By Julia Mohamed It’s nearly back-to-school time! Time to go from running wild and free to becoming a studious student once again. Here are a few ideas to help make the transition as smooth as possible: Goal Journal Have your kids contribute to a nightly journal. Begin now, with their […]
Tag: learning aids
Literacy Lava – excellent (free) resource
Literacy Lava 5 I’ve got an article in the latest edition of Susan Stephenson’s (The Book Chook) great e-newsletter, “Literacy Lava.” “Literacy Lava” is a free .pdf for parents and educators, and is basically a collection of great articles on helping kids to read. This is the 5th edition of […]
Current events
I’ve been doing current events at my son’s school. I approached my son’s teacher a few weeks ago, and proposed a weekly, half-hour current events discussion for the grade 3 / 4 class. My son’s teacher is very cool, and progressive and totally supported the idea. He also helped to […]
Quick and easy literacy activities
Our school board issued a list of great literacy activities. They’re simple and fun, and are great examples of what I like to call “guerilla literacy” – using tons of little tactics here and there that add up to… a kid who likes to read. You may want to print […]
Physical literacy games
It’s a good idea to link learning to physical activity. I was inspired this week by my son’s teacher, who was teaching them fractions by having them throw balls into various buckets marked 1/7, 1/3, 1/4, etc. They had to add them up and avoid making an improper fraction. I […]
Read the signs
Signs are great “flash cards.” The other day, I was speaking with a mom whose son is having some trouble with reading. It was recommended that he start learning “whole words.” (As opposed to phonetically sounding things out.) I’m all for the whole-word approach to learning to read. It’s a […]
Fishy literacy game
A do-it-yourself game that helps early readers connect capital letters with their lowercase equivalents. Thank you to guest blogger Dawn Little, for this post. Here is a fun letter match game to help your child recognize and match capital letters to lower case letters. 1. Gather your materials: One small […]
Early writers – adding detail
Yes, Lori Jamison’s workshop was packed. And for good reason. Here’s another excellent tip she shared. When her kindergarteners were starting to write sentences (towards the end of JK or in SK), they would write this way: “I like my cat.” And that would be it. I’m finished, teacher! How […]
Finger Puppet Book Bags
A little gem from the literacy conference. It’s a knitted book bag, with finger puppets that adhere with snaps to the bag. A knitted string lets the child hang it around her neck and take it anywhere. Each bag has a theme. For instance, the Ocean bag has a handpainted […]
Seen in Blockbuster: books!
Get your kids reading by telling them about the movie or TV show. I don’t visit Blockbuster very often. So it was a revelation to to me that they had a book rack filled with the book versions of about a dozen popular movies. That is great. I’m a big […]