a piece of cake.  She was a bit surprised when she stood and was not able to drop every quarter into the jar.

Finally, we worked on a very special project.  If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you know that we try to teach our children the importance of giving.  We make and give things to our family and friends, but we also want to teach our children that it is equally important to give to those that we do not personally know.  Now, when we lived in Georgia, we had a great homeschool group.  We all miss them and Arin especially speaks of them often.  A few weeks ago, I read of this fun project that they were doing.  From January until May, they are collecting money to give to an orphan assistance agency.  When I learned that they were doing this project I thought it'd be perfect for us too.  It'd be a way to continue our "Better to Give..." lesson as well as stay connected to our friends.  This project is especially dear to us as many of our homeschool friends were once orphans themselves or their families are in the process of adopting orphans.
I gave each of the girls a jar and some stickers.  They had so much fun decorating the jars.  Once they were done, I gave them each some quarters to put in their jar.  Eventually, we will be filling the jars with other coins/bills as well, but for now we wanted to tie the project in with our quarter theme!

Over the past couple of days, I have been trying to explain to the girls (especially Arin) what an orphan is.  She cannot wrap her four-year old mind around the fact that not everyone has a mom and dad or enough food to eat, toys to play with, etc.  Yesterday, she suggested that we buy the orphans a television so they can watch kid shows.  Funny little girl.  I told her that I'm sure they would love a tv, but food and clothes were more important.  So as she was decorating her money jar, she asked if she could send the kids a snack along with the money.   She is sweet and her heart is in the right place even if she can't fully understand what an orphan is.

Linked to:
T.O.B.Y.
Preschool Corner
Tot School