Retail Experience

While I am doing some sign writing for a local retailer, the kids get to accompany me and help me out.  Fortunately I have known the staff for years so they love having the kids help them with the 'stock'.  They also like to see what I'm doing, help me with some of the letters, and always like doing the exclamation marks!

I think it's great practice for them so let them help me when they want (provided I have their painting clothes along with me too!) After a while Blake likes to paint his own box so that keeps him busy as he likes to paint EVERY surface!

  

Word Families: Family Tree

After playing the Word Family Match Up Mats I decided it would be good reinforcing to do a family 'tree'.  Each branch had a different 'family' on it, and the leaves had the words on them.  Very simple and effective. I used an old pineapple label to make the leaves for Freya's tree, so that it 'sparkled'.  Freya need a little hand to get started but was away after that.

For Blake's tree I kept it simple and went back to the beginning letter for each word. Each branch had a 'letter' instead of a 'family'.   She enjoyed putting the leaves back on the tree.  Blake enjoyed it, but got a bit confused with b and d which is quite normal, so needed a little help in the end.

Blake's simple "Family Tree" made up of the starting letters of each word

Freya's "Family Tree" showing the more complex 'families' made from a pineapple tag from the supermarket.

I loved doing this simply.  It could've been a huge thing to do a massive tree and put it on the wall, but I wanted to keep it simple, and quick.  The kids love looking in their workbooks, and over time they go back and see what they have done, so mainly everything goes in there.  I also loved that I could re-use something that was otherwise going to go in the bin.  Freya loved the 'gold' fleck on her leaves.

Outside Vowel Games

Learning should be fun, right??? Well, often the kids are just plain bored with sitting at the table, so I will try to make a point of making some games out of the stuff we've recently learnt.  This week we've done 'vowels', so everywhere we went we tried to do some 'work' but make it fun too!

Swimming Time:

At the Tepid Baths Freya and I decided to have a competition to see who could find words around the pool and see whether they were short or long vowels.  We started off by using a 'little kneeboard' to throw back and forth, and as we threw it to the other person, we would have to say a word that we could see.  Some examples were: 'cap', 'swim', 'flag', 'board', 'roof', 'plant', 'lane', 'spa', 'Ben' (who happened to be the lifeguard on duty), 'togs', 'water', 'splash' etc etc

After we threw the board and said our word, we would have to decide what vowels were in the word, and whether they were short or long vowels.  This is a good game for keeping the board moving!


Speed Vowel Boxes:
 I basically thought of this game up quickly as we were walking to a flat area of paved concrete with chalk in my hand!

I drew 5 boxes, and put a large vowel in each.  We then tried to think of some words and jump to the boxes.  This wasn't exciting enough, so I then made all 3 of us stand about 2 metres away from the boxes and we made it a 'race' to try and guess the vowel and then first to run to the correct box wins.  It ended up VERY successful and even Freya and Blake got some vowels correct even before I had said them!

Blake attempting to make his 'own' vowel box!  

Sight Word Caterpillar

When I saw these I thought these are a great idea for the motivation for the kids to learn the words.  As soon as we started the caterpillar, Freya then said she wanted to reach to the 'other hull' which in about caterpillar parts is about 6 metres!  So at least she has the vision in mind!

The sights words from this website are American so the standards for your country might differ from those printed on the cards.  There are blank 'body circles' for you to write other words on which is very helpful.

Download the following Sight Word Caterpillars.

      To download the Kinder Sight Words
Click here.

To download the 1st Grade Sight Words
click here.

To download the 2nd Grade Sight Words
click here.

To download the 3rd Grade Sight Words
click here.

Lower & Uppercase Matching

Being able to match the lower case alphabet to uppercase alphabet is often confusing for some kids, and what I decided to do was to take the 'Apple Alphabet' and chop them down the middle.  This makes a lower case on one half and an uppercase on the other half.  I don't necessarily bring out ALL of them at once (having limited space on board), but maybe 10 so they are achievable before the children get bored.

As seen here, Blake then gets the white board marker and writes over the top of them to practice the letter! I didn't even ask him, so it was great that he chose to do it by himself.