We're starting something new in our homeschool: 

the Challenge Board!

Inspired by innovative math teaching, like this challenge posted on YouCubed, the board includes a wide range of challenges that cover all subjects. Open-ended challenges like "write a story about..." are great for covering the wide range of skills for my 7, 9, and 11yo, and St. Patrick's Day is this month, so it will be fun to include seasonal tie-ins like that. More on the fairy houses later!

Now, let's be real for a minute. Since anything new can be scary, I waited to show them the first board until after they'd already built the fairy houses. It's supposed to be fun, and much of it we would have done anyway. Despite my efforts, one of my three kids immediately had an issue with the board! A few hours later and we're all good now. Growth mindset can be so hard to learn, that it's okay to "fail" to guess the riddle or, apparently, "fail" to write an "epic" story.  Now that all three minds are feeling more open and creative, I am pretty sure we'll end up with three epic stories, haha!

Challenge Board #1: Fairy Houses

We've already erased some of the challenges and replaced them with new ones:

Fairy House & St. Patrick's Day Riddles:

Q: When is your mind like a fairytale?
A: When it's made up!

A: How many sides does a house have?

A: Two. An inside & an outside 

Q: What runs out when you push it?

A: Your luck!

Q: Why can’t you borrow money from a leprechaun?

A: They’re always a little short.

Q: Why do leprechauns hate marathons?

A: They like to jig more than jog.

Q: What do you call leprechauns who collect cans and plastic?

A: Wee-cyclers.

Q: What type of bow can’t a leprechaun tie?

A: A rainbow.

Q: Why do frogs like St. Patrick’s Day?

A: Because they’re always wearing green.

St Patrick's Day Word Searches

This website has different levels of difficulty available, perfect for kids of differing abilities:

https://www.bigactivities.com/word_searches/st_patricks_day/medium/st_patricks_day1.php

You can also find several websites for generating your own wordsearches.

Math Brain Teasers:

 I started the kids off with an easy square brain teaser--too easy, it turned out!

Here are some harder square counting puzzles that are still easier than the classic 4x4 grid with two squares overlaid.

We've also started with some Beginner Balance Benders, like this:

St. Patrick's Day Picture Books:

(You can find a lot of these on youtube read-a-louds)

The Story of the Leprechaun by Katherine Tegen - this book retells the same legend as Clever Tom and the Leprechaun by Linda Shute, which we also love, but this newer version is more sympathetic to the poor leprechaun who's gold Tom/Tim is trying to steal.

Tim O Toole and the Wee Folk by Gerald McDermott - oh, we love Gerald McDermott's folk tale retellings! The wee folk give Tim a goose that lays golden eggs, but when he boats about his good fortune and the goose gets stolen, hijinks ensue.

Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potatoe by Tomie DePaola - another great storyteller who has written folk tales from many cultures. When Jamie catches a leprechaun, he agrees to wish for a magic potato seed instead of the leprechaun's treasure.  

Pete the Cat: The Great Leprechaun Chase by James Dean - this is a very modern story with the message that hard work and helping your friends is better than trying to catch good luck.

How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace - this one's great for getting your kids to build leprechaun traps, unless they're my kids, which is why we ended up building fairy houses.

Fairy Houses!

It's fun to see how different each kids' designs are. My youngest built a lean-to with a bed and a pool:

Middle child is a wilderness survivalist and water-proofed the cloth for his house, then corrected me and said it's only water-resistant: 

Oldest focused on camouflage because fae hide from humans:

Hmmmm... I have it on good authority that you can only catch a leprechaun on St. Patrick's day, and we built our houses early. Do you think some other fae might stop by? 😇 (Please, no more tooth fairies!)

I'll be sure to report back!

Challenge Board #2: Fairy Code