Am I the only one who has to sing nearly the entire ABCs to figure out ABC Order sometimes? No, just me? For some reason, a lot of those letters are jumbled up in my brain. Especially j-n. I have to sing it every time for those letters. I’m not sure if practice would help…
Sometimes my kids think school is boring. Not always and not every lesson but overall, they’ve come to think of school as boring. And I hate that for them! Learning shouldn’t be boring! I’m not sure exactly where we are going wrong but I know that introducing more fun activities is going to…
I have on clear memory of learning math as a child. And it was when I had failed my first math test. It wasn’t actually even a test, it was an assessment to get into the gifted program that I was already in. But we had to retest every six weeks. I hadn’t just failed…
“One-ty one, one-ty two, one-ty three”. Yes, we renamed the teen numbers to be more in line with the rest of the numbers. And it sounds so weird. But it makes so much more sense. I could see the frustration all over Logi-Bear’s face. His eyes would well up with tears and he would clench…
Do you ever feel like your kids need a small review of previous lessons? I was reading with Royal the other day and he just plain forgot what sound -sh makes. He’s a great reader so I was a bit confused. I think he might have been having a brain fart, if you will, but…
Years and years ago, Baloo asked me to make addition with candy corn so I did, and he loved it. Its one of those things that we pull out every single year and enjoy. Royal and Logi-Bear love it now too, but Baloo is well beyond that. But he still loves Candy Corn (he’s crazy, although I…
We have a tradition on Thanksgiving where I print out activities (like this Thanksgiving Addition Game) and the boys have something to entertain them for that hectic 15 minutes while we are finishing the food and putting it on the table. The challenge for me is to create something that is entertaining enough that they…
I am excited for Thanksgiving this year. Honestly, holidays can be really hard for me, as they are for many people. I’ve found that by focusing on the kids and new traditions, the holidays seem easier. They are so full of wonder at this age and I find it easy to get enraptured in their…
When learning to read, it’s all about the tricks. They’re not really tricks, of course, more like little chunks of information to build upon. Digraphs are a chunk of their own, and quite an important chunk! After all, if you don’t learn that ‘sh’ doesn’t say sss-ha, you’ll never be able to figured out that…
What do you do with a child who thinks reading is amazing, pretends to read constantly, yet isn’t quite ready for sounding out words? You teach them sight words! I’m pretty much on board with teaching phonics and that’s how we taught both Royal and Baloo, primarily. We limit sight words and push through with…
Getting kids excited about reading by themselves can be tricky. We spend years and years reading to them and they don’t want that to stop (and rightfully so) but sometimes that also means they resist reading by themselves. My kids are not really motivated readers. They take some prodding. But with easy reader books that…
I have the harder time finding fun work for my older kids (especially Baloo, at 10). Sometimes he just wants something fun like his brothers! But if I make something just for him, I have two younger kids begging to join in. So when I can put something together that they can all use, it’s…