Literacy Launchpad

New Child's Play Books!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 22:01:00 +0000

I love seeing Child's Play's big brown box of books show up on my porch every few months. The kids and I get to test drive new titles and see what we think. Child's Play is an independent publisher, specializing in whole child development, learning through play, life skills, and values. Their stuff is so pretty and fun. The latest additions to their collections got a thumbs up from us! Check it out.

The What's That board book series encourages guessing, prediction, and memory skills. Four titles in the series include CHOO! CHOO!, SNAP! SNAP!, TAP! TAP!, and TOOT! TOOT!. What's that noise? Lift the flap and find out! Lift the flap books are my go-to's with little ones. Always a hit! Familiar themes and vibrant illustrations will mean many, repeated, and fun-filled readings.

The Seasons board book series has a separate charm all its own (Titles include Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter). Each season has something special about it, and in these books you get to explore each one. You will follow these whimsically illustrated children as they spend time discovering the joys of indoor and outdoor play. And the durability of these board books means you can tote them around with you in each season and read them indoors or out!

We also read a couple new Child's Play picture books and they were adorable! Crunch! by Carolyn Rabei features the cutest little guinea pig named Crunch. He loves to eat and is shocked when a mouse named Cheddar asks to share his food. Trade for a hug? Nope. But Crunch ends up regretting his decision and sets out to find the hungry little mouse.

The last book was Ailsa Burrow's The Jar of Happiness. In this sweet book, Meg shares her "jar of happiness" with friends when they are down and need a little lift. Then one day the jar goes missing. Can she ever be happy again? But Meg's friends help her find new ways to be happy. We loved the super-cute cat in this story; he made us smile and giggle!

All books that are definitely worth your time and great additions to your library!

A Fun Thing to Do at the Library!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Dec 2013 17:35:00 +0000

I always struggle with ways to get my boys actively involved in book selection at the library. My oldest girl always begs to go to the library and keeps herself very busy searching for books while we're there. My two boys love reading books, but they often depend on me a little too much to pick out good books for them don't always put much effort into themselves on our library trips. My middle one is getting better bit by bit, but My Little Reader will still usually just quickly grab a few books to fill his bag and then want to go play with the trains or the computers.

This week we were all on a hunt for some new Christmas books to read (it was our Advent calendar activity for that day). I looked up some Christmas-y titles on the computer card catalog and starting browsing the shelves to find the books on my list.

My boys were wandering aimlessly so I enlisted their help. "Can you boys help me find this list of books? There's a lot of them. Work together and start by looking for 'E FON', then see if you find a Christmas book there." (I didn't write down all the book titles on my list.)

They were so excited to go hunting! My little guy wasn't able to find the call numbers himself, but with a little help from his big brother or from me, he could! Trying to then hunt out the Christmas title with that particular call number I gave them was like a treasure hunt. They were so proud of themselves with each book they found.

When we completed hunting out the books on our list, they begged me to make a new list so they could find some more. They seriously could have done that all day. And what great practice with their library skills and even practice with their alphabet and spelling.

To Have a Fun Library Book Hunt...

1. Choose a theme of books to look for (Holiday, Dogs, Back to School, etc.)

2. Do a computer catalog search and make a list of books to hunt for o
n the shelves. (You could involve your kids in this part too if you want.) Decide if you want to write down the book titles or just let your chosen theme guide your kiddos in hunting out the correct books.

3. Give your kids a list of the library call numbers your copied from the computer catalog. Or verbally tell your kids the call numbers as you go. If you want, you could write a few separate call numbers on separate sheets of paper and give one paper to each child. Let them race to find all the books on their list (if you trust them to not get too competitive and disruptive).

4. Assist younger children with this activity. It's great fun and helps them practice their alphabet and library skills. We sang the alphabet song a few times as we hunted for our books.

We Love Goodreads! How 'Bout You?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 23:59:00 +0000

Do you utilize any of the handy online tools or apps for readers? I admit, I'm not very tech savvy, but I do love Goodreads for keeping track of what both my kids and myself have been reading. Keeping track of what we read on Goodreads is useful because...

We homeschool, so I like to have our books recorded for academic record keeping. And I know I'm not going to misplace my Goodreads list like I might misplace a notebook, or even a document on my computer.

It gives the kids (and me) a feeling of accomplishment to look back over how many books we've read. My daughter and I participated in the Goodreads 2013 reading challenge this year and far surpassed our reading goals we set for ourselves. We're looking forward to setting a higher goal next year and really pushing ourselves!

It helps us identify what our reading interests are by observing patterns in what types of genres, authors and topics we tend to gravitate toward, and enjoy the most.

It helps us find new books we want to read. We can pull up our Goodreads account easily while we're at the library and find a book from our "want to read" list. Or we can get the name of that author whose book we loved, so we can find more stuff by them.

It's really easy to use. I have the app on my smartphone and every time I read a picture book (several times a day) with My Little Reader, I can punch it into my app and easily record it. I always have my phone with me, so I don't have to go hunting down a notebook or my computer to log each book we read, which means I'm less likely to forget to log a book.

I know Goodreads has a lot of features we don't even utilize yet. There are book clubs on there, and ways to explore new books to read, and you can converse and socialize with friends on your friend list about what you're reading. Honestly, I think my kids probably know how to use all that stuff better than me. My older two kids have their own accounts, so they take ownership in recording their own reading on there, and they use it to come up with new books to search for at the library.

I'm including a few photos here of some favorites that my boys and I read together recently (I'm sorry I haven't updated our family bookshelf on my sidebar in forever. It's on my to-do list.)

What other book apps and websites do I need to know about? I know there must be other good ones I'm missing out on!

Fun Books and Activities for October

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 14 Oct 2013 14:33:00 +0000

Need some quick ideas to make October a cool month of reading? Look no further! I've got a few for you right here!

Monster fun with Go Away, Big Green Monster!

Make your own books and story pieces of The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.

Enjoy the beautiful weather with some autumn reading adventures and Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.

Spider fun with The Itsy Bitsy Spider at home... or in the classroom.

Cool Stuff to do with Spooky Carrots.

Beautiful creations with Leafman.

New, Fabulous Halloween Book and Activity!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 05:16:00 +0000

Charlotte Gunnufson sent us a copy of her new book Halloween Hustle and the kids and I have been enjoying it immensely. I have actually had to get onto my kids a bit about them dragging the book all over the house (and out to the car on errand trips), before I got a chance to post a review while the book still looked nice and new!

I planned to sit down and read and play with the book today with My Little Reader since it's aimed at kids around his age (he's in kindergarten). But my older son (9) couldn't resist the fun and wanted to join us too!

I thought it would be fun to make our own little skeletons that could do the Halloween Hustle as we read the story, and fall down just like the skeleton in the book. My Little Reader decided he wanted to make a mummy like the one in the book. After some hard work, and a couple revisions, he had it the way he wanted. We each attached our creations to popsicle sticks for marionette-style puppets.

I used simple white yarn (because that's what I had in my craft cabinet) to attach the mummy and skeleton to the popsicle stick handles. We punched holes and used twisty ties (again, using what I had handy) to make the puppets' joints move so they could hustle.

Isn't that an adorable mummy? I think so!

The story is full of fun and whimsical Halloween-type characters that are headed to a party on Halloween night (warning: there is a zombie in the story that is a little on the gross side). While observing the cover, My Little Reader wondered how the skeleton would be able to dance without falling apart since he has no skin or muscles, and he was right on the money with his wonderings. Turns out the skeleton has quite the trouble staying put together as he dances through this tale.

The rhyming text makes it lots of fun. And we love that it has a happy ending for the skeleton.

And it really says something when my nine year old thinks a picture book is cool enough to sit and listen to mom read it.

The skeleton would be easy enough to use even without the string and popsicle sticks attached. You could make the jointed skeleton out of card stock and simply let your child hold him with his hands and make him dance. Be sure you use card stock - I don't think regular paper, or even construction paper, would be heavy enough to work very well.

I have included a pattern for the skeleton that I made (below). I do not have a pattern for the mummy My Little Reader made. But your little reader could make their own mummy, or could create a puppet based on another character in the book. You could make all the characters and do a puppet show of the story!

Check out the book trailer here!

And learn how to do the "Halloween Hustle" here!

Have fun! And I would love to see some pics of your puppets you make!

Kindergarten Book Talk

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 04:45:00 +0000

This weekend I had My Little Reader give a book talk on one of our recent library picks that he enjoyed.

Consider having your child record a book talk about one of their favorite books and let them share it with friends and family, or their classmates at school! Encourage them talk about books with others!

Sight Word Practice

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 05:01:00 +0000

I have never done much sight work with My Little Reader. But now that he's a kindergartner, it seems more important. And the trick to get My Little Reader engaged with what he's learning is to make it a game. So we keep our sight word practice fun, low-key, and low-pressure. He's only five, and I'm trying to remember that forcing him down the reading road before he's ready will do more harm than good long term.

Sight Word Memory is the game we started with. We're focusing on just five sight words to begin with. I made my own cards for the game out of index cards. My Little Reader decided to underline the words on the cards, because he was getting confused about which direction they were supposed to go.

Once he was doing well with Sight Word Memory, we moved on to Sight Word Dash. I took our memory cards and put one of each word in a place in the house (I just spread them on the floor or table). I took MLR down the hall and told him a word to go find; he had to dash down the hall to the room they were in and come back with the correct word card. Then I repeated those steps till he had retrieved all the sight word cards. I would either give him a time limit on a timer or just time to see how fast he could complete the task (we played both ways). He loved this game, and wanted me to have a chance to play too. He set the game up for me just as I did for him, and he read me each word I had to go find and bring back. This variation of the game was great practice for him too since he had to read each word that I was to go find.

Then we played Sight Word Dig. I happened to have a bucket of dry beans (weird, I know). If you don't have dry beans handy, you can pick some up pretty cheap at the store. Or you could use rice, sand, or something similar. We wrote each word on a small piece of paper, and buried them in the sand. Then we took turns digging for the words in bucket of beans. MLR wanted to use the timer again. When it was MLR's turn to dig I would tell him each word to dig for. When it was my turn to dig, MLR would read me each word I needed to dig for off of the sight word cards.

As we continue our sight word practice, I'll share more fun ways we're practicing our sight words!

Help Your Kids Keep Track of the Books They've Read

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Sep 2013 04:44:00 +0000

Giving your kids a way to record, and even just visually see, all the books they've read can help them discover their reading likes and interests. And discovering that they have likes and interests when it comes to books can help them begin to really identify themselves as readers. They might realize they have a favorite author. Who knew! Or they might discover that they seem to have a thing for historical fiction or can lead them to discover what historical fiction is (or other genres for that matter)!

I have made a bookshelf for my little guy, and he has sat in on a discussion I had with my older kids that covered the various literary genres. (I thought it would be way over his head, but he's interested, and he's getting it!) For each book they read, they get to put a paper book on their bookshelf in the appropriate color for the genre it was from.

Figuring out the genre of the books they read has been kind of fun for them. It's been like a little puzzle they get to figure out.

(I'm missing "Nonfiction" on our chart still!)

My Little Reader loves his little paper bookshelf that I hung on the wall in our bonus room. He helped me put a couple books on it that he's read. One of the books is The Mouse and The Motorcycle, which we all just finished reading aloud together (now we're reading The Secret of Platform 13).

Since his brother and sister are reading chapter books, I'm trying to keep devise a way to kind of keep things level with filling their paper bookshelves (I have competitive kids). I decided he has to read 4 books per day with me (in addition to his bedtime stories) and if he meets his reading requirement all week, then he can choose his favorite book from the week to add to his shelf. Last week he added Color Chaos.

We also have Goodreads accounts that we like to track our reading on. My boys know that I try to record most of the books we read on Goodreads, and have gotten into the habit of giving each book we read together a star rating. "Mom, give this one four stars," one will say. "No way, two stars!" the other will counter with. It has sparked some heated debates at bedtime, let me tell ya!

There are countless ways you can record and display your child's reading progress. You could make a goal chart and color it in little by little as they inch toward their reading goal for the month or the year. You could make a paper chain, and they could add a new link for each book they read. Pinterest can help you with more ideas than you ever wanted probably!

Keep the reading excitement up and celebrate those milestones as they hit them!

Do you keep track of the books your child reads? How do you do it?

Learning Art Through Literature

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 05:28:00 +0000

I love reading books with My Little Bookworm and seeing his interests and curiosity sparked. He gets interested in everything he reads about! That's how we have been doing a lot of his homeschooling these past few weeks - we read lots of books!

This past week we read Color Chaos. It was one of his choices from the library, and he loved learning about the primary and secondary colors as we read through the story. Even after the story was done, he was walking around the house categorizing everything he saw according to its color.

I decided to capitalize on his interest and put him to work doing some color wheel projects.

We did this fun science experiment using water, food coloring, and cups. It didn't work for us, but I guess that's what makes science so interesting - it's unpredictable sometimes. We talked a lot about what was supposed to happen, and reasons why it maybe didn't work. He loved it all the same.

Then I thought he would love making a color wheel. But when I suggested the idea he balked. "I don't like coloring or painting," he declared (his interests seem to change daily lately). He said, " I only like doing things with toys." So I made that work, and had him create a color wheel with his favorite toys!

Again, he loved it, and was very engaged with the work. Even after he finished the wheel, he made several "robots" and pointed out to us all that he had used all the primary and secondary colors to create them - straight off his wheel!

There are so many fun books about art. Here are a few I really like. Read them with your little guys and see where their interest and imagination takes them! Real and lasting learning only seems to happen for my kids when they care - and they usually care about what they read about in books!

Maximizing Library Trips with Your Kids

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 04:50:00 +0000

Successful library trips seem like they are always just beyond my reach. I have felt this way since I just had one little baby toting along to the library with me. Now I have a 12, 9, and 5 year-old

in tow each visit. We're now homeschooling, and we're now consistently visiting the library once a week.

One of my main goals for the year is to teach my children how to use the library effectively: how to find what they are interested in, use the computer catalog, utilize services, be excited about their book choices, and just appreciate the library.

We are tackling this goal in small chunks. Each week we do a little library mission together before heading our separate ways to find our personal books and play on the computer. Well actually, we have only just begun working on this goal, so we've only done one little mission to date (finding books on the human body), but the plan is for this to happen every week.

I also want my kids to be more invested in their library book choices. I often feel like they are just choosing things off the shelf willy-nilly so I will let them go play on the computers (mostly my boys). I have struggled with how to get them to care more about the books they are choosing, and with how to teach them that there are better ways to find a book you really like.

So we are doing a couple other new things in addition to our weekly library missions. I have filled up the home computer bookmark bar with Goodreads, Amazon, our library computer catalog, Bookseer, etc. I am trying to arm them with some easy-to-access tools for finding stuff they want to read. I am also showing them book trailers every week. These are totally new to them, and they can't get enough. After each trailer they all exclaim, "Let's read THAT book!" Every one. Well done, Book Trailer Producers!

And we are doing Library Show and Tell when we get home from every visit. Everybody gathers together with their library bags in hand and we show each other a couple books we picked out and tell why we chose them. I also plan to have us gather before our next visit to the library and give an update on our book choices (Did we finish the books we chose, why or why not? Would you recommend it to friends? etc.)

I'll keep you posted with how this goes. And in the meantime, let me know in the comments how you manage library trips with your kiddos. Let's share our tips and tricks!

Tips for Managing Screen Time

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 22:38:00 +0000

Sitting mindlessly in front of the TV or video games for endless amounts of time has been a problem we have been battling in our house for a few years now. Some of my kids would literally sit in front of a screen all day of you let them. Yes. They really would.

We have employed various strategies to help put limits of the screen time. And might I just comment on how the term "screen time" keeps growing to include more and more devices and avenues for our kids to participate. In our house we have an array of devices the kids like to use. Most of them are "family devices," but our oldest has an iPod that she bought with her own money. It's a lot to try to monitor and limit.

But limiting screen time is something I'm willing to battle over in our family. Did you know that studies show that after 10 hours of screen time per week, children's grades begin to decline? It's not so much about the screens themselves being bad for our kids, it's the things they're not doing while they're spending all that time in front of the screens that becomes a problem. They're not playing, imagining, creating, building friendships, reading, helping out around the house, discovering hobbies... (The Read Aloud Handbook)

Here's what we have found that is working for us:

For summer or weekends:

1 TV show or thirty minutes of screen time in the morning.

1 hour of screen time after lunch (while I take a nap).

1 show or thirty minutes of screen time in the evening.

School days:

1 hour of screen time after lunch (while I take a nap).

1 show or thirty minutes of screen time in the evening.

I let my kids carry unused screen time over to the next day if they want. But their max is 2 hours in front of a screen at one sitting, and they can only carry over hours from ONE day.

We have only been using this system for a few weeks now, and it was a bumpy start. I was getting a lot of comments from the kids like, "OH, I thought I turned on the TV at 12:30, not 12:00. Oops!" or "I thought you were going to tell me when my time was up." There was a refusal to take any responsibility for keeping track of their time. I was so frustrated about it all that I was looking into devices that attach to your TV or video game systems and keep track of viewing time for you. But they were expensive and each device could only attach to one unit, it didn't seem like a viable option for our situation.

Then I saw these little timers (pictured at top pf this post) on Amazon. They seemed like they might do the trick. They sit on a base, and you set the timers on the base, not on the timer themselves. Then the timer can be put on your wrist (there's a strap), or clipped on your pants and taken wherever. The timer buzzes on both the timer itself as well as the base. So my kids don't have to watch the clock and keep track of their minutes, but they are getting a sense of how much time they are actually sitting in front of the TV. And I don't have to nag. They can ask for a timer when they want to use their screen time, and they know it's time to turn it off when the buzzer buzzes.

The other day one of my kids said that the new time limits were helping them not want to watch so much TV anymore. And it seems to me this is indeed true. I gave them one free day this week before school starts, and told them they didn't need to use the timers or anything; a couple of them turned the TV off themselves after a bit and went outside. This isn't to say there wasn't complaining at the beginning. I was told it wasn't fair and wasn't enough "tiiiiimmmme" multiple times.

I'm sure this is no fool proof system. And the timers we bought got mixed reviews, sounds like they sometimes stop working after only a short bit. Of course, other kinds of timers could work as well, I just like that I can keep track of the kids' time at the same time as them, and they can't screw up much of anything on the timers while using them.

I have no affiliation with the maker of these timers featured, and I'm not being paid to write this post.

Ideas for Summer Book Fun!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 16:22:00 +0000

Can I show you what we've been doing in class this past month? I can't believe I will be trading the preschool classroom for the homeschool classroom. It feels very weird, but exciting. And I'm thrilled that I will get to invest more time and energy into creating fun and meaningful literature experiences for my little guy AND my older kids!

I am also scheming to continue visiting my beloved schools for some special story times throughout the year so I don't suffer any terrible withdrawal effects!

So here's the fun we've been having this past month:

We had so much fun reading Chalk (Bill Thomson)! Huge hit with the kids. Oh, the fun they had imagining what it would be like to have their chalk drawings come to life! So much imagining and pretending. We drew with "magic" chalk of our own and pretended our drawings came to life. The students begged me to reread this one all month long!

Blackout (John Rocco) was another hit! I felt like this story was my son's own personal story: a boy wants to play a game with someone, but everybody in his family is too wrapped up in their technology to be bothered. Then the power goes out. Suddenly life slows down, the family comes together to have fun and pass the time during the blackout. I think all modern kids can likely identify with this story! We turned out the lights after we read the story and made shadow puppets like they did in the story. My students were amazed by this. Then we took a picture of a city with the lights on, and turned the lights back on with our neon paints! Again, amazement from the students! And the pictures turned out so cool! Even my big kids had fun with this project when I came home with the extra supplies. We read the book around our kitchen table quite a few times!

Like Chalk, Walrus (Stephen Savage) is a wordless book. A Walrus escapes from the zoo and must hide form the zookeeper. He discovers his passion and finds a way to fulfill it while remaining at the zoo, so all ends well. The kids just crack up at the silly places the walrus hides and tries to disguise himself. So simple, but so entertaining! I brought little walruses, made out of craft foam, for us to hunt for in the classroom. Who would have thought the kids would love this so much? We also made pictures where the kids had to illustrate a way to disguise their foam walrus. Many of them took their inspiration from the book and made scenes similar to Savage. But some came up with some new ides of their own. When we finished crafting, they all wanted to take turns hiding the walruses around the room again. So if you're looking for a way to keep some preschoolers busy - hide some walruses! Ha!

Big Changes!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 15:39:00 +0000

This is my last week teaching Literacy Launchpad in my beloved preschools... at least for a while. Can you guess why?

That's right, we're becoming a homeschooling family.

I'm entering a whole new realm of Literacy Launchpad-ness! It's not done, folks! I will be reading and reading and teaching and encouraging with my own three at home, and sharing with you all along the way! I also plan to continue visiting my schools for some special story times every few months.

I wish I could put on the homeschool mom hat without having to take off another hat that I currently wear, but I am no super woman. And if I'm going to do this homeschool thing, I want to make sure I can give it my all for my kids.

We might try this homeschool thing and find it to be a no-go, but we're at least going to try. I'm excited and hopeful that it will be a really good thing for all of us.

If you are a homeschooling family I would love to hear your #1 homeschooling tips!

And you will still find me here, sharing ideas, tips, project ideas, and book suggestions!

Snapshots of Summer Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 15:54:00 +0000

This summer has been going by so fast. It's been pretty crazy, and feels a bit like a blur. We've been visiting our library in the midst of the chaos though and continuing to read. Here are a few snapshots I captured in some of those quiet, still moments.

O.K. this moment wasn't so quiet, but it was at least pretty still. We had some of our cousins staying with us and did Madlibs as bedtime stories. My kids love Madlibs and are really good at telling you what a noun, or verb, or adjective is.

This one's not necessarily a reading moment, but I wanted to share my cute little bulletin board I posted at my schools for our summer reading!

Did you know some LEGO sets come with little comic books? So fun!

The kids wanted to share some of their photo books they made with their aunt and cousin that were visiting. They felt so proud as she sat with them and each of their books aloud.

We got the kids' cousin hooked on reading in bed with a night light while she was here visiting. So fun!

We visited a used bookstore and my sister grabbed some Shakespeare and challenged Mel to read some of it aloud. Here's him trying. Ha!

Making A Personalized Storytelling Game

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:40:00 +0000

Ever play one of those story-making games with you kids? You know, the ones where you take turns drawing a card with a random picture or word on it? Each person has to use what's on the card they drew to add onto the story. It can get pretty silly. We have a couple versions at our house, and the kids really enjoy them. We giggle lots when we play.

A couple weeks ago I gave my boys cameras to use, and let them go wild taking photos that we could make into our own, personalized storytelling game. I had to give them ideas of what kinds of things to photograph to get them going. The photos we ended up with were still rather interesting, but the whole point was that it was their personal game, so I tried to stay pretty hands off with their photo taking. And honestly, the sillier the pictures, the more fun the game is.

I printed the photos at our local drug store and the boys were so excited to give our version a try! We didn't mount our photographs on paper or label then or anything (I'm lazy), but you could, of course. We just used the photos themselves as the cards. We put them in a pile face down and took turns drawing. There was lots of laughing, and we ended up with a pretty crazy story.

You could vary the game some different ways:

Give the kids a specific theme of items to photograph for the game - an items for every letter of the alphabet or something like that.

You could give them some guidance in what they photograph by sending them on a list with specifics on a variety of objects you want them to find and photograph, kind of like a scavenger hunt (something fuzzy, something bigger than yourself, something that makes noise, etc). It would be fun to see how the items compare to one another, if you have more than one child photographing.

If there are two children playing, you could have them take their photos separate from one another and let them be surprised by what the other ends up taking photos of. Let the photos be revealed to each other as they play the game!

Adding labels to your homemade photos/cards would add literacy value to your game. Or if you want your kids to practice reading some specific words, you could put some text only cards in your deck with those words on it, and using those words in this fun storytelling game might help your child become more familiar with the word and more fluent in reading it. Your child's spelling words might work well too (obviously, nouns are the kind of words that work best in this game)!

Remember, narrative skills are a key pre reading skill needed to move into being a successful reader. This game is a great narrative skill builder!

Try it out. Play it with friends, play it at dinner... Laughing together bonds people together. So what could be better than giggling together and having fun over some great, meaningful literacy practice?

Finding Space for Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 19:24:00 +0000

Summer never feels like a time when things slow down and life is a little less crazy. Our summers are busy, for the kids and for me. When I see these book lists on Pinterest titled things like "10 Best Beach Reads," I laugh. What mom is able to actually read at the beach (If you are a mom that does get to read at the beach, please don't tell me, or I might cry)? I'm always busy making sure my kids don't get pulled out to sea by a rip current.

... Or I'm burying kids in the sand!

Not only does extra reading hardly ever seem to happen, but I struggle to maintain the little bits of regular reading time we normally observe. Travel and late bedtimes mean we sometimes miss our bedtime stories.

My Little Reader hasn't done much napping this summer and I only just realized today that no nap means we haven't been reading our normal pre-nap stories.

My kids love to stay up and read with their book lights at night, and even that has been falling by the wayside as they are so often zonking out as soon as they hit the pillow, as of late.

When there are lulls in their days and they get bored, I have seen my kiddos pick up books and read... from time to time.

They begged to do the summer reading program at the library, and have happily been picking out books that interest them on our regular trips.

They are slowly learning to read for the pure pleasure of it. So all is not lost.

But as we creep toward the start of another school year, and I look toward days containing some kind of routine again, I realize that I need to really be intentional with our reading times. I need to guard our established reading routines, perhaps reinstate some that have been lost, and I hope to work more reading time into our routine wherever I can. We will be homeschooling in the fall, so I'm excited about getting creative with how we find time to read, and simply having the control over our routine to give reading the prioritization that I crave.

Finding space for reading turns our to be easier said than done, even for those of us that understand its value and enjoy books. So how to you find space to read in the craziness and busyness of summer?

Our bedroom floors are always covered in books, so we've at least got that going for us!

A Thrifty Way to Make Craft Supplies Accessible

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 17:23:00 +0000

We have a wonderful armoire that we got from a yard sale. My husband added some additional shelving to the inside, and now we use it to neatly house all the wonderful art and craft supplies that help nurture my kids' creativity.

Well, when I say "neatly," I mean neat from the outside... when the doors of the armoire are closed. When you open the doors it looks like this:

My kids often struggle to find basic supplies like scissors, glue, and crayons (despite my numerous and varied attempts to organize this cabinet). I'm always having to help them dig, or sometimes they just don't even bother trying and give up on crafting for a different activity.

I want to make creativity easy for my kids to do and enjoy. This storage idea kind of happened by accident, but I love how it turned out.

Several months ago I bought a magnet board really cheap at IKEA. What I had planned to use it for didn't work out. Then I saw an idea on Pinterest for spray painting aluminum cans and storing crayons and markers and such in them. My wheels started turning and I figured I could add magnets to the cans, and stick them to this magnet board that I didn't really have a use for anymore.

The result was that I ended up with a great way to make our family's frequently used craft supplies accessible to my kiddos, and it barely cost me a thing!

I decided to use chalkboard spray paint because it would give me an easy way to label what each can was for (I primed my cans first with some extra primer we had laying around our garage).

I found that more than just one magnet was needed to be able to load the cans with supplies and have them stick to the board without slipping. You can find magnets like these at craft stores like Michael's and Hobby Lobby (remember those weekly 40% off coupons).

The idea worked out great. We attached the magnet board to the side of the armoire, and it's just so handy! Honestly, I myself love being able to grab a pair of scissors without even opening the cabinet. I love that My Little Reader can reach all the stuff he uses the most and take the crayons or markers over to the table to use whenever he wants without calling to me for help. And putting it all away is so easy, just stick them back on the board!

These cans could also work great on a refrigerator! I still haven't decided what supplies will go in some of my cans. I might have a few that I rotate what's kept in them, kind of like we do with our toys. This way my kids can be surprised and inspired every week or so with some fun craft supplies that they forgot we even had!

A good read often inspires a fun craft at our house. So I'm glad I found a way to make the crafting just a little bit easier for my kids!

Do you have a handy way you store your art and craft supplies? Share in the comments!

Read About Robots, Make Robots

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 04:55:00 +0000

... We've been doing just that all month long! There are too many fun robot books to not have a robot-themed unit! I'm so excited about this one, I'm creating a full literacy-pack that will be available on the Teachers Pay Teachers site... eventually. Just as soon as I find time to complete it... aaaaand figure out how the heck to post it into my store (I'm a serious newbie there).

I'll share some of the fun with you here, and I encourage you to grab some robot books to read with your kids or students. You don't even have to suggest a craft or activity to follow these books - the kids suggest and ask for it themselves! I mean, what kid doesn't want to make a robot?

Here are the stories we read:

We played some robot games after each story, and these games helped us practice some essential early literacy skills like rhyming, vocabulary, and alphabet knowledge.

Then we created! Each class project serves as catalysts for further story discussion, it gets the kids' creative juices flowing, those imaginations start dreaming things up, and then they end up with a fun little reminder of that week's story to take home with them!

Here are a couple of the projects we made:

Inspired by the art in Robot Zombie Frankenstein, we pieced together colorful geometric shapes, cut from foam, to make our own unique robots. The end pages in Robot Zombie Frankenstein beg for a project like this to be done after you read the book!

This week we are turning ourselves into robots with these fun robot templates I created that we simply added our photo to! So fun! Each student gets to share about what kind of robot they are - we have learned about various kinds of robots from our reads! We had some "Robot Zombie Frankensteins," and we had some "chef robots."

Do you have a favorite robot picture book? Would you mind passing it along in the comments? I've got some little readers itching for more great book recommendations on this topic!

Summer Boredom Buster: Make Your Own Board Game!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 03:21:00 +0000

For some parts of the country, school is just letting out for the summer. In other parts, like where I live, we're already almost four weeks into summer break! So that means the inevitable summer boredom is creeping in a little. Who am I kidding? My kids were complaining they were bored the very first day of summer! No joke!

On one of those first "I'm bored" days I whipped out a Lego board game idea I found on Pinterest. It was an extremely simple game of rolling dice and moving along a very simple board where you gathered or lost Lego blocks till you reached the end. As I played this with My Little Reader, we were brainstorming various ways we could improve on the game. One of my older kids came and joined us and the more we talked about it, the more she wanted to make her own board game. Then My Little Reader wanted to make one too!

So the next day we pulled out cardboard and our big roll of paper, crayons, markers, stickers, and got to work. I sat down to help My Little Reader, and was really excited to implement all our great ideas into our own board game. He had other ideas. He had come up with an entirely new concept (one that I barely understood), and he could not be swayed to use any of my ideas. My assistance ended up being utilized merely for coloring and writing.

But it was OK, because My Little Reader was having a ball and getting to be creative, use critical thinking skills, tinker and design, and imagine his own little story. Because that's what a board game ultimately is, right? It's a little story you (or your pawn) ventures through, and the adventure changes a little each time.

I wrote the words on the game spaces for my son, but he dictated it all and oversaw the process (he's kind of a bossy pants). It was great print awareness practice, as he used words to design the game the way he wanted. Then as we played the game, he got to see the words he came up with being read and used over and over by the game players. Games are great tools for demonstrating the power and purpose of words and print. "Steal another player's treasure" or "lose a turn" can carry great significance toward winning or losing. Especially to a competitive preschooler!

My Little Reader had a ball with his board game! We have all played it many times. He takes great pride in his creation, and loves to see us all having fun with it. This was a spontaneous activity that kept my kiddo busy for quite a while, and helped him practice some of those valuable literacy skills while he was having all that fun!

How are you keeping the summer boredom at bay in your family?

Pen Pals! A Great Way to Keep Them Writing This Summer!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 05:08:00 +0000

Enjoy this flashback tip I shared last summer!

My lovely cousin, Holly, asked me if my kids would like to be pen pals with her kids over the summer and I hastily replied, "Yes!" Holly is a teacher and knows what good writing practice this will be for our kids. I'm thankful for her initiative, as this was one of those things I was wanting to do this summer, but wasn't sure I was going to get around to starting.

Our kids have never met, and so this is a great way for them all to get to know each other. It's also fun for them all to get real mail in the mailbox. And coming up with interesting things to write about, or clever letter-writing ideas, will be cool too!

Holly's kids sent fun little pen pal boxes to mine to get it all going. My kids were psyched to open their package and start using their stuff. My older son did great with reading his letter he received, and my daughter got to writing back immediately (my littlest one was most excited about coloring in his new coloring book)!

My kids of course wanted to pick some fun things out too, and we sent those off to their pen pals last week. I found I fun little "All About Me" worksheet (thank you Pinterest) for my kids to fill out and include in their package they sent. It was a good prompt for them, as they were suffering from a bad case of What-should-I-wriiiiite-itis the day we sat down to write our first pen pal letters.

We're already planning to find some fun postcards to send while we're on vacation later this month. Photos from summer activities will be fun to send as well. I'm hoping we can get creative and keep it fun. Any writing practice is great, and pen pals are a great way for kids (especially little ones) to understand some of the purposes of print.

Share your creative pen pal writing ideas in the comments. How/what are your kids writing this summer?

Creating Captive Readers

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 02:58:00 +0000

I have been anxiously anticipating the newest edition of Jim Trelease's Read Aloud Handbook. The waiting has reminded me that I need to be reading and reading and reading with my kids. But if it's not bedtime, then sometimes My Little Reader is resistant to sitting down with a book (he would rather be playing Legos). So I've been trying to get creative with reading to him in moments where he doesn't have much else he could be doing. I've been trying to catch him as a captive audience. And in this digital age we're living in, that's tough!

So here are some ideas of places you might find your child to be a captive reading audience.

1. In the bathtub. Rub-a-dub-dub, they can't easily escape from the tub. I figured that even if my son was playing with his toys in the tub, he still might catch some of what I was reading him. And it turned out that he became more interested in the stories than his toys.

2. The bathroom. We have to do "sit time" every day with our son right now. I could just send him in there to sit by himself. Or I could steal those moments to sneak in a story while he's still and stuck!

3. Appointments and waiting times. I know the go-to these days is the smart phone or Ipad to entertain in these moments. But what if you just happened to "forget" to bring those one day? Or you loaded them up with some awesome storybook apps?

4. The car. I don't utilize my car enough lately. Now I can't read while I'm driving. But my kids will almost always sit and look at a book while they're strapped down in the car. Keep the car stocked with some high-interest books. For my kids that would look like comic books and favorite character stories. Maybe some look-and-find type books.

5. The table. Have nothing to talk about at the kitchen table? Or maybe you're like our family and you need to keep the bickering to a minimum. Whip out a book and start reading. Sure, it sometimes makes it hard to eat your own meal. But when the kids finish eating and clear the table you can finish your own dinner in quiet solitude... maybe with your own book to read!

6. While they are doing a favorite activity. My Little Reader will absolutely listen to a story if a slide up next to him with a book while he's building with his Legos. Especially if it's a Lego City story. I know not all activities allow this, but what about while they're painting or coloring, playing with dolls, or putting together a puzzle?

7. Cleaning time. Hopefully your kids help out around the house and you (and/or your spouse) are not stuck with all the chores yourself. My kids have daily and weekly chores they help with. And chore time might be a lot more pleasant for us all if I pulled out a books and took the time to read to them while they dusted or folded laundry. They have to do it anyway, might as well make the most of the moment! Who knows, they might come to look forward to cleaning time!

8. Create special reading moments. Maybe new traditions or fun surprises that your child might then associate with books in the future - like a reading picnic. I think I might try some breakfast and lunch picnics in the yard this summer with books! We even have little tents I made last summer that would make this extra fun. How fun would it be for them to wake up and find a picnic and stories waiting for them at breakfast!

Have ideas for finding moments to read to your kids as a captive audience? Please share in the comments; I need all the ideas I can get!

6 Beach Books + Literacy Skill-Building Activities!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 May 2013 15:07:00 +0000

Anybody else planning a trip to the beach this summer? Ocean? Lake? Pond? A DIY beach in you backyard? Or how about a make-believe trip to the beach?

Some beach reading can bring extra fun to your trip while also giving your children practice with those essential emergent reading skills!

Phonological Awareness
Alphabet Knowledge
Vocabulary
Print Awareness
Narrative Skills
Motivation

All You Need For A Beach (Alice Schertle)- We love Schertle's All You Need for A Snowman and this is a perfect summer counterpart! I love that the kids can participate by jumping in and insisting on each page that there's more you need for a beach than what the text tells so far. You could do great print awareness practice with this one by making a list as you read of all the things you need for a beach. Then let the kids do an art/craft project where they create a beach by working off the list you made together. You could check each item off as you add it to you beach art/craft project.

Flotsam (David Wiesner) - A wordless picture book in which a boy discovers a magical underwater camera that has washed up at the beach - Flotsam! What a discovery it turns out to be! This is a great book for introducing new vocabulary to your kids or students! Talk about what "flotsam" is (floating debris or treasures that wash up on the beach from the ocean). Then bring your own magnifying glass and camera to the beach and see what flotsam you can find. Who can find the most unusual flotsam? The largest? Smallest? Most colorful? Give your kids some book handling practice by putting your photos in a book and adding text. Let them read their book to family and friends.

To the Beach (Linda Ashman) - Can't we all relate to this story? A family tries to leave for the beach, but has to keep turning back for all the things they keep forgetting to bring along. By the time they have everything they need, it begins to rain. They turn around and go back home. Then , of course, the sun comes back out, so they make a pretend beach in their own backyard. This is a great story to inspire your own backyard beach fun or pretend beach play! We read this one in class and practiced our narrative skills by retelling to story by acting it out with fun props. Then we pretended our classroom was our own backyard beach and we played like we were at the beach! It was a lot of silly fun!

The Boy on the Beach (Niki Daly) - I love this book! First, because it features children that actually look like some of my own children. Also because it's just a beautifully, perfect beach story. We see a "boy" on the beach playing and exploring in various ways. It opens up a great conversation of do's and don'ts at the beach. Do: splash, build castles, play in the surf, enjoy cool treats, bury each other in the sand... Don't: forget the sunscreen, run around so fast that your spray sand on other people, wander off and get lost... At the end of the story we learn the boy's name as he writes it in the sand. This book could inspire some alphabet knowledge practice and fun sand writing of your own! Write your own name in that sand and take a photo! How many different ways can you write each letter of the alphabet (big, little, fancy, with shells, with your body...)? Bring some glue and paper to the beach and write letters with glue on the paper; then sprinkle sand on the glue to make cool, sensory alphabet cards. Send the kids on scavenger hunts by writing a letter in the sand and having them find something on the beach that begins with that letter. There are many fun possibilities!

Commotion in the Ocean (Giles Andreae) - Fun and catchy rhymes about animals that live in that ocean you might be swimming in. Rhyming = Phonological Awareness practice. Yay! Isn't it great when learning is so fun? Talk about which of these animals you think you may or may not see while you're visiting the beach.

A Beach Tail (Karen Lynn Williams) - A young boy draws a lion in the sand and then promises his dad to stay by his lion drawing. He keeps his promise while also satisfying his desire to further explore the beach by giving his lion a very long tail! "Swish-swoosh" the lion's tale keeps getting longer and he keeps getting further and further away from his father. He finally has to use the tail he drew to find his way back to his dad. This story gave us an idea of something to play on our beach trip - we're going to draw trails for each other to follow with something fun to discover at the end! This book was such a delight. Definitely a new favorite!

This short list of beach books will have you practicing all those needed emergent reading skills! These are good skills even for my older, already-reading kids to practice. And all these games and activities are so fun that your children will be practicing motivation too as they see how much fun their reading is creating!

Try These Ideas to Kick Off Summer Reading Fun!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:44:00 +0000

Need to kickstart your summer of reading with your kids or students? Try these ideas!

1. Take a summer reading field trip.

2. Read Swimmy and make something fishy!

3. Write and draw a summer journal/scrapbook.

4. Read camping stories and make cool lanterns!

5. Read Psst! and take a real or pretend trip to the zoo.

6. Surprise your kiddos with reading rewards!

7. Read I'm the Biggest Thing in the Ocean and make squid hats.

Make a Play Mat! Build Letter Knowledge!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 May 2013 03:18:00 +0000

My Little Reader has been really into Tonka's Chuck Trucks lately. They have a Chuck Truck show on Netflix, which is the driving the force behind this current obsession of his.

I needed to keep him busy one day while we had a repair guy at the house and so I whipped out some big paper and some art supplies and we made a play mat together for his trucks and cars.

I decided to give the activity an "Alphabet City" theme so we could work in some letter-knowledge practice as well! He loved it!

You don't need any fancy supplies to make this. Basically just some big paper and some crayons (see above). If you don't have a roll of large craft paper, the plain side of some wrapping paper might work as well.

We rolled two lengths of paper out side by side to get the size we wanted, and then used the tape to attach the two pieces together on the back. Then we got to drawing!

Besides the alphabet stickers, we used whatever other stickers we had in our sticker box that might work for our Alphabet City. You could probably think of some cool ideas for your Alphabet City with a lot of those miscellaneous craft supplies in your art cabinet at home!

I just free-handed the road shape. My son told me what directions he wanted the road to go, then I drew it that way as best I could.

My son and I worked together to draw a variety of features on our mat: shops, library, pond, gas station, etc. Be creative, and let your child come up with the ideas as much as possible. My son was struggling to think up some ideas, so I drew some generic buildings and then pointed to each and asked, "What should this one be?" That helped kick-start his ideas.

We named and labeled our buildings and locations as we went. We tried to cover as many letters of the alphabet as we could with our names and labels. I would say the name of a place to My Little Reader and then he would figure out the first letter(s) and find it on our sticker sheet. Then I would write-in the rest of the name next to the sticker (see photos above).

The fun doesn't stop when you're done drawing!

This activity kept My Little Reader busy for hours. Literally. Try it!

Other alphabet play mat ideas your little one might enjoy making and then using with their toys:
- Alphabet Zoo
- Alphabet Kingdom (I'm thinking fairy and princess theme)
- Alphabet Jungle
- Alphabet School
- Alphabet Circus

Grow Jack's Beanstalk in Your Classroom!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:58:00 +0000

When I do one of my fairy tale units with my students, I tell them the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" and use fun props. My magic beanstalk that grows to the ceiling is my favorite prop! This prop idea came from another preschool teacher that's a genius, and whom I absolutely adore. I wonder if she knows my students have been loving and adoring her beanstalk prop for years now?

You'll need everything mentioned in the photo here, plus some scissors, a pencil, a marker, and a sewing needle (don't worry, it's just to pull the fishing line through your fabric, no serious sewing involved here!) You choose the kind of fabric you want. I think I just chose a soft, cotton fabric that was on sale. Remember that Hobby Lobby and Joanne Fabrics always have coupons online!

I think I got about a yard of green fabric (maybe two?) and I drew a beanstalk on it that started in the bottom left corner and wound up to the top left corner with my pattern, then back down, then back up... And so on and so forth till I got all the way to the end of the right side. This way you use every bit of your green fabric. It's doesn't matter if your beanstalk is drawn and cut straight across the fabric, because it's all going to hang from the ceiling anyway and will be straight when it does. You can trace over your penciled pattern with a marker to make it easier to see, and then cut it out.

Take the end of your clear thread or fishing line and thread your needle. Poke the needle through one end of your beanstalk. You just need to secure it so it can pull your beanstalk to the ceiling without coming undone. Secure it with a good knot. It doesn't have to look pretty, nobody is going to see it anyway. It just needs to hold.

You'll have to measure or estimate how tall the ceiling is in the room you'll be using. Or how tall you want your beanstalk to grow. Your fishing line will need to be about twice that length. Tie your washer to the end where you cut it. The washer will weight down your thread so it stays low where you can reach it to pull. It will keep your beanstalk apparatus from falling down before you even begin.

If you do not have a drop ceiling to use, you could secure a nail, or 3M hook to the wall to drape your fishing line over. If you do that, you don't have to worry about using a paperclip. Just make sure your nail or hook is high enough to inspire some awe in your kiddos when the beanstalk grows!

I pull the line and make the beanstalk grow, then "chop it down" myself, when I first tell my students the story. But when the story is done I let each student have a turn to pull the line and make the stalk grow. We pretend they're Jack and say things as they pull the line like, "Wow, _______, your beans really are growing! Amazing!" Then I hold the line for them and let them use the toy axe to swing at the stalk and chop it down (let go of the line when you want to let the stalk fall). Be careful when letting them swing the toy axe. I've had a student or two get bumped by some very enthusiastic axe-swingers!

At one point I was using my own homemade faux axe with my students. I made it with cardboard, the cardboard roll from inside an aluminum foil roll, some paint, and some hot glue. It worked great for a couple years, but eventually broke.

We do this story the last week of our fairy tale unit, and it's always a fun finale. I hope it works great for you. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them! And let me know how it turns out!

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