Teaching Two » writing

July Calendar- Writing & Reading Activities

Anne — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 13:19:49 +0000

I got such great feedback from my June math calendar that I decided to make one for July that gets them working on their reading and writing skills. I went ahead and did it since I am scheduled to have the baby on the 24th. Ashlyn has really enjoyed the math activities we have been doing. I gave her a spiral notebook she calls her “Math Journal” and she does each daily activity in there. Once she completes one, she puts a sticker on her chart.

I plan on doing the same thing with the July calendar. I choose activities that she would enjoy and some might not be available for everyone. Feel free to modify it (here’s the word file) to whatever works for you and your child.

Get more ideas like this over at Homeschool Creations.

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Ocean Day

Anne — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:12:04 +0000

Ashlyn has been sick for a couple of days now and I am going stir crazy having to stay in the house. So last night after the girls went to bed I decided to plan another themed day. They loved the camping day I did last summer so today is Ocean Day at our house. It doesn’t compare to the camping unit because I am 9 months pregnant and only thought of this at 9:00 at night. But I think it will be fun. Here is what they are doing:

We started outside to beat the heat with a sink or float center. I gave them some items in a beach bucket to test. They had to predict before what it would do before putting it in. Then they had to record what happened by drawing a picture under sink or float.

Next we headed back inside to do a little reading on the “beach”. I put a beach towel down with some chairs. I put a bucket of beach and ocean themed books in a bucket for them to choose from. Then I added sunglasses, pool toys, and hats to pretend with.

After reading, the girls went to a pocket chart/word making center. I found a cute pocket chart rhyme and then put two white boards out and some letter tiles. They could read the rhyme and change what animal swam by them. Then the other person could either write it on the board (which they love to do) or spell the animal with the tiles. They took turns and stayed at this center longer than I thought they would.

Movie Center- Ashlyn’s fever started to go up again so I let them watch Finding Nemo. As the movie went on her fever continued to climb so we will have to finish the rest of the activities another day. Here is what else I had planned.
Discovery Table- I had a water table set up with lots of mermaids in it. They love playing with these in the bathtub.
Math- Shell Sorting- I had tons of shells set up for them to sort through. They love looking at all the different shells and telling me how they are the same.
Reading/Art-Then I was going to read them Mister Seahorse and have them paint a seahorse with sponges. Once they dried we were going to use q-tips to paint dots on him.

Hopefully my girl will feel better soon!

Want More…

Check out some of the Ocean Themed posts at Along the Way, including 3 Ocean-themed weeks. There are lots of great pictures and lessons on the alphabet, shapes, counting, and art.

Go to Homeschool Creations to see more Preschool activities.

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Interactive Journaling

Anne — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:35:13 +0000

Every morning I used to write a morning message to my girls. They loved this but now I am trying something a little different. I gave Ashlyn a journal and wrote her a short letter, just a few sentences. I left it on her desk in her room and when she woke up she read it and instantly wrote me back. It has been great for communicating with her what we are doing that day, how special she is, and how much I love her. I wanted it to be more personal between the two of us. Every time she reads a letter I can see her eyes light up with pride.

It is also great for sneaking in writing skills such as proper letter writing, punctuation, and writing complete sentences. I don’t correct her spelling because I want her to feel free about what she will write. Let me know if you try it with your kids.

BECOME A FACEBOOK FAN OF TEACHING TWO!!!

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Using E-mail as a Learning Tool

Anne — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:05:36 +0000

My Dad and Ashlyn are very close but he lives in North Carolina and we live in Florida. He sends them letters and gifts in the mail and they talk on the phone quite a bit but Ashlyn loves e-mailing him. It has been great for practicing writing sentences and using punctuation. Plus she is getting keyboard practice and they are growing closer. He is good about writing her back right away and she gets so excited to read it. Here is an example e-mail.

I hope you are having a great time walking your dog mose in the morning. I love you to. How are you doing?

Love,
ashlyn

And here’s his reply.

What a nice surprise to get an email from you. Yes I am having a good time with Mose . He and I walk to the top of Beaver Dam Mountain and back down. We pick up trash from the road and recycle the aluminum cans and throw away the rest. We hike about 5 1/2 miles round trip.

The weather has been cold in the morning but pretty nice in the afternoon. It is supposed to get pretty cold this weekend. I am going to have to wrap Mose’s dog house in a blanket so he will stay warm.I might have to put an extra blanket on my bed.

Say hello to Mom, Dad and Emily for me. Mose said to say hello to Reilly.

Loved hearing from you.

Love,
Popa

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A Few Simple Activities

Anne — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:01:44 +0000

Here are a few simple activities that my girls did in “room time” yesterday. I wrote numbers on clothes pins and then gave Emily number cards. I had her match the clothes pins with the number cards.

Ashlyn is starting kindergarten in a couple of weeks (sigh) so I had her write about it. She has a word journal she uses for big words she can’t sound out. I wrote kindergarten in it and she did the rest herself! I thought her picture was so cute. She told me she is standing at the door to the classroom with her backpack on. She is very excited! I have Ashlyn free write about once a week and then I date them. Eventually I plan on taking pictures of them all and then turning them into a book.

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Emily’s Picture

Anne — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:27:57 +0000

My youngest daughter Emily has become very interested in drawing and writing in the past week. Every night after I read her a story she wants to draw on her white board that is in her room. Here is a picture she drew tonight.

I am the big headed one and she is the little one. In the picture she said she is trying on my high heeled shoes. She wrote her name and Mommy too! Not bad for just turning 3.

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Friday Showcase-Dot Art

Anne — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 02:57:41 +0000

I love Dot Art. There are so many things you can do with them. Here are a few things we have been doing this week. I have so many more ideas to do with Dot Art just not enough time to get them all done.

We made birthday cards! Make sure you use thicker paper or it will go through.

Ashlyn made a rainbow using a paper plate cut in half.

Emily had to put the correct number of dots in each box.

Emily loved tracing her name.

Check out more Friday Showcase crafts here.

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Works For Me Wednesday- Morning Message

Anne — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 02:43:37 +0000

Every morning when I taught first grade I would write a “Morning Message” to my students on a white board. It would always start “Today is …” and then the day and date. Then I would write about what we were talking about today and where we were going for specials (art, music, PE, computer) I would end my message with some positive sentence about the day.

One morning last year when my daughter was 4 I wrote her one. She loved it and I’ve been doing it ever since. I start with “Today is… ” and then write the day and date. I let her know what we will be doing that day and where we will be going. I also let her know how excited I am to spend the day with her and tell her that I love her. On some days, I have her circle her different sight words or underline all the capitol letters. Last week I started spelling words wrong and having her correct them.

She loves waking up and reading the plan for the day. It lets her know what to expect and also gives her daily reading practice. Here is a message she wrote back to me last year around Easter time. Not bad for a 4 year old. See if you can read what it says. Mouse over the picture to see if you are right.

Here are a few other resources for teaching children to write.

Check out more Works For Me Wednesday posts.

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Handwriting Paper

Anne — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:47:03 +0000

A friend of mine asked me if I knew of anywhere online to print beginnning handwriting paper so I started Googling. I found this great website that has all different grade level handwriting paper as well as printable prewriting papers. Enjoy!

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Create Fun Fonts

Anne — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:31:37 +0000

Have your kids practice writing letters and turn them into a font to use on your computer. Your Fonts is a free webservice that turns your hand-written fonts into a font file that you can use in any way you would use any other font.

All you have to do is print out the form, have your child (or you, because I know you’re gonna want to do this too.) fill in each letter, scan it, and send it back to Your Fonts. They convert it and give you a link to download the file. They also provide you with instructions for how to install your newly created font.

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