Month: March 2011

Building Block Math

We are overdue for some math chat, and if there is one thing I ALWAYS harp on it’s that math concepts begin through hands-on learning. Reading has a whole lot more listening activities: playing with words through rhythm and rhyme or listening for sounds in a word, but math uses tangible objects so children can wrap their hands, and their minds, around the concepts.

So, let’s learn another math activity that uses objects around the house.
Materials: You can use unifix cubes or blocks, but whatever you use, the rule is they need to be the same size. And an extension of this activity will use dice (with dots or numbers).

Spread the blocks all over your learning space, and make up a story about why Barbie (g.i. joe or whoever) wants to go to the top floor of the mall (or building or fort). “Can we build her a staircase to get there?” Take one block and show your little one “Okay here is the first step, and if I want the next step to be a little taller then I will need one more than this, so I will need two blocks” (build two blocks and place them next to the first step). Okay, the next step needs to be even taller than the second step so I need one more than 2. What number comes after 2?” (3) “Great! So let’s attach 3 together to make the 3rd step.” Build 5-10 steps. Then take it apart after a bit of playing and let your little one help you make it again. Finally, see if your little one can make the steps on his/her own.

A lot of skills are being taught here. Your child is visually seeing how numbers grow so he/she is learning what numbers represent. You are exposing your little one to language like “more” and “taller,” ordinal numbers like “second” and “third,” and you are teaching about numbers that come “before” and “after.”

Play this game again tomorrow except this time use a dice (dotted or numbered), and each time you roll the dice build a step that tall. Try to help your little one put the stairs in order each time you build a new step by asking questions like “Is this one bigger or smaller (taller or shorter)? If you roll the same number, figure out if you already have a step that tall and explain to your little one that you already have a stair that size and you need one that is taller or shorter to make the steps “grow” taller.

 

And The Winner IS………..

We used “random.org” to choose a winner, and the winner of the Customized & Personalized Behavior Chart IS:

SARAH R! Congratulations Sarah 🙂

A little about the winner: Sarah is a stay-at-home mommy of FIVE: Hunter (8), Skylar (7), Liberty (5), Justice (3) and Kadynce (1)!!! Her husband, Brent is a Military Working Dog Handler/Trainer with the US Air Force and has been deployed since October. Sarah taught Financial Peace University at New Life Baptist and she currently provides financial mentoring. Her current “hobby” is extreme couponing and sharing tips with all her friends.
When asked how she will be using her new behavior chart, she said, “I will be using the behavior chart with Justice to help him gain more self control, self confidence and get a better handle on the natural anger that comes from having a deployed daddy. I think this will be great for him and me!”

Congratulations! Thank you Casey with Kidspired Creations for the awesome giveaway that I know Sarah will enjoy so much! I am so glad to partner with you and hope that everyone will keep up with all the latest decor that Kidspired Creations designs through the facebook page or Etsy Shop 🙂  I know I will!
Send us pictures of your finished product for Sarah!!!!

And thank you to everyone who participated 🙂

Little Books For Your Little Ones To Read

If you haven’t read “When Can I Start Using Little Books?”  go go go and read about that first! 🙂

For those of you who have read it, let’s get on the ball…

You probably noticed that there are soo many books that it is hard to know where to start. 

If this is the FIRST time your child will be “reading” books, then you need to start with the most basic book you can find.  Your child needs to know all their letters and have mastered a lot of the reading skills to be ready for this, but if not, you can always read the little books (that I refer to in this post) TO your children.  So either way, let that be your activity today!

This is how I teach children to read little books:

1)      I pick a book on their level (see how I “level” books below); then I internally observe all the things about the book I want to teach: content, words, and beginning sounds.

2)      I introduce the book by telling kids the title.  Then I ask them to make guesses (or “predictions”  – if you wanna be fancy) about what the book will be about based on the title and front cover picture.

3)      I ask the kids to go on a “picture walk” with me to look at all the pictures and just TALK about them….not reading the words this time through.

4)      Then we close the book and I teach them the sight words in the book.  (I call these “heart words” that I want them to put in their heart so they will know it by heart everytime they see it. )

5)      I ask them to open their books and find the heart words and put their finger on it.

6)       Then we go over all the sounds that the other words start with so if the word “ball” is in the book then I would ask them what sound the letter “b” makes and get them to brainstorm words that start with that sound.

7)      Finally, I have the kids read the book to me, with me there to help (don’t tell them the words they are stuck on, ask them questions to get them thinking about what the word is).

8)      Last, they read the book to themselves and then draw a page and write their own variation of that page.  So, if the book is about animals they would draw their own favorite animal and tell me about it so that I can help them write the words for their page.

*There are variations to this sequence but this is a great place to start.

This is how I decide the difficulty of beginner books:

Level 1 won’t have ANY sight words.  There will probably only be ONE word on the page and that will be the word that describes the picture “dog” for a picture of a dog, or “brown” for the picture of a brown dog.   Example found Here.

Level 2 will incorporate ONE or TWO EASY basic words like “a” or “the.”  One example is found Here and another here.

Level 3 will incorporate a full sentence made up of just 3 words (2 sight words and one word that tells about the picture.  Examples: “I can” and “I see” books.

Level 4 will incorporate about THREE basic sight words that your child has already learned from levels 2 and 3.

And so on and so on. I think now you get the picture.  Other books can be found at

Hubbard’s Cupboard

JMeacham

DLTKS

Saskschools Ebooks

A-Z Reading

 OR, you can always make your own!

There is alot more levels and a lot more information on this.  I am just easing you into it IF you want to help your little one with this! 🙂

If you have ANY questions about this (it is A LOT of info) please:

Last Chance!-Closed

It’s FREE…It’s A GiveAWAY and it takes almost NO time to enter. 

Kidspired Creations is giving away a behavior chart for your home playroom, classroom, or home classroom if you homeschool.  It can be personalized to your children’s names and customized to whatever theme you choose: sports, diva, ballerina, fire truck, you name it!

If you already have a consequence system in place, enter anyway….it is precious as wall art for a child’s room or playroom. 

Simply go “like” Kidspired Creations fan page and leave a comment and for an extra entry leave a comment on this post or other giveaway post.  It takes 5 seconds and you will be entered to win, a free and shipped-free behavior chart.

Here is an example of a space theme chart from Kidspired Creations:

Today is THE LAST DAY to enter!

 

 

When Can I Start To Use little Books With My Child?

I was watching home videos the other day, re-living so many great memories; but now, as a teacher, I observed one clip in a new light. It was me, five years old, reading a mini decodable book: “Jack can read, see him read, read well Jack!” At that time, I was so proud of myself, hogging the spotlight and angry when my three year old little sister chimed in.

Looking at that clip through a new lens there is nothing more enjoyable than sharing in a five year olds excitement that he/she can read! And even more so, wishing I would have shared that WITH my three year old little sister because, three year olds can learn to read. GRANTED, there is a process. Everyone wants to adopt the quick “My Baby Can Read” fix. And that is understandable, but I want to introduce some important guidelines to introducing little decodable books:

Here are pictures of my little book bin at home, filled with little Ziploc baggies of printed books and the words that I introduce before teaching little ones to read them.

You can start teaching print concepts as early as you can. These are concepts about the structure of books such as books tell a story, pictures tell about the story, words tell about the pictures, how to properly hold the book, how to turn pages the right way (one at a time), how to follow the text of a books one word at a time from left to right and then return back to the left time to read the next line. There are others but these are the book basics. That is why reading with children every day is important because you expose them to the functions of a book. This is their reading foundation.
In the meantime, while your child is learning these print concepts, you should practice letter naming and phonemic awareness. These three skills: 1) print concepts, 2) letter naming, and 3) phonemic awareness, are parallel to each other. They are go hand-in-hand and can be learned alongside each other. Phonemic awareness is the main skill that follows a sequence.
IF, your child has gotten to the point where he/she can isolate sounds in words (hearing the /b/ sound at the beginning of “bear”) THEN he/she is ready to start reading little decodable books.

The three sites I use most to get my decodable books are:
1) Hubbard’s Cupboard
2) JMeacham
3) DLTK

But there is an absolute ART to teaching children in sequence how to read these little books, and I will share some tips for the trade in my next post 
As for Today, if your child is at the point in their development where they are READY for this step, I want you to look through the different books and make a few observations: You are LEARNING today:
~How many words are in the pages of the books (some have 2 words per page, others 10 words per page)?
~Is the book repetitive (the same words repeating on every page with the exception of a new picture/word in one’s place that describes the picture)?
~Is the book of interest to your child (Is the book about a topic your child cares about)?
~What words would your child have to learn before being able to read the book?

Don’t try teaching your child to read the books YET. Just learn about the books and PRINT a few of the SIMPLE books – 2 or 3 words per page.
This is a great start! You are a great parent to want to invest in your child in this way!

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