Math is a Four Letter Word

Angie @ Kids Matter

I will start this by being completely honest. Math is not my favorite subject! I have never truly enjoyed addition, subtraction or multiplication. Don’t even get me started on my dislike for algebra or trigonometry! Some people excel at math, others struggle. I have always struggled. As my son gets older, I see his dislike for math already beginning to rear its head. I do not want my disdain for a subject to cause him to feel the same way, so I have started trying to sneak some math activities into our daily lives. Once we have completed the activity, we talk about how math helps us out each day. Here are some great math activities I do with my child:

1)      Let them cook with you! I always let my son do the measuring of ingredients. He loves to “help” and it’s his responsibility to keep track of the ingredients.

2)      If he wants a toy, we make a chart that shows how much the toy costs. He then has to count his money and figure out if he has enough to buy it. If he does not have enough money, he continues to color in the chart each day for any additional money he receives, until he reaches his goal. (This is also how he learned about sales tax.)

3)      Before going to the grocery, we look through the coupons and add up the total we will save by using coupons.  If he keeps up with the coupons, I let him have the amount that was “saved” by using them.

4)      If we have a special day that we are waiting for, he marks the days on the calendar and tells me how many days are left until the special date. He also does this if he loses privileges for a set amount of time.

5)      When we play board or card games, he always has to count out the cards and/or game pieces to the players.

6)      If we are running races on the sidewalk, he uses chalk to make tic marks under each person’s name to show how many races we each won.  (This is how he learned about skip counting by 5’s.)

7)      Since we love Lego in our house, we use them frequently for math. A favorite activity is to weigh with Lego blocks. Supplies needed: clothes hanger, two pieces of yarn, door with a door knob, and Lego. One of your Lego will need to be a piece that you can tie yarn to. Now, tie a piece of yarn to each end of the hanger and put the hanger around the door knob. Next, you will tie one of those pieces of yarn to the Lego. Look around and decide what you want to weigh. (We started with shoes and super hero masks.) Tie one item to the 2nd piece of yarn. The “hanger scale” will tilt towards the heavy item so you will need to keep attaching Lego pieces to balance the scale. We keep a written record of how many Lego each item weighs.  We then try to compare them, by holding them, to see if the one we thought was heaviest by hand really is.

All of these activities are easy and inexpensive to do, but can make a lasting impact on a child’s interpretation of math. You are your child’s first teacher and you are the one that guides his thoughts on learning and life. Be sure you are doing things that make learning fun!

Tuesday Teachings - Play With Your Food

I know what you are thinking. We want kids to eat healthy, not to play with their food. Here my thoughts though, get the kids involved in preparing a meal and let them use math skills to help.

I was recently signed up to make a meal for a group of 3 - 5 year olds.Since it was so close to Spring, that is the subject I chose. I could have just made a casserole and hoped the kids ate it, but I like for food to be fun and tasty. I decided to let my son help me with the meal. First, we counted up how many of our friends we were expecting for the meal, then we went to the grocery.

We decided to serve, bananas, apples, cheese, ham, turkey and a dessert. I told my son that we were serving 10 kids and he had to help me get enough food for all of the children.

When we got home, we cut the ham and turkey slices with bunny cookie cutters. We allowed enough of each meat for every child to have three slices. My son helped me to count out the 30 ham bunnies and the 30 turkey bunnies. Next we moved on to the cheese. We were serving our cheese in the form of circles to represent coconuts and we needed at least three slices per child. Again, he helped me count out 30 slices.

Next, we moved on to the dessert. We decided to make birds in a nest. We counted out three square pretzels per dessert and laid them out in piles on a piece of waxed paper. Next, we melted chocolate and drizzled that over the pretzel "nests" and followed it up with rainbow sprinkles. Once the chocolate had hardened, we came back and melted some more chocolate and dipped bird shaped peeps into the melted chocolate and sat one on top of each pretzel nest. We allowed that to set and then we put each bird in a nest inside of a a cupcake liner to serve.

When it was time to serve up the meal, we cut up one banana per child and laid them out on the plate. We then added three apple slices at the top of each banana slice. These were our palm trees. We then added three cheese coconuts to the top of each palm tree. Next came the bunnies, we laid three ham and three turkey bunnies on each plate. The kids all loved this treat, but the favorite was by far the birds in a nest dessert.

Math is not my son's favorite subject, but he had lots of fun counting out all of our treats for our friends and he was eager to make sure we had enough for everyone.

Get your kids in the kitchen and open up a new perspective on math!

Tuesday Teachings - Gingerbread Man

I am on a big math kick this week. We did another fun math activity.

I cut out a gingerbread man from brown construction paper. We then decorated the man with markers and crayons. Next we decided to work on circumference and area.

Time to pull out mini marshmallows, if I had any. Since I only had large marshmallows, we used Trix cereal. We laid the gingerbread man down and after we discussed exactly what circumference was, we started measuring. We laid the cereal side by side all the way around the gingerbread man. We then counted all of the cereal pieces (65).

Next we took the cereal pieces off of the gingerbread man and had a discussion about the area of the gingerbread man. Once we had an understanding about area, we talked about whether it would take more or less pieces to fill up the area. Once we decided, we used cereal to fill up the area of the gingerbread man . We then counted all of the pieces (118).

After all of that hard counting, we had a feast of cereal. I would like for you to learn from my mistakes. Do NOT use a round cereal for this activity. My son had a hard time keeping them from rolling all over the place. Marshmallows would have been much easier.

Tuesday Teachings - Fall Counting

We have been trying to work on our counting skills lately and there is no better time than Fall! There is a vast selection of items to count and make patterns with.

We started with a package of Halloween rings that I purchased for $1.00. Our rings included spiders, bugs, skulls and bats. We worked on several things with these rings: Counting all of the rings, sorting the rings by colors, sorting the rings by shapes and then patterning. For the patterns, I would either use colors to show the pattern or I would draw the shape. My son would then have to figure out which rings matched my drawn patterns and put them all in order.

The next thing we worked on counting was acorns. There is a huge abundance of acorns available right now, so we might as well put them to use. We counted acorns, we poured acorns from one container to another and we used a spoon to scoop acorns from one container to another.

The last thing we counted was leaves. We went outside and collected a variety of leaves from trees, shrubs and plants. Once we were back inside, we counted all of the leaves and then we sorted them by size from smallest to largest. Next, we sorted them by colors and worked on our patterns.

It can be inexpensive and fun to work on counting when you just take the time to look around you and see the abundance of items available. Go on a nature hike and then go home and count your bounty!

Tuesday Teachings - Candy Corn Learning

I love Fall and especially Halloween! It is my favorite time of the year as the colors are beautiful and there are lots of opportunities for learning.

I put together a little Candy Corn math puzzle for us to use this week. It was easy to make. I just drew a pattern on a piece of card stock. It was just a triangle with rounded edges, anyone can draw that. Next I cut my pattern into three sections.

The bottom section was traced onto Orange paper and cut out. The middle section was traced onto yellow paper and the top section was traced onto white paper. Once these were all cut out, I decided to use mine for number skills. I wrote the number word on the orange sections, the number on the yellow sections and then drew number dots on the white sections.

Next I set these out for my son to put together the puzzles. My son is only 4, so I only put out 5 full candy corn pieces at a time. Keep in mind that each puzzle is three pieces so it may be intimidating to a child to see lots of pieces on the table.

There are several other examples online of people making candy corn puzzles for education. Here are just a few:

Mrs. Freshwater's Class (free printable, letter recognition)

Mrs. Schmelzer's 1st Grade (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant words)

Have fun learning with your Candy Corn activities!

Tueday Teachings - Combating the High Costs of Food

As families struggle to make ends meet, the deck seems to be stacked against us. If your household is anything like mine, you are shocked each time you walk into a grocery store. Most budgeting programs advise you to spend 10% of your annual income on food, but most Americans average spending a little over 20%.

Every household wants to cut costs and save money, but that can be hard to do when your paycheck is stretched tight for just the "essentials". I have found some websites that I hope can help. As you are looking at these websites and trying to save money, get the kids involved. Let them figure out the cost per serving of your food, how much you can spend at the grocery to use only 10% of your income. Which item is really more affordable, the smaller package or the larger package?

First, the Iowa State University Extension Office has a great website called Spend Smart, Eat Smart. There is great information on here about how to save money. There is a section that shows you how much you should be spending at the grocery. How to find the best deals in the store and then there is a recipe section with the cost per recipe and the cost per serving broken down for you. I know what you are thinking: "I can not cook from scratch, I need convenience foods!" We all need some level of convenience in our lives, I understand this. I have a family and a full time job too, but I also want to spend my money on experiences for my family, not just food.

For recipes, I love Food Hero! They have some great and economical recipes on their website, as well as some food storage hints and tips. I personally can not wait to make the Chicken and Dumpling Casserole. My family loves Chicken and Dumplings, which is already an inexpensive meal, but this I can make during the week after work. This website is a product of Oregon State University and it has lots of recipes. You can get a free membership and save your favorites in your own recipe box.

Another great website for inexpensive recipes and general frugal ideas is Cheap, Healthy, Good. They do whole foods as often as possible but are not ashamed to use some convenience items also. I have made a few recipes from their website and I highly recommend them! In addition to the great recipes, the blog is very funny to read. It is written by 3-4 ladies with a great sense of humor and a large desire to help people.

What are some of the things you are doing to save money?
Coupons?
Generics?
Menu Planning?
All homemade?

Share your ideas with us.

Today is Felt Hat Day

Did you know that today is Felt Hat Day? I did not even know the day existed but I decided to celebrate it nonetheless!

I made a new felt activity for us to enjoy and to work on our color recognition and counting skills.

I cut out a total of 17 felt top hats. When I decided to do this I did not want to take the time to draw a pattern and trace it onto each felt color, so I just winged it since the design is easy.

When we started playing, I would call out a color and he would put it on the felt board. Later we played by him rolling a die and putting that number of felt hats on the felt board.

We have enjoyed our new felt activity!

Tuesday Teachings - Five Green and Speckled Frogs

I was recently pondering what we should work on next and was playing around online looking for some inspiration. I came across the website, Picklebums and became very excited when I saw her adorable Five Green Frogs printable. The frogs are so cute and since my son loves frogs, I thought this would be perfect.

I printed out the page and wondered what I should do with it. I decided to make a Five Green and Speckled Frogs toy.

Supplies:
Five Green Frogs printable from Picklebums
Sticky backed craft foam (I used white)
Empty paper towel tube
Brown construction paper
5 Craft sticks
7 clothespins
glue (stick and school)
Scissors

 I attached the frogs to sticky backed craft foam and then cut them all out. I then used the white glue to glue a craft stick to the back of each frog. I clipped a clothespin onto each frog to hold the stick until it dried.

Wrap the construction paper around the empty paper towel tube, using the glue stick at several intervals to adhere it on. Use the two remaining clothespins to slip one on each end of the paper towel tube until the glue dries.

Once the paper towel log has dried, use your scissors to cut five slits along the top for the craft sticks to fit into.

Once I got to this step I realized that the weight of the frogs on the log would roll the paper towel tube over so I cut a couple of tabs out of cardboard. The cardboard is actually a snack box from my recycling bin, I cut a couple of pieces about 1 inch wide by 2 inches long and folded them in half. I then glued them onto the log where the construction paper ended. Let this dry and then you are ready to proceed.

We used this to go over the Five Green and Speckled Frog poem that is on the bottom of the printout. We also worked on adding and subtracting and making up new stories with the frogs. All in all, it was a huge hit!

Tuesday Teachings - Worms, Worms, Worms

This past Friday (July 15th) was Gummy Worm Day! My son's teacher was so kind and invited me into the classroom to do a special segment on worms/gummy worms. I had so much fun and I think the kids enjoyed it too. I am sorry I do not have action pictures of the kids participating in the activities but I did not want to put a bunch of kid's pictures on here with out parent approval first.

First, I purchased 2 inch petri dishes for the whole class. Once I received them, I washed and sanitized them well to make them food ready. I then laid a small gummy worm in each dish and made blueberry gelatin to surround them. Each child then had a gummy worm snack to eat. They really enjoyed this, as how often does anyone eat anything out of a petri dish?

Next we played a game of "Pick Up Worms". I cut up several pipe cleaners/chenille stems into a variety of sizes and we used tweezers or ice tongs to pick them up. This was much like the game my son and I played picking up snakes, I just renamed it. To make it a bit more of a challenge, I put the "worms" in a container filled partway with colored rice.

We also played a rousing game of "Worm in the Apple". All of the kids stood in a line with their legs spread. They were the apples. The child at the end of the line was the worm and had to crawl and wiggle through every one's legs. When he reached the front, he also became an apple and the new last person was the worm until everyone had a chance to be the worm.

I also made up a little sheet for everyone to measure their worm. For this, they used a gummy worm. I taped a seamstress' measuring tape down to the table and we measured each worm a couple of ways. First we just laid the worm down and measured it. Next, we stretched it out as far as we could without breaking it and measured it. This turned into a discussion of elasticity and how even though we stretched the worms, they went right back to their original shape. In addition to measuring the worms in inches, we also had a pre-made measuring stick of "unifix cubes". The kids wrote each measurement on their sheet and at the bottom of the sheet was a box to draw a picture of their worms.

The last activity was probably one of the favorites. I actually bought a container of night crawlers. I put a few in larger petri dishes and gave the children magnifying glasses to investigate them. We wrote down all of the words that they used to explain and describe the worms. In the beginning several kids were hesitant to touch the worms but by the end everyone was letting worms hag out in their hands. At the end of the experiment, we went outside and released the night crawlers into the garden that they have. The classroom is growing tomatoes and marigolds. We explained how the night crawlers would crawl around in the soil and make it loose and easy for the roots of the plants to go down deep and allow the plants to grow happy.

Life Cycle of a Snake

We recently read another of our books in the Life Cycle Series that I purchased. This time we read

Green Snake (Life Cycles) by David M. Schwartz. I still highly recommend this Life Cycle series. We love that there are actual photographs in the books instead of just illustrations.

After reading the book we decided to do a few activities.

First we talked about how most snake species lay eggs instead of giving live birth. We also discussed how snake eggs are not hard like a bird egg. They are more leathery feeling and have some give to them.

We then did an experiment to see how they feel. Since I do not care for snakes and have no desire to go on a snake hunt, we used a chicken egg. I hard boiled two regular chicken eggs. Once they were ready, I put one in the refrigerator and the other I put in a bowl and covered it with white vinegar. We let the eggs sit in their respective spots for 24 hours then we pulled them out to look at them again.

The egg that had been in the refrigerator looked and felt exactly the same as it had when we put it in there. The egg in the vinegar though, had taken on a new consistency. Instead of the shell being hard, it was more flexible. We could squeeze the shell without it cracking and it actually bent in under the pressure of our fingers. My son was fascinated by this.

Why this works: The eggshells are made of calcium carbonate and when the acid of the vinegar touches the calcium it causes a chemical reaction, which you witness with the bubbles coming from the egg in vinegar. The reaction will continue with the calcium turning into carbon dioxide (the bubbles) until the calcium is used up (about 24 hours). Now that you have this soft shelled egg, what do you do with it? Well, you can extend the experiment by leaving the same egg out on a table over night. The next day the eggshell will be hard again. The reason is that it stole the carbon dioxide that we breath out of the air.

The next thing we did was an exercise for fine motor skill development. I cut up numerous pipe cleaners/chenille stems into a variety of sizes and put them in a container. My son had to use tweezers to pick up the "snakes". Once he picked them up, he used the tweezers to sort them a few different ways: by color and by size. He loved doing this and was quite adept at using the tweezers.

Once we had sorted the "snakes" we graphed them a few ways: Longest to shortest, color wise and then how many of each color we had.

Have a great time studying snakes at your house!

Tuesday Teachings - Math Activity

We have been trying to work on our counting skills at my house so I whipped up a little activity for him to work with.

Supplies:
Construction Paper
Marker
Glue
Pipe Cleaner/Chenille Stems
Scissors
Beads

Cut strips of construction paper about 1 inch wide and 2 inches long. You will need one for each number you want to work on. Fold the strips in half and write a number on one side. I cut my pipe cleaners in half since they are originally so long. Now glue the paper around the top of the pipe cleaner with the number facing out.

Once everything has dried, set out the pipe cleaner counters and the beads. The child then has to string the correct number of beads on to the pipe cleaners.

This works on counting and fine motor skills. Have a great day!

Happy 4th of July

Kids Matter and the Child Care Council of Kentucky would like to take a moment to wish you and your families a safe and fun 4th of July.

We wish you a festive and safe time with great friends and family!

Want a little math lesson for the kids? Have them poll guests about favorite grill foods, fireworks or ice cream flavors. Then the kids can graph the answers. Easy and fun, learning never rests!

Tuesday Teachings - Summer Learning

Picture Source

Most schools are out or getting ready to let out here in the United States and kids can not wait for summer vacation. As a child, I remember the excitement and thrill I felt when it was time to finally put away the textbooks and pencils; it was time to run, play and be free! Kids need that time to just be kids but summer vacation is also no time to just forget everything they learned in the past school year.

You can give your child numerous opportunities to continue learning over summer vacation without them even realizing it.

Cook together - Let your child pick out a new recipe to try and then take them to the store to purchase all of the ingredients. This gives them opportunities to work on reading (recipes and food labels), writing (grocery list), math (measuring ingredients and timing meal) and is a great activity to do together. Research shows that when kids are involved in selecting and preparing food they take ownership of the meal and are more likely to not only try the food but to also enjoy the food.

Garden together - Go to a local garden center and give your child a set amount of money. They can then select several plants to grow in your yard or in pots. This works on math skills (spending money and spacing plants), nurturing skills (caring for the plants)and then recipes and cooking skills.

Scavenger Hunts - See our blog post of 6/4/10 for a great scavenger hunt in the grocery store and we are hoping to give another scavenger hunt sheet for the great outdoors in the next week or so. This is a great skill for kids to teach them to focus, pay attention, search and read.

Photo Source

Public Libraries - Our local library kicks off their summer reading program on 6/1/11. The theme this summer is One World, Many Stories. We have participated in the summer reading program every year. It is cheap, challenging entertainment that encourages literacy making it a win-win for everyone!

Art Camp - No need to pay expensive camp fees. Get together with some of your friends and organize a camp for the kids. Each day the kids can rotate the house they go to and each parent would be responsible for one day of camp. If you need some great art ideas check out Pink and Green Mama's blog for some great ideas and e-books on outdoor arts.

Make homemade art supplies - see our blog posts for Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments, play dough, Chalk Paint, and Surprise Soap.

In addition the the activities listed above, also remember that "Playing is Learning"! Have a great summer!

Tuesday Teachings - Measuring Up

It is time for another math lesson. This week we are going to focus on measuring people and items. There will be numerous items that we are going to measure but the important part is the type of items we use to measure. Our focus is going to be on standard and non-standard forms of measurement. A ruler is a great item and a child should always learn how to measure with a standard school ruler but a ruler is not always available when you need or want to measure something. We went a step further with the ruler and pulled out our tape measure also. Kids are always excited to use “Grown up Tools” that they see their parents using. My son could barely contain the excitement when I let him use the tape measure.


When you are looking for things to measure, use everyday items to increase a child’s understanding of the concept of measurement. The terms standard and non-standard are used frequently when describing measurement. Measuring with standard units refers to measuring with inches, feet, yards, centimeters or meters using a ruler or other measuring device. Measuring with non-standard units refers to measuring with blocks, pencils, hands, etc.

We started by measuring with our standard school ruler that is 12 inches long. I laid out several things for my son to measure that I knew were shorter than 12 inches. We measured a dollar bill (6 inches)l, a crayon (3.5 inches), a marker (6 inches) and two pieces of chalk (4 inches and 3 inches).

Each time we got ready to measure an item he would estimate how long he thought the item would be in inches. We wrote his estimate on our log and then we would measure the item and write the correct measurement on the log. After we measured the first piece of chalk he hypothesized that the second piece of chalk would have the same measurement. When we measured the second piece of chalk we found it was shorter than the first piece because we had actually used it on the sidewalk the previous day. He was surprised that it gets smaller.

After those items were measured I showed him the next items that we were going to measure: pillow (26 inches), book (11 inches), blackboard (17 inches), fire truck (18 inches) and his leg (17 inches). He again gave me his estimates for the length of each item and we recorded the estimates prior to measurement. When he started to measure he quickly realized he did not have enough rulers to measure any of these items. We talked about how when you are measuring items you need to be exact so we pulled out the tape measure and he used that to measure these items.

After these measurements were taken we sat down and talked about how other things are measured. Did you know that horses are measured by hands? We traced his hand and cut it out to measure items. One yard or three feet is the same as the distance from your nose to your thumb; that is how they measure fabric in non-standard units. We then went around trying to measure items in the house using his hand as a unit of measurement. After we measured a few items we talked about how sometimes you do not have a ruler or tape measure with you and you still need to know a measurement of on item. What do you do then? We pulled out a few items to use: Paperclips; pencils; Lego's; paper and a dollar bill. We pulled out all of the previous items that we had measured and used our non-standard units of measurement to get the length of the items. We enjoyed the non-standard units because it was fun to keep adding items on in order to figure out the length but it was also difficult to be exact.

I would call this lesson a huge success as currently we are measuring everything in my home!

Neighborhood Inventory

Photo Credit

As you take a walk around your neighborhood teach your child to be on the lookout for certain items. Our neighborhood inventory list is available by clicking here. Feel free to print out a copy and use it with a clipboard the next time you walk around your neighborhood.

I tried to make it accesible to families in large cities or suburbs by including a variety of items on the list. Have fun on your walk!

Getting Ready for Math - Alike/Different

As children begin to work on their math skills many parents are eager to just teach them to count. Counting is a skill we all need but it is not necessarily the best place to start with our math skills.

The earliest math skills will begin with the concept of alike and different. Show your child two identical cups. Ask her how they are alike (size, shape, color, etc.)

Now show your child a cup and a mug. Discuss how they are alike and how they are different. For example, they may be the same color and size, they both hold liquids but the shape is different. During your daily activities there are many times to see the likeness and difference of items.

Set two oranges and one apple on a table. Ask your child if the items are alike. Which one is different? Why is it different? What makes it different from the other two items? Why doesn't this item belong with the other two items?

Go through your house and take pictures of 5-7 items, like the toy box, the kitchen table, the refrigerator, the sofa, the bed and a chair. Now set up the game. Set the toy box picture to the side, go to the toy box though and lay the picture of the kitchen table on the toy box, now go to the kitchen table and lay the picture of the refrigerator on the kitchen table, etc. To start the game, explain to the child that he will need to look for the exact same item in person as is in the picture. Give her the picture of the toy box, when she finds the toy box she will find the picture of the kitchen table and keep going this way until he gets to the last item (a chair) where she finds a book that you can sit down together and read.

These type of scavenger hunts are perfect for the 2-4 year old set. It teaches them to look closely at items and gives them independence to complete the task. The end result is that they are awarded with private time to read a book with you and they are learning math skills.

Monday Meanderings - Give me some Pi

It may look like I may a spelling error in the headline but it is not incorrect. Today is March 14th or 3/14, Pi day. Pi is approximately equal to 3.14159265 in the usual decimal notation and one of the most important mathematical constants. Pi is used by mathematicians, scientists and engineers the world round. Celebrate Pi day with your family using some of the links and ideas shared below.

First, it is only right that we go to the website for the Pi Day Organization. This link takes you directly to some teacher ideas to discuss PI with kids.

Next we have Dr. Math with a great and easy explanation of Pi and what the value really means. There are also links to several other pages about teaching math to kids based on their age.

Now it is time to measure the circumference of some yummy treats! Have a whole meal made of nothing but round items.

First we have the Impossibly Easy Taco Pie from Betty Crocker. Make this for dinner and before slicing, let the kids measure it. Some suggestions for sides: pineapple slices, cherry tomatoes, sliced and sauteed squash or sliced carrots. The list of round foods is almost as infinite as PI.

For dessert I would recommend cookies or pie, both of which would be round again. Here is a recipe from Very Best Baking for Funny Face Cookie Pops.

The newest craze are cake balls and here is a good recipe from Bakerella for red velvet cake balls.

Enjoy Pi day!

Tuesday Teachings - Math Skills Roundup

Recently I was in the local Parent Teacher Store and they had some of the cutest notepads on sale. They were pre-cut into the best shapes. They had frogs, hearts, bears, suns, and just about any other shape you could want. You could pick a shape to go with a book or an interest of your child. There were literally 100 or more shapes to choose from.

I purchased a Cowboy shaped notepad and set to work making a Math Roundup activity for my son. It was easy. I just wrote the numbers 1-10 on the paper. Next I dug around in my son's activity box until I located the bug/insect counters that we have. My son loves those bug counters but anything could be used.

I had the cards laying face down and he would flip one over and then put the matching number of bugs on the cowboy.

When I did the game at home I just let him use the paper as is, but I do recommend laminating the pages if you want to use them more than one time.

As for the products I used: The company that makes the notepads is Shapes Etc and my bug counters came from one of the many orders I have made with Scholastic.