Pocket Dice Printables - Writing Practice

I was looking around online for more ideas for my pocket dice and found this site with Roll 'n' Write Games (HERE). I decided to make my own to go with the My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum i'm using and use the letters we have learned so far.

Click to print

Click to print

Here are the six dice letters

(for some reason my lines are showing up clearly on these images but i assure you if you click on the picture for the full sized view it should look good and be printable)

Click to print

Here is the writing board for my kindergartner

Click to print

And then i made an easier one for my preschooler

The idea is you put the writing boards into a dry erase sleeve. Then you roll the dice and write the letter you got on the dice into one of the squares on the writing board.

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Pocket Dice Printables - Days Of The Week

 Days of the week

In Color:

Click to print

Click to print

In Black & White:

Click to print

Click to print

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Pocket Dice Printables - Colors & Numbers

Made a few more pocket dice (aka education cube) printables

Colors:

Each homeschool morning our My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum has us place a straw in a cup for learning how to count and also learning the ones and tens places. Well for this activity i bought be colorful milkshake straws to make it a little more fun. When i made my own education cube which i am calling a pocket dice i knew i had to make color cards for each color of straws i have. This way they can roll the dice to see what color of straw they are going to add to the cup each morning.

Click to print

Click to print

Numbers:

Click to print

Click to print

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Bird Counting Game - Pocket Dice Printables

For this week we are on Nn Nest and i came up with this bird counting game to use along with my homemade pocket dice (aka education cube)

I already had on hand some little bird erasers from a few years ago that i had gotten for Easter and i thought they would work perfectly. So i made dice cards to go along with the color of bird erasers i had (pink, blue, yellow and purple)

(Click on the pictures to get a full size printable copy)

Then i made a simple board game.

My idea for the game is that they would roll the dice and which ever picture they get they would count out that many birds in the correct color and place them in the birds nests.

Could make it even more challenging by making them pick up the birds with tongs.

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DIY Education Cube

Success! 

So while searching the vast homeshool resources out there, i can across a cute little bird printable board game that i thought would be fun to play during our Nn-Nest unit week. Come to find out the board game was printable but it required an ‘Education Cube’. I went to the Education Cube website. You had to first buy an education cube (which was out of stock and didn’t list the price) and then pay a membership fee to gain access to the education cube printable database to print the pieces needed for the game. I liked the idea of the education cube, could be used for tons of things, but i didn't want to pay (even though it’s a one time fee) to be a member of the printable site…. later i might change my mind but for now i wanted to go all DIY on the place.

I thought ‘A cloth cube…. easy… adding clear pockets to the sides should be easy as well!’

I had already purchased and had on hand the clear plastic needed for the pockets (had it for some other projects… LUCKY!!!) So i found a cloth cube tutorial (HERE) because i had never made one before. The pattern happened to be for the perfect size cube. I wanted to make my pockets on the cube the same size as the store bought education cube that way in case my cube turned out great i could later become an education cube member, if i so chose, and their printables would fit my cube.

The fabric pieces are 5in X 5in

The clear pieces are 5in X 4.5in

And i used 3/8 seams

First Attempt:

Problems:

I don’t know if it was user error, meaning that the plastic slipped while i was sewing or that i’m using the poly fill to fill the cube which puffs out the sides but my pockets bulge out some. The cube still works, it rolls and does what it is suppose to do but i am a perfectionist and having the sides bulge out is driving me crazy. I plan on making another one and basting the plastic onto the cloth pieces before i sew the pieces together and also using some of my left over cushion padding for the filling which is stiffer and i can cut it into a square.

If the new one works better then i will post about it later. Until then, this one does the job fine and we have already used it!

BUT....

I attempted it again and did those things i mentioned i wanted to try and it worked!

So here i have pinned some bias tape to the top edge of the clear pockets

Here the bias tape is sewn on.

The i sewed the clear pockets to my jean squares only on the sides to hold it on when i go to sew the rest. This was a little tricky. It kept wanting to gather the jean material under the plastic so i had to hold tight while i sewed. 

This is the filling i used for the insides. I cut stripes of left over seat padding i had on hand until it made a square the right size.

These are my pieces sewn together in the first step to completing the cube.

This is it sewn and filled, leaving the one side for me to close up.

Here i’ve pinned the edges of the opening in preparation to close it up by sewing it by hand.

Now it’s all closed up!

And here is it with the cards in it. No bulging pockets like the last one.

I love it!

So happy i got it to work right! Woot woot!

Ok so the Flap Flap & Fly printable game board is (HERE)

Then instead of paying the membership to gain access to the education cube printables needed for the game i went ahead and made my own.

Click on the pictures to go to the full size image where you can download and print your own for your own game if you so wish.

These are our game pieces.

I changed the colors so each of my girls could have their favorite color.

 

These are the six pieces you use in your education cube/dice to play the game

(As you can see this was taken before i made the new dice)

I cut out the bird pieces and put them in some colorful binder clips i had picked up at the Dollar Store when they had their ‘back to the school’ items.

 

(As you can see this was taken before i made the new dice)

My crazy girls getting ready to play the game.

They loved it by the way!

And now that i have the cube (and the good one) the possibilities are endless :D

More games will definitely be in their future!

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Chore Chart (4)

Making progress!!!!

Since i last posted about the charts we have done quite a bit. With a young baby and a total of three kids now, i’m finding it harder to find the time to sit down and post about things. My coupon blog especially is suffering from neglect.

Anyways Hubby built the frames for the charts and cut the metal to size. Then we had the girls mix their own colors (with my help of course) and we painted the frames.

All the frames in the house are black and we wanted them to match but also be unique, so we spray painted them black and then are using sand paper to age the frames and sand the black off till the color pops through.

Then Bob used a paint pen and drew the rid onto the metal.

 

today i worked on getting the magnet stripes onto the backs of the magnets we made. I started out using gorilla glue but the one we bought said it needed to sit for 24 hours for it to be done, so instead i switched to super glue and it made the job MUCH faster. I used up all the magnet stripes this afternoon and almost got magnet onto all the backs. Good thing i have already ordered more magnet strips and they will be here by Tuesday. Woot!

The very last row on the right still does not have magnets on them but everything to the left of it does. I’m so excited!

Here is a glimpse of Matthew’s finished board after being sanded and a few of the magnets on there. I wanted more of a pop of color and i might have been able to achieve that if we would have bought spray paint colors but we were trying to save money and use the stuff we had.

Also along with the magnet stripes i ordered i ordered the reward tickets the girls will earn.

The yellow (neutral) tickets will be worth the lowest and the pink will be worth more. I have blue tickets saved on amazon for when Matthew gets old enough to do it i will order the blue ones and they will be the worth more for him. I knew the girls would love the pink so i needed to have a boy color too.

I have saved some small espresso cans and i plan on taking them and helping the girls custom design the out side of them and those will be their personal ticket jars to keep their earned tickets in.

And just today the girls earned their first reward tickets. Me and Bob spent time trimming the vines on our back fence and it left a big mess of limbs on the ground. So we asked the girls if they wanted to earn some tickets by picking up the limbs for us and putting it in the big trash can. They both were uber excited to earn tickets and said yes. They picked up all the limbs with out much coxing to finish. It was a big job so i think they will get at least 2 tickets which normal chores will only earn 1.

We still have to sit down and figure out how many tickets for which prizes and figure out a points system.

 

Then along with that order i got these:

I was reading a site about chores and this lady made up cleaning totes for each of her kids. So i looked on amazon and found this small cleaning totes in bright colors. I got Anabel pink to match her chore chart and Abby purple to match hers.

I’ve already bought small hand brooms and dust pans for them, dusters and small spray bottles which i will make up a mild homemade cleaning solution up for them. Some other things i’m thinking about getting for their cleaning kits are some disinfecting wipes, lint roller and a rag. The rag i’m hoping to get a pink and purple one… then i think i am going to fold it over and sew the edge so it becomes almost a glove to it’s easier to wipe things.

I’m hoping this will make cleaning chores more fun for them.

 

On a side note i posted about making year memory books for the girls.

They are binders that you keep their art and such in them. Well i also bought some 4x6 picture protectors that go in a binder and i got super excited. Now i’m able to slide pictures from the year in there as well. With this same amazon order i was able to get 200 more page protectors (since i’ve already ran out of the ones i had because Anabel colors so much). Page protectors are not cheap but i was able to get the 200 for the same price as about 100 of them at wal-mart so i was super happy!

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