Homeschool Creations: Education Cubes ~ Review

Mama Jenn is one of my wonderful blogging buddies and I am SO excited to share a learning tool that she has put together that is hands-on and makes learning FUN for kids! While Jenn was trying to find some dice for her daughter with the numbers 5 through 10 on them to use for a math assignment, she looked around and found some photo stacking cubes that she could repurpose. That one need started her thinking about what else she could do with the cubes and she began creating different learning inserts to fit inside…and Education Cubes were born!

Once you join the Education Cubes Members Only site {on special for $10 until the end of January 2011}, you will have access to over 100 sets of insert cards for the photo stacking cubes as well as any cards that are added after you join!

Here’s a peek at what she has already added to the site:

Early Learning: Alphabet, Calendar, Colors, (Numbers & Shapes coming soon)
Language Arts: Alphabet, Dolch Site Words, Word Families (SWR Spelling coming soon)
Math: Addition, Subtraction, Measurement, Numbers, Ordinal & Roman Numerals, (Multiplication, Division and Shapes are coming soon)
Science: Earth Science (Biology & Chemistry coming soon)
Geography: US Geography, US History (World Geography & World History coming soon)
Electives: Bible & Spanish
Misc: Christmas

Jenn is constantly adding new educational inserts. She recently added inserts to go along with Carisa’s Raising Rock Stars Preschool Program and also with Erica’s Letter of the Week curriculum.

We printed of a bunch of the inserts to use with the kids {and still have more to go!}. The younger two kids and I spent most of the time playing together with the cubes, but it is going to be something that the girls will use more in the near future to practice multiplication, division and more.

Kaleb and I rolled the number cubes back and forth to each other {numbers 1-10 on two cubes and then he would name the number that was rolled to me. We also did the same type of game, but with the letters of the alphabet in the photo stacking cubes.

Zachary and I worked with several different sets: Addition {+2, +3, +4}, word families, and also money. With the money, I put the pictures of the coins into two of the photo cubes and then he would roll the cubes and add the money up together and tell me the total.

For the word family cards, I filled one cube with 6 of the different word family cards {the endings} and then the other cube with 6 of the consonant cards. He rolled each one, put them together to make a word, read the word, and then told me if it was a ‘silly’ word or a real word. Below he is reading the words ‘lin’ {a silly word} and ‘rap’ {a real word}.

The boys have loved the hands-on aspect of the cubes and think it’s great that they can throw/roll the cubes as part of school. :) The cubes used with the Education Cubes are soft-sided cubes/dice. If you are wondering WHY that is important, I’ll let you borrow Zachary for 5 seconds so he can drop-kick one in your living room. You will quickly understand the beauty of the soft dice. :)

Don’t forget that the Education Cubes membership is on special for $10 until the end of January 2011, so grab a set of the photo stacking cubes and join in the fun before the special ends!