Tots on a Tuesday {sentence building - FREE PRINTABLE!}

As I mentioned, last week, I am beginning an "experimental" stage of my educating role.

I am working with sight reading over phonics, just to see if it both helps my "early reader", and also if it kickstarts my non-reader.

So far, it's been going well! It's instantly giving my reader a lot of courage, and she is fast identifying the sight words she had previously struggled to identify.  That ALONE I consider success! Add to that the enthusiastic and speedily gained ability of my non-reader, to identify several of the words we have been learning, and you have a double whammy of early success.

Without a doubt, the use of repetition, and picture association, helps massively.  I think my non-reader could almost tell you it by memory.  I'm no dozer, though.  That is NOT reading - that's memorising.  He CAN, however, identify words if you ask him out of context.  Enter my newly created, printed, and laminated word "strips".  I figured that if repetition was undoubtedly going to be a key factor in this new reading malarkey, then I was going to make it fun and interesting! As my non-reader can't write, I needed a non-written way to reinforce.  The printed words, for him to replicate the sentences, seemed the obvious choice.



We sat together, looking back over the reading he had done.  I spread the words out on the floor (yes, the floor - who needs tables, right?...) and he was to find them for himself, and copy the sentences from the book.

I had TOTALLY forgotten how much joy and EXCITEMENT this kinda' thing can create for a small person - how incredibly thrilled and overjoyed he was to copy the sentences for himself!  It was a huge hit, and he would have stayed up all night copying all the sentences in the book, but, alas, it was bedtime!

Mean mother, making him SLEEP, instead of WORKING!

Yes, I forgot, also, how they don't realise it's work, to begin with - I DO remember that fazes pretty jolly quickly....

In the meantime, I am going to enjoy pressing on with this approach, and seeing these two little treasures learn to read!

I'm all for spreading joy, so if you think it may be of use to you, I have created a printable for you, of the words used in set "1" of the Key Words Ladybird reading scheme. Not everyone has these books, but I know they are out there, used by many over the years! I will list the words for you, so you know if they will be useful in your own education setting, before you bother to download them.  I will also create more as we go through, so, by the time we are at the last set of books, you would have most of the commonly used "sight words" to print and use.

I have created the printable over 4 pages, to include repeats of the more commonly used words, so there are plenty to use.  Just click on the image to get to the document, then print it off as you need it.  I hope they are of use to someone!

I will continue to update as we carry on with the Key Words scheme - so far, so good!

Tots on a Tuesday {chick printable}

I want to start sharing with about some of the activities I do with my younger children, of pre-school and early years age.  There are many things that I have found to have both fantastic play and educational value.  I think that it's good to share, so that's what i plan to do!

Today, you have the added bonus of being my "guinea pigs" - I am sharing my first ever set of printables! So, please have grace if things are not perfect! I have tried to pick up on any errors and sort them out, but please let me know if I have missed anything.

When I was recently at The Range (a large store with LOADS of craft/home items of all sorts - LOVE IT), and they had cute little packs of craft style chicks, for £1 per pack of 8. They CALLED to me.  They said "I could be very useful - BUY ME"! Of course, I did.  *aherm*

Cute, yes?

 I was looking at them today, and thought "you could be part of something wonderful".

I have been working on identifying numbers with my younger children, and these chicks seemed the ideal candidate to become a fun, soft, cute little manipulative.  I began with the concept of cards, with pictures and numbers.

I thought these could be used with the chicks, and the child can place the right number of chicks to match the picture and number.

Like so..

I also printed the number words to match the numbers (1-10), which can also be matched up.

You can also see (just about, amongst my spots on teh tablecloth!!) that I have little circle "counters" with the chicks printed individually.  If you didn't have the craft type chicks, these could be used instead.

I also produced little cards with just the chicks on them, in groups of 1 to 10.

If you printed two sets of these you could play "pairs" - the memory games - or snap. 

I also thought you could use these as a clothes pin activity, matching peg with the correct number, to the picture with the right number of items. 

I already had the pegs with the numbers written on them, and added the printed chicks.

You could also use the pegs to match the numeral with the number word.

At the moment, I have no cute pictures of my children using these, because they are fresh off the press! As with any printables that I use, I have laminated them for durability. You could do it on card, especially if you don't want to be able to see the picture or words through the back.

There may be other ways to use these cute chickie items, and feel free to share anything you do with them! 

You can find the printable here. As I mentioned before, let me know if there are any problems or errors.  

Enjoy!

FREE Printable - {alphabet theme}

I wanted to share a quick post about one of the learning resources that I have found. Actually, it's more RE-found.

I have been thinking ahead to Abi starting school officially in September, and wanted to get a head start with some alphabet and letter sound identification.  I had started by getting a great app for the iPad. It's called "Eggy Alphabet" and ties in with the award-winning "Reading Express" programme. It's a great app, which teaches them letter sound, formation and identifying the sound at teh beginning of words.  I will review it more thoroughly when I finally get around to doing my app reviews tab.  *aherm*

I wanted some non-media learning, too.  I was browsing through my newsfeed on FB this week, when my eye caught the Confessions of a Homeschooler updates.  I got down a rabbbit trail of looking at her website again, and found this printable.


Erica has a fabby website, and FB page, called Confessions of a Homeschooler.  She has created some very lovely free printables, particularly for pre-school aged children.  There are a lot of alphabet based activities, and she even has some curriculum you can purchase for VERY little money.  I so appreciate the effort that people like Erica go to, to share these things with other Mums, and so much for FREE.  All the time she must spend doing it is of a huge advantage to Mums like me, who have less creative genius!!

I found these alphabet block printables when looking at her alphabet themed activities which are based upon each letter of the alphabet.  The posts she has on the alphabet are just a FRACTION of the printables you get if you buy the curriculum.  It only works out at about £10, which I think is really great value.

I printed them out yesterday, and laminated them today. One had to wait for one's new laminator pouches to arrive. *aherm*

I already had these blocks to use with them, and they fit perfectly.  For those in the UK, you can also get them here (choose "mathematics" and then "manipulatives" and then "pattern blocks").  I like the Melissa and Doug set, as they are wooden and you also get their pattern boards to have fun with, too.  Well, for your CHILDREN to have fun with!

So, Elijah test drove them for me - after his bath tonight!!!

As you can see, he was rather pleased with his efforts!!

Erica also has a printable with a pattern line, using the same blocks. (You can find it if you look down the page on the link I shared above about the alphabet printable)  Abi had fun with these...

(she was so keen, I didn't even get to brush her hair, post-bath....)

There are 8 different patterns in all, and a line to make up your own. There are endless things you could do with these shaped bricks.  Please feel free to share if you have done anything else with them, or know of a website that shows us what you can use them for!

So, there we have it.  Part of my creative efforts for the last couple of days.  I also printed and laminated something else, but I will tell you about it next week, as I need to iron out an imperfection I spotted in my printable I have made, and want to fix it before I share the file with you all! Erm, well, I will share it at SOME point.... I have a love story to finish first..... *whistles* (or else I will be cyber-lynched by many people....)

  

Sharing on a Saturday

I am a Scot.  In case you didn't know.

Scots like to be frugal, and so when we find something that is FREE, it's a golden moment.

I am also a Christian.  In case you didn't know.

Christians share.

So, I am sharing.

Here are a few freebie resources, particularly for homeschoolers, but would be great for any involved parent.

This first one is  freebies from Heart of Wisdom.  They have many different ones, ranging from a free digital scrap-booking resource, to check-lists,  to printable games.  Have a look, and I am sure something will catch your eye.  I am particularly thrilled with the "ABC Bible Verse" handwriting practice sheets.  They are in my preferred Bible version, which is the KJV.  Remember to click through on each "freebie", as there are sometimes multiple things under each heading, which you can utilise. This week, I used the information from an excerpt from their Internet-linked Ebook on Egypt, which covers the 10 plagues and their significance in regard to Egyptian religion.

Would you like a little look at the cake I made for our home-school group, as we were studying Egypt on Thursday?

It was a bit of a rush job, as I only decorated whilst the children ate their tea on Wednesday.  You can get the general gist of what it is, though?! :-)

This next website is one I found just today, via Writeshop's Facebook page. The page is called "E is for Explore".     It's an absolute wealth of fantastic ideas for homeschooling, or for a parent who wants to create fun learning opportunities in the home, outside of school.   If you look at the column on the right, there are tags for the different topics, and you just click and look to see what they have.  There are SO many fun ideas, and I am thrilled because I found a brilliant activity for our next homeschool family get together.  Woohoo!

The last one is an epic find.  I am thrilled to bits.  We use the Oxford Reading Tree books for our early readers.  They enjoy the stories about Biff, Chip and Kipper. (I have always thought their names to be a bit weird, but there is more than likely some educational benefit in them....moving on...) There is a website where you can go and pick a book, and them you have interactive pages where they can be read aloud to your children, or your children can read them for themselves.  Also, there are activity pages to go with the stories, and you can print things as well.  SO, go on over to Oxford Owl and see if you can find something your child would like to read! They are categorised by age, book type, or the series the book is from (eg Oxford Reading Tree, Songbirds phonics).  I am not entirely sure, but am FAIRLY sure that it is accessible to those outside of the UK, as I can't imagine why it WOULDN'T be! If it is, Americans can merrily enjoy the sound of a British voice whenever they like! *chuckles*

So, there we have it - some freebies to cheer your day.  Here they are again.

Heart of Wisdom

E is for Explore

Oxford Owl

Enjoy!