Ancient Egypt: DIY Senet Game

  Our Dollar Tree Senet Game  

We are just beginning our study of Ancient Egypt, but I've (naturally) been collecting fun projects, games, activities, etc. to enhance our time spent learning about this amazing civilization.  One of the main things I wanted to do was have a Senet game for us to play.

I knew we couldn't splurge and purchase one, and I wanted something a bit more sturdy (and attractive) than a simple printout... so I decided to make my own.

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Chutes and Ladders or Candyland Reading Game

Robbie and I have been playing modified versions of Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. I made word cards to use instead of the color cards (Candyland) or spinner (Chutes and Ladders). Each card has a word for the player to read and a value (based upon phonetic difficulty) of 1, 2 or 3. I don't wish to discourage him by using only difficult words. This older photo shows some of his first set of cards.

When it's his turn, Robbie draws a card and reads the word. If he gets it on the first try, he can move his game piece the number of spaces listed on the card. If he doesn't read it correctly on the first try, I help him and it is set aside to be re-read at the end of the game.

This game has been a big hit at our house. I can simply update the cards whenever he learns a new rule or needs to review a concept. I believe that it would also be a fun way to practice sight word lists for those of you who use them. It could also be used for spelling if another player draws the card and gives the current player the word to spell.

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Other Learning to Read Posts

Our Literacy and Language Pinterest Board

 

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Winter Game Board Printable

I made a game board to use with our other winter items, but I still don't have a printer. I hope some of you will be able to use it since we can't.

I've posted both a blank and a numbered version below. If you think this could be useful, simply click on the game board you'd like to download.





Check out other (and admittedly, much cooler) math ideas over at

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Greater Than, Less Than, Equal To Symbols

I made these for Robbie last night after watching him play on Time4Learning before bed. He grasps the concept of more and less, but isn't familiar with some alternative terms (greater than, fewer, etc.). As I was thinking about how to introduce these terms, I thought I'd also make a way for him to become familiar with the mathematic symbols for these terms.



These can be used with concrete manipulatives, dice, flash cards, playing cards, my math cards (shown) or anything else you can think of! I also made him some new cards out of unruled index cards and construction stickers.

As you can see, I cut craft sticks and glued them to make the symbols. I simply colored them with markers (which actually gives them a nice stained effect since it isn't opaque) to make them stand out.

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Weekly Wrap-Up

Robbie is 2.5 years old.

Well, we've accomplished less than usual on the preschool front (and photographed even less). Our week was a good one, but difficult to describe with all that was going on outside of our normal schedule. Here is a synopsis:

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Tot-School

RockerTot is currently 34 months old.



READING

While most of our reading now focuses on books or other activities that I am too involved in to photograph, I hope to be able to show at least one reading-related activity per week.

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Homemade Phonics Eggs

**I do NOT recommend allowing your tot to use any of these items unsupervised.**


These plastic eggs were $0.65/dozen, so I got a few packs and decided that I would find a fun and educational use for them.

The first activity I made was simple c-v-c words on the tops of the eggs with a corresponding spot on a control board. The game we played was that I hid the eggs around the living room (where most of our school takes place). When he found one, he had to sound it out, run to the control board and find the match. This was a really fun game.




I used the bottoms of these eggs for a name recognition activity with RockerTot. I wrote the letters of his name, one per egg bottom, plus a few extra letters to up the difficulty level. He had to spell his name with no control (something we haven't really worked on before... but he's getting it). Sorry, I have no photos of this.

These are a few of the homemade phonics/word spinners I made for him out of plastic eggs. He can spin the bottom (or the top) and sound out new words (some real, some not.. but great practice either way).


There are many other pre-reading activities that can be created with these inexpensive eggs. I've seen many who use them for upper and lower case alphabet matching. I think that would have to be an extremely fun way for a little one to practice that skill. If you've used plastic eggs for creative learning, please tell about it in a comment and share a link if you have one.

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Tot-School

RockerTot is currently 32 months old.

I thought we were dropping out, but I guess we'll be here for a while. I still feel challenged when it comes to finding/creating activities for RockerTot. He's grown bored of most of our activities and while I'd love to continue until he's 4, I just don't know if it will be possible. I'm hoping for some inspiration so that I can continue to provide him with these types of play-based activities while still challenging his little mind and body.




These photos are a few weeks old. I've been making his cutting strips/cards/sheets for him. He's going to start working in his "I Can Cut" book soon (it starts easy, but moves rather quickly, so I'm creating cutting activities to build up to the book.



These are several activities that I set up to reinforce AB Patterns. He laced colored straw pieces onto dowels, laced his large wooden beads onto string and he duplicated patterns I made for him onto a blank card using his novelty erasers from The Dollar Tree (download pattern cards here).


We also played jumping and shouting games with these contact paper shapes that I stuck to our hall floor in an AB pattern. We also played lots of alternating motion/word games ("stomp/clap", "word A/word B", etc). He now not only recognizes the pattern, but he understands that it's an AB pattern.


He used Scrabble tiles with his Boggle, Jr game.


I laid out his First Words Puzzle cards as endings only (leaving off the first letter). I placed the beginning sounds pieces upside down (no picture, just the letter) so that he had to find the right sound for the word and then verify that the piece was correct (there are a few of some letters) by checking the picture (it changed things up a bit and reassured me that he wasn't simply working by picture alone).


This is RockerTot's newest game, Travel Perfection. It's a great pincer grasp/fine motor activity, plus the timed aspect of the game provides a challenge for him in placing the pieces. I think it was $5 at the Dollar General Store. He adores this toy (and giggles hard when the pieces "jump" out) and I love that all the pieces fit in a drawer in the side of the game.


Matching upholstery scraps from RockerDad's work. We've never done anything like this, so I used this as an introduction to the upholstery scraps. This will most likely become a mystery bag type of activity in the near future.


New puzzles are at the top of my wish list right now. Here is a shot of him working the puzzles in his Tonka puzzle book.


I made this for our fridge out of white contact paper. I've since added the lines to make it a magnetic number line puzzle.


I just introduced craft sticks as a math manipulative this week and, as always, I'm giving him time for exploring the materials before trying more formal activities with them.






Here he is with his magnetic, glow-in-the-dark dinosaur playset and his flashlight. (It was dark in the room, but the flash makes it look like it wasn't.)


Play-Doh!







RockerTot and RockerBoy having fun with Wii Fit Yoga!




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My other Tot School Updates

See what others have been doing in their Tot Schools

Tot School Homepage

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Roll the Dice Sticker Game

**I do NOT recommend allowing your tot to use any of these items unsupervised.**

I made this game for RockerTot. I used a sheet of card stock (any paper will do, I only had card stock on hand), fuzzy dice (with the connecting string removed) and some stickers. Any types of counters and regular dice could work, though. We bought the fuzzy dice (for automobile rearview mirrors) so that RockerTot could have fun with some safe dice.

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