Stuffed letters are great for new readers.
Activities
World Read-Aloud Day is Wed., March 7
It’s very important to read to your child. In fact, we consider it one of the top three most important things you can do to help your kid develop a love of reading. Every day – but especially on Wed., March 7 – take the time to read to your child. […]
A book full of book bites
If you’re looking for an activity that will get your kid writing, Breakfast on a Dragon’s Tail, by Martin Springett, is a new and interesting concept book. Dragon’s Tail gives you the beginning of a story, and your kid writes the rest. There are 13 book bites in all, each one an […]
Help your child understand what he’s reading
Photo by Dan Smith, Wikimedia Commons I was talking to a mom today about a child who is having some trouble with reading comprehension. In other words, he reads a paragraph and has trouble understanding and summarizing what he’s just read. He also isn’t reading a lot—possibly he doesn’t enjoy […]
Big on literacy… big on gross
GROSS-ABULARY is very up-front about what it is. It’s a literacy game that’s gross. And we all know that kids—okay, especially boys—love gross. If your kid is “one of those,” then GROSS-ABULARY will be right up his alley. It’s a game about building gross sentences, using starter concepts like belch, armpit and […]
DrawaStickman.com
Your kid will love this. You draw a stick figure, and the website brings it to life. There is a literacy component, because the site takes the stickman through a plotline. You’re given instructions like, “draw a key in my hand” before he can open a locked box. Kids have […]
For the love of books
This is the video that’s recently gone viral. If you (and your kid) haven’t seen it, you must – it’s lovely. One-minute and 52 seconds of delightful, stop-motion, book-adoration. Visited the bookstore “Type” in Toronto this morning and got the back-story: Apparently a couple of filmmakers (Sean Ohlenkamp for one) […]
Get your kid excited about the news
Every week, I do a half-hour presentation at my son’s school on “the news.” It’s often the best half-hour of my week. And a lot of the kids – and the parents – tell me they look forward to the class. What I do is pretty simple; you can do […]
Fun online Hallowe’en “differences” game
Terrific Hallowe’en is an easy, fun and speedy online game. The goal is to find the differences between the two, similar-looking pictures. You click on each thing that’s different. It might be a missing leaf on a tree, a missing house in the background, or a different-coloured tie. When you spot the five […]
Squishy literacy fun with Cookie Monster
I’m a big believer that if you want kids to understand words and letters, they’ve gotta get their hands dirty. If there’s something to feel, touch, throw, squish and otherwise interact with — kids are going to get the message on a whole different level. (It’s called kinesthetic learning, but […]
