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

Review: Murderous Maths

https://amzn.to/2CKH0CM

Math with the laughs added in – and the boredom taken away. From freaky fractions to cunning codes, you’re in for more laughs than you can count. Beware, brave reader. In Murderous Maths, you won’t find any boring exercises or flummoxing sums. Instead, Professor Fiendish and his rotten sidekick, Chainsaw Charlie, unleash their murderous take on maths. Foul formulas. Agonising algebra. Terrible take-aways. We dare you to try it. Essential curriculum math as you’ve never seen it before Funny approach similar to the Horrible Histories series Now there’s no excuse to be afraid of learning numbers Bestselling series with great cartoons by Philip Reeveon Titles in This Set: The Phantom X Desperate Measures The Perfect Sausage and Other Fundamental Formulas Guaranteed to Bend your Brain Do you Feel Lucky? Awesome Arithmetricks Savage Shapes Guaranteed to Mash your Mind The Key to the Universe Easy Questions, Evil Answers

http://www.murderousmaths.co.uk/

---

Review:

My boys LOVE this set. Because it's published in the UK, some of the terms are different than what we use in the US, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The books are so relatable and funny to my 8 and 10 year old that they have spent the whole summer writing and solving equations in their free time. I would not call this curriculum, and it doesn't claim to be, but that's part of its charm. My kids are reading (and re-reading) these and doing math for its own sake. Concepts are cleverly explained and cover many ideas that help prime elementary students for math learning in future grades. My boys now know and love prime numbers, factorials, and how to calculate to the power of, for example. There's still room for my 10yo to grow with these books!

Caveats: some may find the humor occasionally offensive. I find it creative and feel like that's exactly why my boys love it so much. There are a few other series also published by scholastic that I often see recommended alongside these books (Horrible Histories, Horrible Geography, Horrible Science). Because history is a more religiously polarized subject, I recommend care with reading these books with your young kids.

I gotta say, there's something special about having your kids run up to you showing off math puzzles like this:

Buy Murderous Maths here!

https://amzn.to/2CKH0CM

Art for Kids Hub

As a picture book illustrator, I love encouraging my 6yo's strong artistic bent. Parenting always has its challenges, so it's nice to get an "easy" one once in a while, like when your kids' interests match yours.

So, I got her step-by-step drawing books for her 6th birthday, similar to the ones I loved as a kid. We got her How to Draw Animals for Kids and she loved it.

She also blew through the book in a week! She likes to watch me and copy me, too, but the girl is insatiable! After asking around, we found something that finally provided the hours upon hours of on-demand drawing practice she desires, and it's free!

Art for Kids Hub:

WEBSITE: https://www.artforkidshub.com/about

YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/user/ArtforKidsHub

There are plenty of videos to follow along with. Even my older children, who have never really been into drawing, sometimes take part. Here are a few of my daughter's examples:

Now, what to do with all these drawings?!

I suggest getting a 3 hole punch and binder(s) to make yearly keepsake folders. We've been using regular, bright white computer paper you can get in bulk. We also love this sturdy Crayola art case. Lately, my daughter has been dictating her "books" to me and these we hole punch and tie through with string.

Enjoy, and make sure you give Art for Kids Hub some love:

FACEBOOK http://facebook.com/artforkidshub

TWITTER http://twitter.com/artforkidshub

INSTAGRAM http://instagram.com/artforkidshub