Enter my giveaway (from now until July 5, 2015) on Teachers’ Notebook and win your own copy of ULTIMATE SIGHT WORDS {First Series}! Click on the picture to enter.
You can see all that this comprehensive, multi-sensory, hands-on, phonemic approach to has to offer here.
The summer is a GREAT time to introduce your children to a second language. Maybe your kids are not ready for Rosetta Stone, but they are ready to enjoy the sounds of a second language. Here is a FUN way to get your children excited about another culture and another language…music! The neat thing about singing a second language, is that your kids will simply have fun learning the songs. They won’t even realize that they are laying a second language foundation!
Our favorite Spanish album is Jorge Anaya’s A Bailar! There are songs that teach the parts of the body, directional words, animals on the farm, colors of the rainbow, the Spanish alphabet and one of our favorites, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. It is a great first taste of Español!
If French is what you’d like your children to start learning, give Jean Rene’s Uni Verse of Song a try. It has a nice mix of English and French and lots of songs your children will recognize (like Wheels on the Bus, Happy Birthday, Mary Had a Little Lamb, and Old MacDonald Had a Farm). The mini-lessons presented by the kids in between the songs are a nice touch, too.
I bet you’ll find as you listen to these albums, that you will be learning (and singing) right along with your kids!
Here are some number word cards (for numbers 1-12) that you can use along with the number cards (pictured in color above), number order and abbreviation cards in My Calendar Companion. You can download the number word cards here.
Is meal-time ever frustrating for you, or Dad? With seven children around our table, sometimes meals can be a bit…ummm…crazy. I have found, too, that no matter how many times I’ve said, “Don’t speak until you’ve swallowed,” or “Please ask nicely,” some children simply don’t recall those words of wisdom :). So here is a way to instill some Meal-Time Manners in your children without having to say a thing! These little cards have, quite honestly, inspired a LOVELY change around our dining room table.
The Meal-Time Manners cards are pretty simple to use. Just print on cardstock; fill-in each child’s name (there are two cards per page); laminate the front; cut apart and fold in half.
Before you set the cards out for the first meal, go over the “rules” with your kids. Oh, you may have a few grumblers, but once you explain the REWARDS they will gain as they submit to this training, you should have everyone on board.
And yes, there must be rewards (we want our children to submit with a happy heart ). So, you might need to make a quick trip out to grab some stickers–just simple stars or smiley-faces are best. You will want to reward your children for each meal that they achieve all the goals. Now, for your little ones, you may want to take a graduated training approach; allowing them to earn stars for achieving a couple key goals each meal. Then, once a star is earned, give them couple more goals to work on.
So, what do you do with all these stars (besides stick them to the back of your kids’ manners cards :)? Once, your kids have reached a particular goal (for our kids–it is when they collect three times their age of stars) they can choose to have a special treat. You decide how BIG you will allow this treat to be. My kids have picked a trip to Cold Stone, a favorite pizza, a favorite side dish and even breakfast outside.
Are you ready to get started on some meal-time bliss? Download the Meal-Time Manners Cards here.
If you happen to purchase MY CALENDAR COMPANION this month, you’ll want to download this: Summer2015. It is a replacement for page 7 of The Four Seasons responsive reader. That way, your kiddos can learn when summer officially begins for 2015.
We all LOVE summer vacation, but not the “summer slide”! One of the ways I’m keeping my kids learning this summer is with My Calendar. The My Calendar Companion {for grades K-2} has so many great printables to use each month. Just yesterday we used the build-a-calendar for June, the 2015 year-at-a-glance calendar, the numeric date teaching tool, The Four Seasons responsive reader, and the seasons posters.
After using the My Calendar Companion printables, my kindergartener was ready to complete the June calendar sheet.
On each MONTHLY CALENDAR WORKSHEET, your kids will:
** Write today’s date (month, day, year)
** Choose today’s day of the week
** Write the date numerically
** Write the month abbreviation
** Write the number of days in the month
** Dot the ten-frames with today’s number (date)
** Tally today’s number
** Determine whether today’s number is even or odd
** Mark today’s season
** Dot the today’s number as money
** Complete the sequence
(Each sheet also has a number line).
** There are also simple equations and counting exercises that are unique to each sheet. So, don’t let your kindergartener get caught sliding this summer. Keep them engaged with these FUN, hands-on activities!
Are you getting ready to start sight words? You are going to LOVE the ULTIMATE SIGHT WORDS Bundle and MORNING WORD WORK. Click on the pictures, or links, to see how your children can have FUN while learning to be GREAT readers and spellers!
