We spent a lot of time outside of the "classroom" this past week. We had our first field trip of the year with our home school group. Also our local library offered two events this week, a story hour and Lego club which the girls loved. To finish off the week we have a park day with our home school group on Fridays and then we head to the library to get movies for the weekend and books for school the next week and some just for fun reading. We did manage to get everything on my lesson plan done even with all the extra fun stuff.
On to sharing some resources....
When Lili was learning to read we had great success with a book set called Now I'm Reading. Lili went through level 1, 2 & 3. I am hoping Gabi enjoys them just as much since that is what I am getting reading to work on with her. The fact that it comes with stickers that you get as you read the books on your own should be good incentive. Gabi LOVES stickers! I found each set either on amazon or e-bay for a great price.
Lili is reading chapter books now and really likes the Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park. They are written in a silly way that has kept her attention long enough for her to realize that she really could read those "big kid books". We recently started our first book from the Magic Tree House series and she really seems to it. The chapters are quite short which I think is good for starting chapter books since there is a feeling of accomplishment after each chapter. I am reading the first one and hopefully she will be up for reading the next. The stories look to be full of adventure and imagination. Compared to Junie B. Jones I think the Magic Tree House would appeal a little more to both boys and girls.
We are using bookadventure.com again this year. It is a fun way to keep up with reading comprehension. Their prizes are not great but we just use the personal incentive program where I get to create certificates for prizes that I will provide as she reaches her goals. Not all prizes need to be a physical item, some are as simple as quality time together with mommy playing barbies or cooking.
I did some searching for online games and worksheets to use this past week and found some nice sites and thought I'd share them.
For anyone learning to read music, I came across these printable worksheets. I was looking for something to use as a fun refresher. Lili started playing the recorder and piano last year and I didn't get on her about practicing during the later part of the summer. I wanted to see how much she remembered before we jump back in. Her main goal is to be able to play Jingle Bells on both instruments for Christmas this year.
We haven't started working on times tables yet but we have started introducing multiplication so I found this site and thought I would save it for later in the year. Looks like it might be good for testing out times table knowledge. It is a simple website, more for drills not exactly a game.
We are working on root word, prefixes and suffixes. This site was a bit tough for Lili so might be better for older kids. There are games for learning and practicing root words, suffixes and prefixes. I am saving it for future use. I then found this site which was more on her level for the same topics but not as games just printable worksheets. But this site also has a lot more to offer on many other subjects so I will be back to see what else they have for us to use. I love having a lot of resources for free printable worksheets.
The 2nd week of school has come to an end. It was a fun week with beautiful weather and time spent out of the house with friends. The girls are enjoying school and most days are willing to get things done without much, if any, fuss. That leaves a happy mom who is ready to put in some work to get the lessons planned for next week.
Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.
~ Roger Lewin
No comments:
Post a Comment