Great Handwriting Suggestions from Urth Mama

I just came across the Urth Mama blog's great post on handwriting apps. The only one I've tried is Wet-Dry-Try from Handwriting Without Tears, but they all look really good. Click here to check out her great reviews!

The other great find from her post is this stylus made for kids using the iPad! It's listed on Amazon here. I've been really wanting something like this so my son can practice his correct pencil grip while practicing handwriting.

Lazy Summer Reading Ideas

Sometimes we all need a little help to get moving with summer learning. Here are some great (mostly free) ideas I've come across recently. 

Motivation! 
One of the favorite things I've found so far comes from Plenty of Picnics. They're called Summer Brain Time punch cards. I love them because I can say to my son, "Let's do some brain time!" and our reward for that is a punch on our Summer Brain Time card. I say "our" because I need a little motivation to focus on learning, too! Then when we fill out a card, we get to have a treat together like popcorn and a movie or ice cream. Here's the link to print out your very own Summer Brain Time cards! 

Summer Online Resources:
Summer Reading Resources for Kids 2012 from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas is an amazing compilation of summer reading programs!!

A Mom with a Lesson Plan: idea for collecting book reports and rewarding with money towards Scholastic book orders in the fall!

Help for Struggling Readers :great compilation of ideas

The Measured Mom: Can You Read 100 Books This Summer? 

Education.com: Do-It-Yourself Summer Reading and printouts

3 Dinosaurs Summer Printable Round Up: Lots of great ideas!

Growing Book by Book Table talk cards - topics to talk about at the dinner table or on a road trip!

Small Types: Alphabet Summer and Reading and Writing on the Road

Games for Summer:

* Lots more on my Pinterest boards!

Good for all levels:

PirateAttack (readingresource.net): Students discover pirates and treasure by identifying sounds/letters, reading sight words, or defining vocabulary words 

PlayingWith Plates:  Write sight words, word families, vocab words, or letters on small paper plates. Put them on the ceiling or floor and search for them in the dark with a flashlight. Fling them like Frisbees. Throw balls or balloons in them and read the words they land on. Sort the word family plates into words that rhyme (-at family = cat, bat, sat, mat, that).

                                                

MuffinTin Games: From one of my new favorite sites, Growing Book by Book. They are similar to the plate games but using a muffin tin and post-its or paper muffin cups. Use pennies or hard candy to toss into the cups or play a tic-tac-toe type game. 

Treasure Hunt: Hide short phrases around the house so kids can read and follow the clues. You can purchase the game Ukloo to do the same thing.

Pre-Readers:

Memory or matching games with Letters/Pictures/Rhymes

Readinga-z.com and reading-tutors.com have lots of resources for letters, rhyming, and sight words - print out the free samples!

Beginning Readers:

Word Family Mats from The Measured Mom

Flip-It Down Basic 

Zingo Sight Words bingo game:

Advanced:

Flip-It Down Advanced 

Hockey 

Great Sites for Free Printable Games and Word Lists:

·        Mrs. Perkin’s Dolch Words:  Lists of all levels of sight words plus much more!

·     Flocabulary.com:  Vocabulary word lists, SAT vocab lists, rapping program

·        Teachers Pay Teachers: just search for free items and the grade level you want – don’t be afraid to sign up, it’s easy and free

·        Primary Inspiration

·        Reading Resources

·        The Measured Mom: - sight word easy readers, word family mats, all sorts of good stuff

·        1 Plus 1Plus 1 Equals 1:  Lots of printables, especially for packets with popular themes from toddler to kindergarten level

·        Reading Tutors and Reading A-Z: Many free samples for learning letters and sight words

·        Reading Rockets printable family packets and parent articles

Books to Inspire You:

Games for Reading by Peggy Kaye

Book Love by Melissa Taylor

I Can Teach My Child to Read by Jenae Jacobson

The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

Reading Magic by Mem Fox

Playing with Plates

Okay people, I am getting down to the bare bones for you. You are a busy parent who has no time to plan out wonderfully enriching ideas for your youngster. Don't worry. I've got your back. All you need is a Sharpie marker and some paper plates. If you need some inspiration on what words to choose, you can check out http://dolch-words.com. If your kiddo isn't ready for sight words yet, use letters. By the way, the importance of sight words is that they are the tricky words you can't always sound out. It is hugely helpful as you learn to read if you can recognize these words by sight.

Option 1:  Go into a dark room and ask your kiddo to find a word with a flashlight. You know they all love using flashlights! Some creative Pinterest people have even mounted words on the ceiling for this!

Option 2: Use pennies or a soft ball to have your kids throw them onto the plates. Whichever ones they land on, they read.

Option 3: lay out a few p,ages while you're reading. Every time you come across one of the words, your child puts a paper clip or penny on the plate. In the spirit of competition, see which word "wins" by showing up the most times in the book.

Option 4: Frisbee time!  If they can read the word, they get to fling the plate. See which word gets the farthest!

Great Early Reading Resources!

I've said it before and I will say it again. I am just astounded and humbled by the amount of amazing work that mom and teacher bloggers are sharing for free on their blogs. I honestly don't know where they find the time to do all of this! Just learned about this fantastic resource from This Reading Mama . It's a Reading the Alphabet Pre K curriculum. Now don't be scared off by the word "curriculum." It doesn't mean you have to put in tons of extra work and preparation time. It just means that someone else has thought about what would work best and in what order. You can pick and choose whatever works for you. Just glancing though it, I saw a cute song to teach the word "the" - grab that if nothing else! Perfect for those of you who want to start reading activities with your little learners but aren't sure where to start. If you click on this post here, you can download all of the files via a zipfile. Thank you, Reading Mama! 

This curriculum is also mentioned in one of my favorite blogs for learning, The Measured Mom. If you have not already subscribed to get her emails, I do not know what you are waiting for. They're perfect for the early learner set. She is starting to create these great, FREE emergent readers for sight words. As you probably know, sight words are those words we just have to learn by sight so we can read them automatically without thinking. When we do, it makes reading soooo much easier. Click here or on the picture for her newest books for the word the. 

Wild About Rhymes Freebie!

Sometimes I find freebies that just fit so well into what parents need that I just have to share with you. This is a perfect "I only have 5 minutes!" game!!! The extra special thing about this game, found on Heather's Heart blog, is that you can do it when your kid is at different levels. The easiest is when they can just use the pictures to rhyme and you do it together. The hardest would be having them do it themselves and then complete the rhyming pages and sentence page on their own. Just click on the link on her blog to download. Thanks Heather!

Free App Friday - Sight Words Hangman!

Time for another App review! This one is good because you could actually (gasp!) do this the old-fashioned way with your sight word flash cards, pen, and paper. However, if you have an iPhone or iPad, by all means, download it for FREE today!

The reason a sight word is called a sight word is because usually you just have to memorize it. Once you get it and it's automatic, reading becomes much easier. I would recommend this App for kids who seem just about ready to read and beyond. It will definitely be frustrating for those who do not have a start on reading. But you could do it together if they like the game. It's a super cute little game that lets you choose the difficulty level of sight word lists and then asks kids to pick the sight words out of a group of words. If they get it right, they go on to the next one. If they get it wrong, the hangman gets a part drawn on him. They also have a flash card option where the kids can hear the words read to them, or you can turn the sound off and they can try reading the words by themselves.

As always, if you want to check out the other free apps of the week, visit BestAppsForKids.com. Sadly, they just updated their review of Endless Alphabet to reject it. Apparently, they've started putting ads in the app and you have the option to pay to get the ads removed. Bummer!

Really Helpful Parent Handouts

Again, I am thankful for the amazing amount of resources available to you for free on the web! I am very impressed with Kayla from Primary Junction for generously creating and sharing these parent handouts on helping your young learner read, write, spell, and do math! Download the packet for free (even in Spanish!) at Teachers Pay Teachers here.

I just found another great resource from Primary Junction! Kayla did a great article on the phonics rules that are actually useful most of the time! Visit her article and get the free download here. I was just talking to a friend the other day about which "rules" she could teach and how to go about doing it. All I can say is games, games, games and teachable moments. When you are reading beginning readers with your child, you can point out some of these rules or keep a little poster with illustrations nearby to help them remember the most important ones. If you do the pictures or diagrams together, they can be silly and crazy and the kids will connect to them that much better.I honestly had to make up a story for myself when I was little that "T" was not as good as "S." That's the only way I could remember which came first in the alphabet! You can do similar things with these rules.