Friday, February 21, 2025

Gravity Superstar Game Review


Gravity Superstar
Players: 2-6
Play Time: 15-30
Ages: 6+ (officially 7+)

How do you turn an ordinary game night into a great childhood memory? Add blacklights! The first time I saw the components for Gravity Superstar, I knew I had to make it happen! Granted, we did play in regular lighting a few times first.

✳️Gameplay✳️

In the game, your little Superstars characters are trying to collect stars around this little planet with crazy gravity. You have double sided cards to play which let you make different moves, fall through the platforms or even change the direction of gravity. Your Superstar falls down (a la Ender’s Game) until he lands on the next platform, collecting stars and tokens along the way. Sometimes that means falling off one side of the board and coming back on the other! You get points for the stars you collect, but extra points for the pairs of the same color.


✴️Thoughts✴️

First off, the components are phenomenal! They’re all chunky and neon and look fantastic against the dark board. You cannot see this game on the table and not be interested. They look even better under blacklight (although, a couple of the colors look pretty similar and had to be verified during scoring). He even wore his star pajamas from @littlesleepies for extra starry glow! It made for a great family game night experience!


Components aside, this is such a great kids game! My husband and I both enjoy playing it with my son (and I think my teen will like it when he gets a chance to play). The gameplay is simple but fun and unique in our rather large collection. While you can bump into each other, it does not feel too aggressive to our sensitive young player. The way you use up your cards and pass to reset them feels like good training for some grown up games, which is always a plus. I don’t see us culling this one as the younger kids get older like we will a lot of the “kids” games.


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Thursday, February 20, 2025

1st Grade Science: Heredity Unit

For science this year we are doing units based on the Next Generation Science Standards for 1st grade. We usually do more than just what the standard says, but try to hit it at minimum. Here is the second part of life science. Unfortunately, this unit was short and I don't have a lot of pictures for it.

Standard:

1-LS3-1.

Make observations to construct an evidence-based account that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents.  [Clarification Statement: Examples of patterns could include features plants or animals share. Examples of observations could include leaves from the same kind of plant are the same shape but can differ in size; and, a particular breed of dog looks like its parents but is not exactly the same.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment does not include inheritance or animals that undergo metamorphosis or hybrids.]

  • We began with an animal sorting activity from Generation Genius. It was incredibly easy for a 6 year old, but let us start the discussion.
  • Then we read some books. We probably could have skipped the two focusing on genes, but I thought he would find them interesting, and he did.
All in the Family (probably the most grade appropriate)


  • Videos


Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Valentine's Day Tot School Activities

So I realize it is actually after Valentine's Day, so this won't help anyone this year, but life just got too busy. Hopefully, this will help someone next year, or even just give them ideas for tot school activities in general!


As always, we read tons of Valentine's Day themed books. Here are her favorites this year.
Last year I hearts out of these colored filter sheets so we used them again this year.
Valentine's day sensory bin (wearing both a Christmas and Easter dress)
Heart pony beads with this counting page from Tot Schooling. She did a couple before running out of patience.
Working on a pattern page from Tot Schooling. She definitely still needs a lot of help.
Heart number matching from Tot Schooling
We did the letter matching hearts from Tot Schooling also, but I divided them up into three different chunks so as not to overwhelm her.
Felt envelope shape/color matching activity.
We used little heart links with some pipe cleaners to make "bracelets"
I gave her the first ten numbers from Conezilla to practice putting numbers in order.
Valentine's Day stickers.
We have this board I got from Michaels forever ago. I gave her some Valentine's paper straws, some pink and purple pipe cleaners and a bunch of fun beads to build with.
Unicorn Glitterluck
Decorating a mini heart cake at our yearly cousin party.
Transferring pom poms (and making "cupcakes")
Heart pattern matching

A foam heart puzzle I made... might have gotten bitten when her brother tried to take it.
Valentine's play dough tray.

 

Friday, February 7, 2025

Homeschool Science: How parents help their offspring survive

We did this unit right after the Biomimicry unit for Next Generation Science Standard 1-LS1-1. This next standard focused on how parents help their offspring survive.


Standard:

1-LS1-2 Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive. [Clarification Statement: Examples of patterns of behaviors could include the signals that offspring make (such as crying, cheeping, and other vocalizations) and the responses of the parents (such as feeding, comforting, and protecting the offspring).]








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