This week’s Carnival of Education (game show edition) is being hosted at Learn Me Good 2. Good luck to MisterTeacher on his upcoming game show appearance!
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This simple activity will do wonders for your child’s oral vocabulary (which is important to build so that their reading vocabularies can grow) while working on their comprehension at the same time! You can do this with kids of all ages that can listen to and discuss a book or story.
- Prior to reading a book to your child, try to notice words that represent an easy concept for your child that you can replace with a harder, more mature word (this is really easy to do with adjectives). Choose about 3-5 words that you will focus on along with their “big word” synonym.
- Read the book as it is with/to your child. Either during or after the reading (while you’re discussing parts of the book with your child), talk about and show them how you can say certain things in a different way. For example: If a character in a book was really hungry, you can say they were famished during your discussion of the story. Talk about how the new word tells the same story, but makes it a bit more interesting!
- Here are some other examples of common words and their “big word” synonyms:
yummy: scrumptious
silly: frivolous
friend: acquaintance
These synonyms are examples of Tier Two Words – read more about the importance of these words.
- You’ll find that the more you do this while you read (or just in conversations with your child) the more they’ll start to use these new words on their own!
The Carnival of Homeschooling is up–thanks to The Common Room for hosting! Just a few of the interesting posts that caught our eye here at RCO:
Hands on ABC Order — some activities you can do with your child to exercise their alphabetizing skills.
First Grade Curriculum Review — great insight from a first year homeschooler on several subjects (not just reading)
There’s More to Education Than Smarts — an interesting post about the social responsibilities that come with an education.
And take a look at the test Phil gave his 4th grader.
There are several other great posts in the carnival for homeschoolers–check it out!
This is a great phonics activity for a hike as an alternative to Digital ABCs, or ABC Nature Hike. All you need for this activity are pencils or crayons, a clipboard, and the great outdoors.
- Before you leave for your hike, create a grid of different sounds. You an choose certain target sounds or do the whole alphabet A-Z.
- While you’re on the hike, have your child search for items that begin with each sound in the grid and write their names in the grid. Younger kids who can’t write yet will have fun drawing a picture of each item.
For example, two of the sounds on your sound grid may be the long and short /a/ sounds. An acorn satisfies the long /a/, but they’ll need to find another item for the short /a/, maybe an ant or an apple.
- This is a great activity you can repeat over and over with different sounds – so get out there and have fun!
That’s what Philip Pullman and over 80 other authors, illustrators, librarians, and booksellers are saying in their petition against the proposed age banding for children’s books by leading publishers. This proposal looks to add suggested age ranges on children’s books (such as ages 5+ or ages 7-9) in order to help parents, teachers, and kids tell which books are appropriate for children to read. This has sparked much debate amongst those involved with children’s books. The publishers claim that this will be very helpful to parents when choosing books for their kids at bookstores and for teachers selecting material for their students.
Is this really necessary? Has there been some sort of epidemic of concerned adults wandering the aisles at bookstores and libraries unsure of what material is appropriate for their children to read? I don’t think this age banding proposal is a good idea and here are a couple of problems I see with it:
- Not all kids are the same: Every child reads at different levels at different ages! Parents who homeschool have much more control over letting their child read out of the “appropriate” range that will appear on a book’s cover, so I’m sure we will continue to make decisions that best suit our children rather than allow an unnecessary age range deter us from purchasing a certain book. Yet will kids who attend schools still have the freedom to choose the books they wish to read? Will the advanced 7 year old (like this one) who devours chapter books deemed for older kids be allowed to read them at school?
- It may discourage readers or embarrass others: A child who is interested in dinosaurs may excitedly pick up a book about them only to put it down quickly once he realizes it’s a “baby book”. There’s no telling how much he could have learned or how much fun he could have had reading it because he never even gave it a chance. And trust me, kids don’t want to be caught reading books that are considered too young for them! So what about the kids who read below their current grade or age level? How would an 11 year old who reads at a 3rd grade level feel when they are given a book that says it’s for ages 8-10? My guess is that child would not want to read that book…or any other that reminds him how behind he is. Pullman says it best:
“…Everything about a book should seek to welcome readers in and not keep them out.”
I really hope that these publishers take to heart the wishes of the petitioners and decide against including these age ranges on their books. Parents, educators, and kids should enjoy choosing books based on interest and curiosity without such limits!
This simple activity is great for helping your child develop discriminating skills as well as working on rhyming to improve phonemic awareness. You’ll need some picture cards or pictures cut out from a magazine.
- Put together some sets of picture cards (3 in each set) of things that rhyme and one that doesn’t belong. For example, you can have pictures of a bone, a phone, and a cat – or a tree, a ring, and a bee.
- Lay the pictures out for your child (1 set at a time) and tell them that they will have to tell you what the things in the pictures are and to find the one that doesn’t belong. Bonus points for them if they can tell you why the picture doesn’t belong!
- After they figure it out (or if they need help), tell them that you’re working on how the words sound and that the goal is to pick the two that rhyme. You can choose to tell them this before the activity if you want to or see if they can figure it out on their own. Do whichever you think would be most fun for your child!
- Repeat with the other sets of pictures.
This is a great way to get your kids to reinforce their letter recognition while playing outside in the wonderful summer weather! You’ll need some letters (either paper, foam, magnetic, or other plastic letters) and a safe outdoor space (backyard, familiar trail, park, etc.)
- Take some letters and hide them around different areas of the outdoor space where your child can safely hunt for them. You can choose what letters to hide depending on what you want to work on with your child. For example, if you’re working on just one letter or reviewing a few, then just hide several of those letters. Or you can do the whole alphabet and have your child hunt for the letters in sequence – it’s up to you!
- Give your child a bag or basket to fill up with the letters they find. Be sure to tell them how many letters there are for them to find, so they know when to stop hunting! Go through their bag with them when they finish so they can tell you all about the letters they found.
- This can be easily integrated with any unit study or special interests your child may have by being a little creative. Have fun and enjoy the weather!
This is another fun game you can play in a group or as a family in the car. Even mom and dad will be challenged with this phonemic awareness excercise.
The rules of the game are pretty simple–each person, in turn, says a word that begins with the same sound the previous person’s word ended with. Note that it is not the last letter of the previous word that matters, but the sound that is important. For instance, if mom starts off with the word “steak”, the next player must say a word that begins the /k/ sound–‘cake’, ‘climb’, and ‘kindergarten’ are all acceptable.
A variation of this game is to use words from a common category, for example “names for boys” or “things you eat”. This is also a great activity for older kids where the focus would be on building vocabulary rather then phonemic awareness.
Here’s an entertaining way to get your kids thinking about and using synonyms. Synonyms are a great way to build your child’s vocabulary because it’s easy for them to learn new words that match a concept they’re already familiar with. Here’s how to play this easy game:
- Start off by telling your child that you’re going to say a word and they have to think of another word that means the same thing. You can start off with easy words till they get the hang of it, and then go on to use some harder words.
- Sample conversations:
Parent: “I say mad, you say…”
Child: “angry”
Parent: “I say huge, you say…”
Child: “enormous”
- You can swap roles and have your child start off by choosing the first word for you to respond to with a match. This will give you the chance to model the use of bigger words that are more challenging. For example: If your child says sad, you say melancholy. If your child says hungry, you say famished.
- As shown by the examples shared here, you can easily make this game as challenging or as easy as you like depending on your child’s level. Have fun helping your child expand his/her vocabulary!
This can be a fresh change to the usual vocabulary activity of “Write a sentence using the word…”. It’s important for your child to practice using newly learned words in addition to talking about them. So this activity can help your child use the word in a meaningful way which will help them internalize its meaning. It’s also a great way to work on your child’s writing skills!
- Choose 3-5 words (or more if you like) that you have chosen as vocabulary words for your child.
- Use these words to write sentence stems for your child to complete. The goal is to really make your child think about a word’s meaning so that they can complete the rest of the sentence in a way that makes sense and shows they understand its meaning.
Examples:
triumphant : The gymnast felt triumphant when she…
coax: I tried to coax my sister to ride the roller coaster with me because…
shabby: The house looked shabby because…
- You can make this as challenging or as easy as you like depending on your child’s level.
This activity helps your child work on his/her phonemic awareness (oral blending skill) and their listening comprehension all at once! You can use a sample of any story you like to play this game. The example shared below uses an excerpt from Frog and Toad.
- Have your story and questions ready.
- Put on your “dunce cap”.
- Tell your child that you are going to tell him/her a story and that you might need their help blending some words because you can’t figure them out.
- Read a line from the story and sound out the last word very slowly. Then ask the question to your child and wait for them to help you by figuring out the word before you continue reading.
Example:
The old brown Frog sat in the /s/ /u/ /n/. Where did the Frog sit? (in the sun)
His pal Toad hid under a /r/ /o/ /k/. Where did Toad hide? (under a rock)
Toad told Frog that the sun would turn him into /m/ /u/ /sh/. What would Frog turn into? (into mush)
Frog told Toad that he looked like the gopher;s next /m/ /ea/ /l/. What did Toad look like? (a gopher’s next meal)
Suddenly it began to /r/ /ai/ /n/. What did it begin to do? (rain)
Frog and Toad played together in the /m/ /u/ /d/. Where did they play? (in the mud)
Kids have a lot of fun figuring the words out to complete the story. You can do this with songs, poems, and other stories anytime you want!
This is a phonemic awareness activity that focuses on having your child identify and isolate the initial sounds of words. Playing this word game with a puppet can make it a whole lot of fun!
- Have a list of random words that begin with different sounds ready for this game.
- Tell your child that you’ll be saying some words and that the puppet wants them to repeat only the first sound of each word. Show your child some examples with the puppet’s help before you have them give you the sounds.
- Examples:
Parent says: snail … Puppet says: /s/
Parent says: mushroom … Puppet says: /m/
Parent says: shade … Puppet says: /sh/
- Phoneme isolation is one of the more difficult skills of phonemic awareness, so your child may need some practice with this one. Remember that the words you chose don’t have to be small words because your child is not expected to read them – they just have to be able to say them and repeat the first sound. This is a good chance to expose your child to some new words!
This is a phonemic awareness activity that focuses on kids’ ability to segment (separate) and substitute initial sounds. Play it as a riddle game and they’ll have plenty of fun with it!
- Ask your child these riddle type questions to see if they can replace the first sound in the given word with a new sound. Here are some examples to get you started:
- What word starts with the sound /b/ and rhymes with cat? You can keep going by asking for the new words that rhyme with cat but start with the sounds /h/, /r/,/s/,/f/.
- What word starts with the sound /t/ and rhymes with the word new? More sounds: /y/,/z/,/g/,/sh/.
- What word starts with the sound /s/ and rhymes with the word night? More sounds: /r/,/l/,/m/,/b/.
Phoneme substitution is one of the hardest of the phonemic awareness skills, so don’t be surprised if this is tough for your child to do. Help them out by giving them the new word when they can’t think of it. If they get frustrated, then move on to something else and try this game another time. Remember that you want to keep these games fun and engaging, so just keep it light!
This is a fun and engaging way to have your kids practice building and blending words! You’ll need plenty of paper, and letter stamps – you can use letter stamps with ink pads, foam letters and finger paint ( you can find foam letters at the dollar store!), or you can even use letter stickers.
- Have a list of words ready – high frequency words and/or words pulled from a book or selection you are reading with your child that have letters and sounds you have already introduced.
- Tell your child that you will write a word or show them a word card for them to make their own by stamping/painting/sticking it onto the paper. To make it more challenging, simply tell your child that you will be calling out the word for them to make – then if they need help, you can write it or show them the word card.
- Once your child makes the word, have them blend each sound together from left to right slowly before going back to quickly read the whole word.
- Have your child go back and quickly read all of the words they made when finished for some extra fluency practice.
- Here’s another way you can change this up once they got the hang of it: Call out the letters that make a word for your child to stamp/paint/stick, then have them try to blend the word together and see if they can read and tell you what word you spelled out for them. They love this part!
- Note: You can use irregular words (words that are exception to the rules: ex: the, was, one) with this activity, but tell your child to read them without trying to blend the sounds together.
This is a great activity to reinforce letter recognition and/or letter sound correspondence while strengthening fine motor skills. You’ll need some play dough, an alphabet chart or cards, and plenty of imagination.
- Tell your child that you’ll be calling out a letter and that you want them to try to mold and form the letter using the play dough. You can work on one target letter or have them review several letters at once.
- If your child can’t remember what the letter looks like, then show him/her the way it looks on the chart or alphabet card. Encourage them to try again. If they still need help, get your hands dirty and show them how it’s done. Remember this is not a test, so keep it light and fun!
- You can make this a letter-sound corresponding game by asking your child to then make an animal or object out of the play dough that starts with that letter’s sound. Or you can reverse it by using picture cards or pictures out of a magazine and asking your child to make the letter that matches the picture you’ve shown them.
- For extra fine motor skill development let your child use scissors on the play dough to help them make letters and objects. This is great for kids who need a little extra practice using scissors.