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First, get your little ninja inspired by reading one of these stories:

Ninja! by Arree Chung

Ninja Bunny by Jennifer Gray Olson

Ninja Cowboy Bear Presents the Way of the Ninja by David Bruins

Dojo Daycare by Chris Tougas

Nighttime Ninja by Barbara DaCosta

Wink: The Ninja Who Wanted to be Noticed by J.C. Philipps

Ninja Boy Goes to School by N.D. Wilson

Little Kunoichi, The Ninja Girl by Sanae Ishida

My Grandma’s A Ninja by Todd Tarpley

Activity:

Since ninjas must be agile, strong, and mentally sharp they must train their bodies and minds. This activity will have your child feeling like a ninja in training.

Materials:

There are two options for materials. You can easily use stuff around your home or you can use martial arts gear.  To illustrate the activity, I used store bought gear. We had the items at home already!

Option 1- Store bought gear:

• Punch mitts
• Kid size boxing gloves
• Post-it notes (for the older kid version of this activity)

Option 2- Things around your home:

• Small square pillows to punch
• Bare hands
• Post-it notes (for the older kid version of this activity)

This activity is so simple! Give your child a math fact that he or she can do in his or her head. It may be simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc.; It all depends on your child’s math level. When your child provides the answer he or she must punch the bags in an alternating fashion the same number of times as their answer. If the answer was seven, your child would punch the bags seven times.

Another option for older kids who may get very large answers, is to assign one bag as the tens and one bag as the ones. You can even label the bags. So, if your child gets an answer of 95, s/he would punch the “tens” bag nine times and the “ones” bag five times. For children learning base ten concepts, this option may be useful.

You can make this activity even simpler for toddlers by just giving your child a number and punching the bags in that same quantity. If your child tries to punch too fast and thus punches too many times, slow your child down and show him or her how to accurately punch while saying each number (1, 2, 3…). It’s about having one punch for each number stated. Your child will be practicing one to one correspondence by doing this.

Keep giving your ninja math facts until you sense they are losing interest or breath.

The post Calling All Ninjas! Nine Ninja Books and Fun Math (and Motor) Activity appeared first on Empowering Parents to Teach.

Materials:

• Squbed game boards (4 included)
• Number cards
• Squares and Cubes Guide
• Beans or other small objects
• Envelope to store the number cards
• Print Squbed materials here
• Note: Laminate materials if possible for durability

How to play:

1. Choose one Squbed game board.  This game can be played with up to four players.

2. Place the number cards in the envelope.

3. Players take turns picking out a number card randomly.  Each card contains a number squared or cubed.  For example, one card shows 2 squared. If a player has the equivalent value of the card (in this example: 4) the player should cover the square with a bean or other small object.

4. The first player who covers his or her entire board first is the winner.

Note:

• I included the square and cube guide to help facilitate play until the squares and cubes are memorized.
• I made each board a different color so that your child can keep track of which board or boards he or she used. After playing four times, with the four different boards, all of the squares and cubes will have been practiced at least once.

Have fun!

The post Squbed Game: Learning Squares and Cubes appeared first on Empowering Parents to Teach.