My son is hanging out in Club Penguin these days. And, um, so am I. Club Penguin is a virtual world for kids – each kid is a cartoon penguin. You take your penguin around the island, into various buildings, down ski hills, onto a pirate ship. (Still with me?) […]
Activities
A great "travelling" word game
Here’s another great word game. Our family recently travelled to Ottawa. Early one morning, we broke out a game we’d brought called Scrabble Apple. We really enjoyed it. What I like about it is that it’s portable, all of the pieces go back in the apple when you’re done, and […]
Make a book for Christmas
This is a great time to make your child a book for Christmas or Hannukah.Children of all ages are motivated to read a book about their favourite subject – themselves. Here’s how*Buy a small scrapbook with stiff pages. (Craft stores have them. You can also use a photo album.) *Select […]
Great learn-to-type website
Get your child typing! Kids get frustrated because they can think up story ideas faster than they can write them. Unfortunately, they may give up on writing stories, or end up writing one- or two-line stories because their hands get sore or tired. The principal at our school had a […]
Great reading tool – Boggle Jr.
I e-mailed Hasbro and asked them to send me some word games and I’m really glad I did. (I have no affliation with Hasbro, by the way.) I tried Boggle Jr. with the six-year-old I’m working with, and it was really helpful. Boggle Jr. has a set of large dice […]
Internet word game: Dungeon Scroll
They won’t even realize they’re learning. If you’ve got a child who’s into computer games but you’d rather they read, here’s something that will make you an ultra-cool parent. It’s called Dungeon Scroll, and it’s simple and fun. In each “dungeon” you face an enemy. You defeat the enemies by […]
A fun literacy activity – Acrostics
Do you know about acrostics? An acrostic uses the first letters of words in a sentence and forms a “hidden” word from them like this: “Read everywhere, all day!” spells “read.” Read Everywhere All Day For younger children You can send your child secret messages using acrostics. Teach your child […]
Hallowe’en literacy
Some ideas for working literacy into your Hallowe’en festivities. * Spell Hallowe’en. Talk about why it has an apostrophe (All Hallow’s Evening). It’s also interesting to note that many people no longer use the apostrophe and that’s OK too. Kids are often surprised to learn that spelling evolves. * Sort […]
Teaching long and short vowel sounds
I’m going to be working with an eight-year-old to teach him long and short vowel sounds. I know him fairly well, so I know he’s into Lego, and computers and art. So I’ve come up with some activities that take advantage of those interests. I’m going to start by asking […]
Reading the signs
The other day on the subway, I noticed some ads. PizzaPizza’s ad said, simply:XL craving? and Bell’s said:More 3G coverage.Facebook anywhere.So let’s say you’re a child who’s just learning to read.XL? These examples do two things:1) They illustrate just how difficult reading can be. And tricky!2) They’re a terrific learning […]
