Teaching the ABC's to little ones

photo credit Microsoft Office

I have two children; one reads really well & the other doesn't - yet!
One has a keen interest in reading and  began to read before age 4. Now Ethan's almost 7! Of course, he had some help with a wonderful Christian pre-k daycare that was run by former Bible translator missionaries. They used some great tactics and introduced the alphabet to him by focusing on one letter a week. Each story, project, craft, and snack would then correspond with the letter of the week. Brilliant!

My other child, Claire, is now 4 and is home educated. She loves books, but hates to perform. It used to be that if you asked her a letter, she'd get shy and then mad that you asked her. We had to find some ways to teach the alphabet without making it seem like work. (We also had to deal with some letter confusion simply because she was learning French by immersion at the same time she was learning the American alphabet - same letters basically but a different sound!). She's doing great now, and it's likely due to consistency (mostly on my husband's part - God love him, he's so great!)

We found some great tools in Sonlight's curriculum. We use the Alphabet Bingo, and Go A to Z game (which is basically two sets of Alphabet flashcards that you play "Go Fish" with), and also a box of 25 simple readers called Fun Tales. They are very helpful. We sound out the letters as we read and point to them & she has fun when she can guess the whole word as she hears us complete the sounds (very Sesame Street-esque, I know!). 

from Sonlight (see link above)

 We also use workbooks from Walgreens or even Wal-mart. Oh, and she loves Curious George, so we bought a Curious George alphabet book too. We even use Starfall.com. We point out letters wherever we go. We sometimes trace letters in a pan of sand (or even rice).  Sometimes, I make soft baked pretzels and we shape them into letter shapes (or you can pour pancakes in letter shapes - put the batter into a plastic baggie, close it, and snip the corner to make it into a type of frosting/decorating dispenser, if you know what I mean.). 

bought elsewhere

 Our latest addition to our alphabet resources includes a book,
 The Sleepy Little Alphabet by: Judy Sierra.
Claire really loves this one since she is into anything that has to do with mommies and babies. There are capital letters in the book that are the parents to lowercase letters. She loves that we say that the mommy "T" tucks the baby "t" in bed. So this gave me an idea!

Here's what I did:
You know those paint strips they have at your Home Improvement store or even Wal-mart - the ones with different shades of the same color? Most people use them to create a color palate for their walls, well...

I took two sets of several colors (think I picked reds, blues, oranges, greens, and purples - so 5 sets, 2 of each color).

On one set I wrote a capital letter on each space and on the matching set I wrote the matching lowercase letters. I alternated sets as I went through the alphabet so that A, B, C, D, E were not all on one card (helps memory to learn out of order too). (I wrote a diagonal line between some like the lowercase "g" since I'd like our children to be able to recognize the "g" of one font and the "g" of another as the same sound and letter (see photo below).

Then I set aside the capital letter sets and cut apart only the lowercase ones so that what your left with is cards to match the lowercase letters with the capitals.

My custom-made Mommy & Baby Letter Match Game used with J. Sierra's book.

How to play our Mommy and Baby Letter Match Game:
You say the name of the letter and tell your child to put the baby letter with the mommy letter (if that's what works with your kid!). Then if they can't find it you give a hint, "It's on the red card," for example (that narrows down their guess to just 4 or 5 letters to choose from). You do this until all are matched and keep track of the ones they needed help with so that you know what to focus on later. We keep the cards in a plastic zipper bag. Claire loved this game and wanted us to find the letters in The Sleepy Little Alphabet book as we went along! Hope this helps your kiddos as much as it's helping Claire. Enjoy!

Blogs good for feeding our spirits

The Word is life-giving and feeds our spirits best when we have His word hidden in our hearts.

Love, love, love these ideas from the Blog: WHEN YOU RISE.

http://www.whenyourise.com/2011/09/writing-on-wall_14.html

These are super cool ideas for helping memorize scripture. Let's face it, it needs to be in ya! If it's in my heart it's helpful in the split second moments of trials. (There are great lessons on this Blog for teaching kids Bible truths too - good for home church for missionary kids or homeschool.)

I'd like to add, a perfect place to memorize scriptures is... ahem... "on the john." That's right, when you're a parent, sometimes the only quiet moment you get is in the bathroom (OK only a few quiet moments there because the kids seem to know when you've left the room and they come searching!).  I stick up whole lists of one-liner Bible phrases (in a sheet protector = easy to change without taking it down) that I'd like to know or pray for each day of the month. You can Google: "31 prayers for your children" (or husband) and find a printable list from Bob Hostetler at Revive Our Hearts. Or I also find it handy to stick up Bible index cards that focus on a principle that I need help learning (and that could benefit the kiddos too - if they can read it, they will!).

Another great tip came from one of my favorite Blogs: WOMEN LIVING WELL
/womenlivingwell.org/2011/09/a-vlog-demonstrating-my-bible-study-tips/

It's handy to keep track of all your index cards by putting them in the slots of an inexpensive photo album. Keep blank index cards in the slots in the back.

Hope these help & that you enjoy them.

Incredible boy!

The Parr family. From left to right: Elastigirl, Mr. Incredible, Violet and Dash. Bottom: Jack-Jack.

Picture thanks to Wikipedia & Pixar 2004 Movie The Incredibles.

I think this movie is so fun! Definitely a great "grown-up movie." We're waiting for the kids to be a bit older before letting them watch it again.

Anyway, the point of bringing up this movie is to because I really would like for someone to invent that indestructible sort of clothing/shoes that the character Dash requires since he creates an enormous amount of friction. Seriously! Can someone help us out with something like that?

Ethan loves to be on the move. He's bright and full of energy that I'd love to bottle. He's my incredible boy!

This school year we've gone through two pairs of sneakers (ok, well, three since we designated one for church).  This last pair got some good use but lasted maybe only 3-4 months. Take a look.

Yes that's light shining through. No it hasn't been this way for a long time. 

My boy is incredible for sure! Always on the move. Even when he's reading. Home school at work for the active brilliant types.

Yes, reading upside down is allowed at our house. Fun!

Homeschool Fun - Counting Activity for little ones

We're trying to teach Claire how to count & she's got 1-5 down, but beyond that it's fuzzy for her. What can you say! She's just turned three in February. She's doing great. She picks up on a ton of things we might not even notice, but numbers? Not yet.

Here's a fun tactile tool we're using now:

Egg Crate Counting.

I learned this from someone else, but can't remember who (sorry & thank-you!). You put numbers in the bottom of the egg crate and let the little one fill them up with the right amount of items (dry beans, popcorn kernels, buttons, etc.). An older one can count correctly for them while the younger drops in each item being counted.

In France we can get eggs in a crate of ten (not 12) and that just happens to be perfect for what we want her to learn! Since the egg carton is clear, I used colored dots stickers (the kind you can find at an office supply store- they are useful for so many things!) to help the number show up. It worked nicely because I was able to use one color for the first 5 numbers and another color for the next set of 5. Once she learns the basics, we might just have to get a set of 18 or 30 eggs. :-)  Here's some pics:

Family fun - bonding over math! Counting basics 1-10.

Putting one kernel in 1, two kernels in 2, three kernels in 3, etc.
You can also just put one in each number slot and then dump them out and count them up at the end. 

She did great up to 6 this time! We'll keep working on the others as long as she enjoys it.

Homeschool Management - Organized School Books

Organizational Tip/Activity: (good for the kids and my sanity!):

Let's face it, life at home runs better when it's a bit organized (I know some of you are cringing!) and when there's less visual clutter.  At least life runs better in my home this way. *smile*


Well, for each school year, there are a ton of books that come from Sonlight (this is the curriculum we plan to use in Africa - it's easy to mix with other things, so we've heard - you can find the link at the bottom to see for yourself).

WELL, WHAT DO YOU DO WITH ALL THOSE BOOKS?


To keep the chaos to a minimum, we color-coded our books (another helpful home school tip I learned from a Sonlight mom). This helps us keep track of books we're currently using and ones we're done with for the year.

It helps keep clutter at bay when the kids can easily help put things away.


The kids can even help put the stickers on. This is where those lovely dot stickers (pictured above in the egg crate counting game) come in handy. You can get them in a lot of colors. If you want to do more than maybe 6 colors you might consider using the white dots and having your kids color them certain colors - we put clear tape over all the dots to help them stick to the book binding.

Here's How To Label Your Books:
Each reading level (or grade level) gets it's own color sticker with the grade number on it. At the end of the year, if the next child is not using that level, you put all the grade 2 books in a grade 2 box, for example, for storage until the next child reaches grade/level 2.

Our  Level 1 (basic little kids read to me books/ just learning to read books) ended up with a yellow sticker.

Our Level 2 (I can read for myself but might need help books) ended up with a blue sticker.

Our Level 3 (I can read simple chapters books) ended up with a red sticker.


And so on... You decide what categories work for you.


This color coding helps the little kids be able to help put books back in the right place too. They don't need to know numbers to help put books back on the shelf. They just put the yellow dotted ones in the same spot and the red dotted ones next to other red dotted ones. It's great! Here's a pic of some of ours. 

This might sound overboard for some, but if you literally end up with hundreds of books - it helps!

Disclaimer: The books pictured above are not from Sonlight. We started labeling our own collection and had it done when the box of Sonlight books arrived so it wasn't as overwhelming. This idea of color-coding books could work well for any library for home-schooling though.

If you want to see what Sonlight is like you can check it out for yourself: http://www.sonlight.com/

We have not started the curriculum yet - two years worth of it, for each kid, is already packed for Africa (ready to go into our shipping container)! We got lots of recommendations for this one from fellow missionaries.

Homeschool Management - Easy Labeling Tip

Easy Labeling Tip: (stop the squabbling over home school tools)



Our kids need to feel a special ownership over their home school items. Kids who leave the house for school have special stuff (backpack, pencils, lunch box, etc.) why not home schoolers too?

Well, someone a long time ago on a blog shared with us a nice way to help our kids feel a sense of ownership and keep track of their items too. It involves colored electrical tape. Bizarre, I know - but it works.

(Again, sorry and thank-you to whoever came up with this. I'm going to start paying attention to who writes what in order to give credit on my blog.)


Each kid gets their own color tape (we bought ours at a home improvement store in the States).  Every school item, pencil, tape, scissors, notebooks, etc. gets a strip of their colored tape. They learn their color and recognize their items around the house. They feel happy to see their color and know it belongs to them. It really helps with squabbles over whose is whose too.

Claire's color is purple - This is her pencil.

For older kids, there's the possibility of building even more responsibility for their items when the items need to be monetarily redeemed from the Lost & Found basket. If an item is laying around, it gets picked up by a parent and put away in the the L&F basket. When the child finds he/she needs it, they have to pay a nickel to get it back. Our kids are not old enough for this yet, and we have not yet introduced ways for them to earn money, but when they are older we might try this. For now, we simply say, "It has your color, you are responsible to put it away".

Homeschool Fun - Tactile Tracing

Tracing Activity: (for the tactile learner)

We're working on tracing capital letters. Introducing one a week. Younger kids are not ready to write yet, but you can begin to work their smaller fine motor skills muscles by tracing in a large space. (Play-dough is good to build those muscles too.)

You can have them trace one letter that takes up a whole sheet of paper or have them trace it with their finger in a pan of sand. We use rice, because it's on hand. Here's a pic of Claire tracing over the letter "N," that I made, with her finger. 

Homeschool Fun - Heart Chart Lessons in Virtues

The kids are learning a lot. Ethan goes to French pre-K to learn French (and they are teaching him French cursive!) and he seems to be doing great. Claire is completely home-schooled (she's 3 and will go to French pre-K in September to learn some French too, but we might just do a half-day). She's currently learning the letter "M" and is starting to recognize some numbers and letters here and there. I'm so proud of my kiddos! They are so curious and excited to make friends. They had very little adjustment to work through in coming to France. Praise the Lord!

So this is my first entry about some of our homes school projects or ideas. I want to remember them and maybe others can profit from these posts too. I like to be creative and think I have some capability, but really I don't have a ton of time to invent new things for the kids to do, so I quickly search things online (using my creative juices to choose good projects). A lot of what we do, I've borrowed - I can not take credit for it.

This first one comes from the Women Living Well Blog (I have a button for it on my site - check it out!).

So a Heart Chart is a way to track your child's progress pertaining to a certain virtue. I made a grid by using colored electrical tape on a dry erase board.

Our virtue last month was Kindness. They had to work together as a team. If they were kind (polite, helpful, caring) they could earn a heart that they would draw in one of the squares on the dry erase marker board. If they were mean or rude, they would lose a heart. By the end of the month, they filled the chart and earned their reward. They got to choose what kind of ice cream pops they wanted.

Claire age 3 & Ethan age 5 (almost 6).

This month we are working on Obey Right Away. It might be a long month, but it will be worth the effort. We're in the process of sculpting souls. Ministering to my kids is important - it is well worth the effort.

Ethan seems to like school here

Ethan has been home-schooled for a while now. We have been reading to him regularly since he was a baby. We've worked with him a lot at home & he also had a great boost in education when he went part of the day to child care while we were in Texas attending linguistics classes. We're very proud of him. He's great a math for his age. He's very curious and that often serves him well. He once, after understanding simple addition and subtraction, asked me a question that revealed he had figured out basic multiplication on his own. He learned how to read in English before he turned four. So he's super fast! He now reads at a third grade level even though he's only five.

What he's reading now: Tree House Mystery (Lions at Lunchtime), The Littles, and Stewart Little.

Practicing writing in English

So he does really well for his age in a lot of areas. I'm trying not to brag on him, but I need paint this picture for you to be able to explain what happens when people enter a new language and culture. When we first arrived in France, our normally out-going and talkative boy would sit quietly in French Sunday school class. He came out at the end of class and told me, "Mom, I didn't say a thing because I didn't want them to know that I don't speak French." My heart just sank. Poor kid feels just like I do in certain settings here, only he's had very little input to prepare him for it. Of course, we told him ahead of time that no one would understand him because they don't speak English here. Maybe we didn't think to mention how it would feel to not be able to say anything back even though we've been practicing French at home with him and Claire for months. We have videos, songs, books, and even Rosetta Stone on the computer to help them learn. These are all a huge bonus, but nothing will prepare you for speaking another language like being thrust into a place where that's all you can do!

Rosetta Stone - Level One French

We were a bit concerned that he might not like going to French public school here either. He didn't cry like I thought he might when we dropped him off the first time. When we picked him back up he told us he had learned Sumo Wrestling and even won three times! I thought that meant that he got into a fight on his first day of school in another country, but as the days went on we figured out that it was an adult supervised sport in the gymnasium. Funny. After a few days, Ethan was actually able to tell me a few kids names. This is an amazing feat for my kid, because he rarely knows kids' names even in the US - he just knows that the kid is his friend. So when he came home talking about another kid, I was overjoyed.

Turns out that when people (even kids) are thrust into a strange & unfamiliar situation, they learn to survive or thrive.

I think that these first few days of school in France forecast a bright future for our boy. He loves going to school because there are other kids to play football (soccer) with, and his class gets to go ice skating twice a week for a while. Not only does he love school now, but he also is picking up a great French accent on the words he does know - it blows me away!

In front of  what they call Pre-K (Ecole Maternelle)