UGH!

I woke up this morning in a panic. School is ending in 1 day and 2 hours. I have done nothing to prepare myself for my kids to be home. Well I have bought their Summer school stuff, but that is it. So now I am motivating myself to get on the ball. Past Summer posts have showed lots of ideas of how I am going to organize the troops. Every year I try and change it up, to make it fun for the kids. So check out some of those ideas.

So this year we are doing the chore chart on the computer http://www.myjobchart.com/about_my_job_chart , I did not like this idea the first time I found this, but now that I moved my computer into a central location I really like this idea and my kids love it. It is easy to add rewards and add new jobs and teach the kids how to use a computer. We are also going to start a Summer Reading Chart. I got a poster board at a school supply store, it is pre-laminated with 300 squares on it. I also bought wet erase markers and wrote our Summer reading chart on the top. I also bought re-usuable stickers for it. Every book (or bigger kids so many pages, equals one square). When we get the poster board all filled up, we are going to go see the new movie, Cars 2.

Someone gave me an idea of putting treats, money, dollar toys, etc. in a jar and each day they get all their jobs done, they get to pick something out of the jar.

Anyway those are my new ideas for this Summer.

Beg. Reading

I was hoping this would post better than it did. This is what I start with after my kids know sounds, ABC, abc, and of course basic sounding out principles. Once they know those I start on these. If you want a better copy email me and I will give you the word file. I guess I am too dumb to figure out how to post it as a word file in the first place. Anyway the trick with these, is that you don't go on to the next page, until you are perfect at this one. Re-print this everyday if you have to, until they start to get it. I scanned 3, and I have about 30 of these that I will post another day.

What can I do fun tonight?

With Silly Putty's birthday today, Dr. Seuss's Birthday today, Porky Pig's birthday today, and Elmer Fudd's birthday today, I think I can come up with something.

After School: A little Seuss music, maybe some cartoons of Elmer and Porky, and making Silly Putty. (recipe below)

Dinner Prep: While I am making dinner, they can play with the Silly Putty we made, Seuss coloring pages, and watch the Sneeches movie, or cat and the hat movie.

Dinner: Of course! Green Eggs and Ham!

Bed Time Reading Time: Of Course! Dr. Seuss!

What a fun little night we can have!

Silly Putty:
1/2 Cup Elmer's Glue
1/2 Cup Liquid Starch
Food Coloring

Slowly Combine the starch with the glue and knead the mass with your fingers. The longer you work with it the better the silly putty gets. Add food coloring to get desired coloring.

Go to this website if you want Dr. Seuss Printables, like this one, http://k2printables.com/seuss.htm

LeapFrog!

I love the LeapFrog learning dvd's and I also have people always recommending them to me. I went to their website today to buy one and saw a section for parents that are helps in teaching, divided up by ages. One activity was getting a U.S. Map and teaching states by collecting quarters. How fun is that? It also has lots of printables to go with the activities. Anyway that was an older activity, but there was lots of other activites for different ages.

www.leapfrog.com/en/leapfrog_parents/preschool.html

Teaching Nursery Rhymes are one of the best things you could do for your child. It has been proven that if a child knows his or her nursery rhymes, he or she reads faster and has an easier time. Nursery Rhymes are also a good way to teach other subjects, like Math. I made this paper for my son and put it in the front of a three ring binder. We are going to be memorizing different nursery rhymes and putting them in our book. Every day we will read the book. Gradually we will have more and more nursery rhymes in our book! He will also be coloring each rhyme to go into his book. Yes I could just read him a nursery rhyme book, but this way we are spending time together, he is practicing coloring, and he will feel more ownership to his special little book. At the end I also put a good website about Nursery Rhymes. Not only do they have loads of ideas, but they also explain more about why Nursery Rhymes are so good. http://www.nurseryrhymesonline.com/

Summer School

I don't know how many of you do Summer school with your kids? But I have found that if you don't, your kids play catch up for at least 3 months of the school year. This year I went to Utah Idaho Supply and bought some Summer books for my kids. What I like about these books is 2/3 of the book is a review of the last year and 1/3 focuses on the next year. I like that they are already familiar with what they will be learning. I also like that they go upto 8th grade. I got mine for about $13 if I remember right. I have had a really hard time finding stuff for fourth grade and up. So if you are interested their name is Summer Bridge and I will give you a link to their website:

http://www.summerbridgeactivities.com/

The store I was talking about has this website you can order from. Great resources for home school, summer school, and special helps for kids.

http://www.uisupply.com/

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Pre Reading

This is what I tell people if they ask me about teaching kids to read. I say:

1. Read nursery rhymes and Teach them Nursery Rhymes

2. Give them a good foundation of Letter Recognition on Capitals

3. Give them a good foundation of Letter Recognition on Lower Case

4. Give them a good foundation on Sounds

5. Then start to teach them to read.

If they don't have steps 1-4 down really good I feel you are wasting your time. This is just my opinion though.

It has been proven that children who know Nursery Rhymes well learn to read faster. Also when they get to Rhyming words at the end of Kindergarten and First grade, this really helps them.

Also I don't push my kids. I wait until the Summer before they go to kindergarten. This is just how I do it though. I don't like my kid too far ahead or too far behind. I strive for the middle of the road. I have known children who "know everything" in Kindergarten to have behavior problems, because they are bored. On the other hand I have a child who struggles and thats not where you want to be either.

Anyway I hope this helps someone. I want this blog to be helpful and full of good ideas. Most are just my own, so sorry I can tend to get long winded.

Kindergarten Reading

My favorite books for teaching kids to read are the BOB books. You can find them at your library, or you can buy them through Scholastic. I did see them at Costco last week also. They are really good books. They are black and white cartoon sketches with simple words. I have bought all of them and now that I am on my third reader, I can say I LOVE THEM! I also do something else one of my daughters got in Kindergarten and I am going to post it sometime. The combination really helps my kids. Now I guess I am a mean mom, because when they get home from school they have to do the teachers homework and then mine. My fifth grader gets an hour a day from her teacher and then has to play the piano and guitar. She does not get extra, but the little ones do and I think it is really good for them. I give them one BOB book to read everyday until they get it down, and then the other thing which I will post another day. Anyway hope this helps someone.

You can also find the BOB books at the website: www.bobbooks.com
They also have stuff about the authors and activity pages to color.

They are pricey but it is worth the money.