A New Skip Counting Help – Puzzles

Five years ago, we started our journey with homeschooling with Classical Conversations and we have never looked back. This year we added our third student to the fold and he is thriving!

The beneficiary of years of learning by immersion, he is settling into the songs and chants, working on memorizing them right alongside his older sisters. He started reading before he began “homeschooling” officially. So we are looking for ways to keep him engaged in learning whilst we are “doing school” and still make it fun and simple.

He is not quite kindergarten age, but not quite preschool age either. We ran into this problem with his sister before him. Their birthdays hit at a time/age where they are close to being in the grade above them, but not quite. I still haven’t decided what “grade” he is in.

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Anywho, you are here to hear about a new skip counting resource. Let’s get to it!

I considered my little guy, who knows some of the skip counting and loves puzzles. So, I created a resource specifically for him this year – CC Cycle 3 Math + History Puzzles. He has loved them so much. Typically, he will sit next to me whilst I do my early morning Bible study and build the puzzles. They are perfect for him because he can either skip count to help put together the picture or use the picture to help him figure out the skip count.

Math + History + Art

I snuck in some other learning opportunities with these puzzles, too! Since they correlate to the history sentences for Classical Conversations Cycle 3, there are 24 puzzles related to 24 history sentences. There are extra puzzles related to events on the timeline during the weeks where more than one skip count or piece of math memory work.

The way the math memory work is structured for CC, the students learn two skip counts per week until week 6, and then one skip count per week until week 11. After that there are various measurements and geometry rules, followed by some math laws. I snuck those into puzzles, too!

These puzzles also feature some seriously beautiful works of art, photography, cartoons, and stamps! I am so happy with how they turned out. Here’s the master list of artwork included in the set of puzzles:

Printing Tips for Math + History Puzzles

I learned a lot when I went to print these out. Wanting them to be durable enough to be used over and over, I used the CC discount to have them printed at Office Depot on a heavy white cardstock. But I wanted to make them a bit more durable. Once I got them home, I used my home laminator and some scrap construction paper to make laminate the tops of the puzzles (like the ones you buy at the store!).

Here’s the instructions for laminating them on the front.

1. Cut the borders of each puzzle, leaving a simple rectangular puzzle.
2. Place the puzzle, face up, on top of a scrap piece of construction paper.
3. Open a laminating sleeve and tear at the seam, creating two separate laminating sheets.
4. Cut the each laminating sheet just a bit larger than the puzzle and place it on top of the front of the puzzle.
5. The resulting “sandwich” will be top – laminating sheet; middle – puzzle; bottom – construction paper.
6. Send the set through the laminating machine.
7. Once it has gone through the machine, cut the construction paper border from around the puzzle, leaving the original (now laminated) puzzle.

Isn’t it genius!?! I just love coming up with a way to make durable, professional resources for my homeschool. For more of my genius tips for homeschool printing, read this article.

How we Use the Math + History Puzzles

Truth be told, all my kids are interested in these puzzles. But they are perfect for my guy at this early age.

When he needs a little bit of help, I use my skip counting tricks to help him along. We sing the song, we find the next number together, we start over again and end up singing the skip counts over and over until the puzzle is done. It is just a simple little project, which delights us!

As I mentioned above the puzzles are meant to help cross the subject areas with the math helping to create the picture and the picture helping to reinforce the math.

When he is finished with the puzzle, we talk about the picture. Doing a little art study, practicing noticing. Then we talk about the songs we know from our history memory work or the Timeline. It is such fun to have a song in our hearts as we walk through our days!

If we want to hold it together for a little while – so he can show off his work – we slide the pieces into two clipbars (the ones found in these report covers), top and bottom. This is a fine motor activity in its own right, which my little guy needs.

We have had so much fun so far this year with these! I hope you and your little learners will, too! Our Math + History Puzzles are available in our Shop.