This week is ocean week which means sea creatures, beach and sunshine for a fun summer theme! We’re doing a bit of review and reinforcement for my 2 year old, while my 4/5 year old are being introduced to some new concepts – namely, multiplication. Now, when I say we are doing multiplication this week, I don’t really mean that she will be learning her times tables. Instead, I am just INTRODUCING the concepts to her and laying a foundation for when she does actually start to learn multiplication (usually in the second grade). 

Comprehension Questions: 

Why were Paul and Silas in jail? 

What were Paul and Silas doing while in jail? 

What caused the doors to come open? 

Because Paul and Silas were joyful and obeyed, what did the jailer do? 

Paul and Silas felt better when they sang songs to God.  Tell me about a time that you felt sad or scared and you sang. 

What song do you sing when you are sad or get scared? 

Jail Handcuffs and Ball and Chain Craft – Make a paper chain and add a balloon on the end.  Place the chain around the child’s ankles.  Create another paper chain and use as handcuffs.  Discuss how it must have felt to be in jail. 

I’ve Got the Joy Song – Even in times of trouble and hardships, if we act as Jesus would, God will be there for us. It’s about what’s in your heart 

Letter/Sight word Ocean – Cut out circles or other shapes of colored foam. Use a sharpie to write practice letters/sight words on each piece. Then, put them in the bath, they should float. Call out a letter or sight word and have the child place it on the tub wall. Alternatively, you can have your child ‘fish’ for them and use a net to scoop them up. 

Ocean life tic tac toe – Write review letters/sight words on the bottom of 12 cupcake liners and put them in a muffin tin (you can repeat letters/words if you wish). Call out one of the letters/words and have your child put a sea creature figurine on the correct word/letter. When they get 3 in a row, they win! 

Hidden letters/sight words – On a piece of paper, use a white crayon to write review letters/sight words. Then have child paint a beach or ocean scene with water colors and when they reveal a letter or word, have them say it. 

Ocean ball counting – In a storge bin, baby pool or ball pit (the ocean) put 15 balls (I have ball pit balls so I will use those, but you could use any ball you can find). Also put some sea life creatures to make it more like an ocean. Write the numbers 0-5 on 6 pieces of construction paper and place them around the ‘ocean’. Have your child place the correct amount of balls on each piece of paper. 

Ocean ball multiplication – Set up same as ocean ball counting except leave construction paper blank. Ask your child to add X balls onto X amount of papers (ie. On 2 pieces of paper add 4 balls each). Then write out the multiplication problem with them and explain. Repeat until they lose interest. 

Clam multiplication – I’ll use 5 clams from the 2 year old math resource. Then I’ll write 2-3 simple multiplication problems on a card for my daughter to solve (ie. 3×2). Explain what the problem is asking (for 3 groups of 2 items). Have your child put 2 poms into 3 egg cartons. Then have them count the total number of poms. 

Draw the problem (idea from here) – A girl is going to the beach. She packed 2 bags with 4 toys in each so that she could play on the sand and in the water. How many toys did she bring altogether? Have your child draw a picture of the problem. Then write 4+4 =8 and explain that adding is how you found the number of toys. Then write 2×4=8 and explain that the 2 represents the number of bags and the 4 represents the toys in each while the 8 represents how many toys there are in total. You can point out how there are two 4’s in the equation which your number 2 replaced.