September's poem: Chicken Soup

Each month, Isaac's class will be given a poem to work on and memorize. Today Isaac brought home this award:

It says, "I know my September 'Chicken Soup' poem."

Here is the poem:

They practice the poem during their circle time. Students practice pointing left to right when reading and reading with fluency and rhythm.

Here is Isaac reading his poem:

Great job, Ike!

 

Me Too, Woody!

Isaac is reading on a Level 1 in those leveled readers you see at Walmart. I found some books on that level at McKays and turned one of them into a Literacy Bag.



I chose this book because we already have a Little Critter book titled Me Too! on our Nook and I thought Isaac might be able to make a connection.



I typed up the words, added pictures from Goggle Images and Clipart, printed everything and cut them out, and voila!



And everything fits into a pencil case!



He has actually read this so many times that he has it memorized. (much like Aunt Boo had Hop on Pop! memorized) You can hear the twins wanting attention in the background. Well, you can hear Abby wanting attention in the background.

After reading the story, we spread out the story strips and Isaac had to put the story back together. (the video is a little shaky- it's was difficult to film and direct at the same time)


Click on the picture to watch the video!

I didn't film all of it, but Isaac did get it finished! I got the picture of him standing with it, I turned around for one second to tell Abby something and Isaac had already mixed the sentence strips. (I was going to have him read them to Daddy.) *sigh*





I've done this activity with my students and they have a good time with it since it's a Literacy Center that I take a picture of to put on my school blog. I used the sentence strips from 1+1+1=1 for my students, but since it was pretty easy to make my own, I'll probably do more!

You might be wondering what I had the twins doing during all this.



Abby chose robots for her activity. She has the robots shapes page and a pipe cleaner. Her activity was to try to make the shapes with the pipe cleaner. (yes, it is an advanced activity, but she really tried hard!)



She mastered the circle!



I combined Andy's love of pirates with his love of colored pom-poms. His job- match the pom-poms to the circles on the page. Hand-eye coordination.

Here's the problem that I'm finding with doing Delk Homeschool- I can't do all the kids at one time. They all need individual help with their activities. However, wherever Ike goes, so goes Abby. Wherever Abby goes, so goes Andy. If I leave anyone out, they scream and cry. I could send them to their rooms to cry it out, then call them back when it's their turn, but by then they are in bad moods and don't want to do their activity.

For anyone who wanted to know why I don't actually homeschool my kids- that's the reason. They get on my nerves.

Click on the links ( robots and pirates) to see where I got the great activities!

Go, Dog! Go!

Isaac's teacher sent home one of their Literacy Bags this week. We were supposed to get it last weekend, but Isaac forgot it. The book is Go, Dog! Go! and it is not a book we have at home. I don't know if they have read it at school, but Isaac knew it.

I mean... Isaac read it to me. Not the whole book, because he got tired of it after a while. And some words he needed help with. But for the most part he read it to me! I grabbed my camera and got most of it on video. (honestly, it is not the most gripping book in the world. It was a little...yawn.)



Click on the picture, and Isaac will read the book to you too! (of course you'll hear his siblings in the background. It couldn't be avoided.)

Little Einsteins

My kids might be loud (right, Aunt Boo?), and obnoxiously energetic, but they love their school time! They fight in the car over who is going to school, and who is just going to "new daycare". (They still call is "new daycare" even though they've been there almost a year now.) They all love telling me that they have a "smiley face" for their behavior! (Isaac has a behavior folder) I almost feel bad for Ms. Patty, the twins teacher, because she has to listen to Abby talk about Isaac's school all day. :)

Anyhoo- the kids will come running when I say it's time for school. Our classroom is our dining room, and one of these days, I'm going to decorate it and make it look good! (or at least clean.)

Last night I was working on my other blogsite and the twins were wanting to be entertained. Well, ok. Let me turn on my super-mommy powers and come up with a quasi-educational activity that will keep them focused for minutes on end.

Enter, the felt board. This miracle board was given to us by Aunt Beth in a Delk Quiet Bag. I keep this bag in my car for traveling emergencies and pull activities out as needed. Thanks, Aunt Beth!!





Roar!!





Now, I will admit to arranging the pieces, but the kids loved moving them around, making noises, and telling me all about the different dinos!

After the magic board, we got out the puffballs. I bought these the last time I was in M'boro and I didn't know what I was going to do with them. Now I know!



I separated the balls, made some colored circles on pieces of paper, and told them to have at it!





When the finished their paper, they traded and kept going! After a while, Abby put the balls in different circles and said, "Look, Mommy! I'm being silly!"



I know you're impressed. :)

On the Isaac front, I want you to know his teacher is very impressed with his abilities. They sat in circle time, ready to read a big book, and Isaac started reading the book to Ms. Cheri! She told me that she was very impressed and syas he's already doing Kindergarten material. :)
Now if we can only get him to follow directions the first time. *sigh*

Well, hopefully I found a solution. My new favorite website 1+1+1=1 has wonderful lessons and Pre-K packs geared towards our young learners. My favorite part is her Raising Rock Stars lessons. RRS are Bible based lessons that use Bible verses to teach ABCs, writing skills, and critical thinking skills. Perfect for Isaac!

I've downloaded everything I can get my hands on! Most of is is free! (like 99%) So, I've started a binder for Isaac's RRS lessons.



I found this picture when I was printing out his first lesson. Yea, Grammy Pat!



Nice lesson planning pages and separations.



The first lesson- letter "A".

I also printed out a camping Pre-K pack that I found at Homeschool Creations. Not sure why I chose Camping as our first theme, but it looked good! (Jenny- they have a Star Wars theme! If you look at their Read! Build! Write! boards, you'll find them)

I'll keep everyone posted on Isaac's progress!

Day 9- Dr. Tyner comes for a visit

Dr. Beverly Tyner is a reading specialist that gets paid $1,500 just for entering my school building. She specializes in small group reading strategies for grades K-3. She is a lovely woman who deeply cares for students and their learning, while also managing to look out for over-worked teachers. I adore her.

So, who would be better for my youngster here at home, than Dr. Tyner? I have had Tyner's instruction crammed down my thr... um... guiding my small group reading time for 7 years now. I've created a 3 in. binder for each of her reading stages; there are 6. I have color coded, laminated, copied, cut, and created all of the manipulatives she had provided and recommended. I know this woman's work. I also have it saved on my flash drive since most of that work had to be done at home.

It's a good thing I have it here at my disposal since today I decided to test my child to see where his reading level lies. I am pleased to report, he ranks between a Fledgling and Beginning reader. (Level 1 and 2) What does that mean? He knows some sight words, but not all; but he also has the skills to start sounding out word families.

Today we tested over sight words, and worked on Emergent Readers cut-up sentences.



This chart has the 100 most frequent words in children's reading. There are words on the back as well. You can kind-of see that some of the words have stickers next to them. Those are the words he could read without prompting. These are not the Dolch words that you can find here... http://gemini.es.brevard.k12.fl.us/sheppard/reading/dolch.html
Most people know of the Dolch sight word list. There are similarities. Flash cards will be made of the words he did not know and we will go over them a small group at a time.



Next we went over the cut-up sentences. He recognized some of the words, and noticed the repetition of the first set of sentences. Repetition helps a lot for kids his age. I did make sure to color code things so he knew which words went to which sentences. We will keep working on those as well. :)

Abby and Andy, not to be left out, worked on spelling their names. A combination of letter identification and matching. And I had extra scrap book paper that needed to be used. Isaac had to get in on the action too of course.








The best part was they were so happy with this game, they played while I could get lunch ready.

Now, you know me. I'm not going to let Isaac get away with merely doing the same thing as the twins. We pushed it one step further. I took away the paper that had his name on it and he had to form his name by himself. It took him 3 tries. That surprised me a little since he has recognized his name in written form for over 2 years now.

Well, only a few days left of Delk summer school. Sigh. Then we'll see just how advanced Isaac is in Pre-K. His school starts in Sept. but I am going back next Monday so he will have a month of daycare before "school" starts.

Day 7- Twinkle-Twinkle

More reading and writing. Today we worked on Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star. Abby joined in. Andy wanted to work on his letters with the Leap Frog letter thingy. In the video you can hear it in the background.



Color coded and ready to go!




Abby placing the word 'I'.

Isaac placing the word 'wonder'.



Isaac impressed me with this deductive reasoning skills during this activity. At one point Abby had the word 'sky' and she wanted to put it on 'star'. Isaac told her, "No Abby! That's too little!" He recognized that the card was too small to be the word star! Also, he knows how to read the word star so he knew it wasn't right. I was impressed that he used a reason that Abby could understand. Abby might not know her letters, but she understands the concepts of big and small.

Here is the finished product, with some extra sounds added in for good measure. :)



After the singing, we moved on to 3-letter words for Isaac. We stared his chart on the first day then never returned to it; which is a no-no in a teacher's book. (we should have returned to it within 2 days, oh well) We returned to it today and he did really well! His words from today are in blue.



As you can see, we added: dog, fox, hat, saw, hen, zoo, jet, pie, and pig. I had him correct his 'w' in saw, but I did not have him fix his 'e' in hen or his 'z' in zoo. Mostly I didn't worry about those because I've seen him write them properly before.

By this time Andy had finished with letters and had moved on to coloring. Abby took the letters and had fun.



By the end of school the boys were sent upstairs for time-out for chewing on their markers.

Abby wanted to share her knowledge of the alphabet so I got video. This blog won't let me do lots of video on one post, so I let her be special and have her own post.

(see the video in the next post- General Abby)

Day 6- ABC picture chart

I really wanted to make an Environmental Print ABC book, be we don't get the paper so we don't have any coupons or fliers that would have popular names brands in them. (like McDonalds, or any other name brands the kids would recognize)

I did find a teachers resource magazine, so I cut out lots of pictures from it. I also had a random Fred's flier that came in the mail, so we had food pictures too. We started our Beginning Sounds ABC Chart. We did not finish, since we had a lot of pictures, but we will come back and keep working on it from time to time. Maybe even tonight with Daddy!



Our supplies: Chart divided into sections and labeled, baggie of pictures, glue. I started with the glue stick, but ended up using runny glue instead. It really doesn't matter.

The activity was pretty simple. The kids chose a picture from the baggie, said the name of the picture and placed it under the letter that matches its beginning sound.

I should have done better when adding the pictures to make sure I didn't include any digraphs (ch, ph, wh, etc..) but I was just trying to get things ready, so I didn't pay much attention. A few slipped through as you can see in the video.



It took a little extra guidance, but he got it. In fact, he did all of the beginning sounds. Abby and Andy could tell me the name of the pictures, but only Isaac could identify the beginning sounds. That's probably because the twins don't play with the Leap Frog letter thingy as much as Isaac did. We'll work on it. :)



Here is Abby putting down her picture of 'cake'.



Isaac putting down his picture of 'sunshine'.



Andy was not impressed. He put down 2 'train's and a 'tree', but after that he was done. He colored quietly the rest of the time. I think he didn't like having to wait his turn.

So, Abby and Isaac did around 5 more turns apiece before Abby dropped out.



I moved her to her high chair so she wouldn't color on the table. She tends to use everything as her canvas, including herself.

Isaac kept working pretty well, but it wasn't as fun without siblings to help.



So here is our started project. The "C" page filled up quickly. We probably won't work on it tomorrow. I want Ike to work on his 3-letter words some more. We might pick it back up on Thursday.






p.s. if you get the paper and want to save some fliers for us, you would be my new favorite person! Or you could help by cutting labels off of boxes of things that you use around the house. (after you're done using them of course) Like Coke labels, or cereal or pizza boxes, McDonalds bags... anything you think they would recognize.
(Isaac read Papa Johns, he didn't just call it 'pizza', so that tells me he knows his brands!)

Color matching video

This is the video that I tried to post for Day 4 and it wouldn't load. Enjoy!

Day 4- Building reading fluency

Isaac told me when it was time for school today by saying, "Mommy, I want to play a game. Come on, Mommy." The Mickey Mouse matching game has become the 'prize' for a job well done, so he had to do 'school work' first. Today we focused on reading fluency.

When you work with a child this young you should always start with pieces he/ she already knows and has memorized. (right Aunt Boo? Hop on Pop!) This gives the child validation as a reader and earns them some 'easy' praise. We started with Jesus Loves Me.



The words in red are the "sight words" I want Isaac to work on. As we sing/ read, Isaac is going to be placing these cards...



over the words in red. It's kind of a matching game, since Isaac loves those, but he also has to recognize the letters.

Here is Isaac completing the chart...



I did have him go back through and check his work to match the red words to the red cards. I praised him for reading the words in other places on the chart but pointed out that the colors did not match.

Here is the completed, and fixed, chart.



Here is Isaac "reading" the chart. I would have had him point to the words as he read them, but I didn't want him to fall off his chair. I followed his progress by watching his head. I could tell from his head movements that he knows that reading goes from left to right. At one point he is just singing, ("Little ones to Him belong") but you can tell when he comes back to the chart.

We went over it a few more times. I would sing the song and leave out the red words and he would have to say them. Then we swapped and he sang while I filled in the red words.



After he played that game for a while- 3 times to be exact, he wanted to play something else. So, we moved on to colors.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "Jocelyn, he already knows his colors." And you would be correct. Isaac does recognize his colors. But I also want him to recognize his color words. So, I made this chart and used some of the extra paint samples.



There are 2 ways to complete this chart. Notice, I wrote the words in a color that was not recognized on the chart. No extra hints!



Way #1- match the color side of the paint swatch to the word



Way #2- turn to the back of the swatch and match the words. I could have Isaac try to solve it using the 1st way, then have him turn the swatch over to check his answers. (HE checks his answers, not me. He needs to learn self-evaluation)

He went straight to using the words to solve the chart. The video for this would not load so I might be over my limit per blog. I'll try to do it in another one. I did have him try it again using only the color side of the swatch. He only had to check the 'black' and 'blue'. Not too shabby!



Isaac and his completed work.

WHAT ABOUT THE TWINS?! Not to worry, they were working had too.



Abby focused on the color green. Yes, that is marker around her mouth. You should see her arms.

Andy focused on blue. No picture. Sorry. He can now audition for the Blue Man Group.

After all that hard work, I let Ike and Abby play Mickey Mouse matching while I worked with Andy and his phrases. He is the most stubborn little boy!

We used the picture cards (from Day 1) and I chose the "bike" card. He identified it as "bicycle". I said the phrase, "I see bicycle." I tapped out syllables to help him hear the rhythm of the phrase. He liked the rhythm, but refused to repeat it. He did clap along, so I know he was hearing it properly. By the end of it he finally said, "I bicycle."

*sigh* Good enough.

Delk Summer School

My kids watch a lot of tv. It's sad but true. It's also a crying shame since I'm a teacher and should know better. Oh well.

It's a rainy, dark day outside and I decided that I didn't want to watch Harry Potter for the hundredth time, or watch Phineas and Firb on the Disney channel. (I really can't stand that show.) So, I started the Delk Summer School. I had some school materials that haven't taken to school in my house, so I can feel professional when we work. Also, I'm really just anal like that.



Chart paper- in rockin' awesome colors. I just can't teach without color.



I found these fabulous cards at Target. They are good as a starting point, but I plan on making a lot of my own materials from here on out.

So, as a teacher/mom, what is the first thing I do? I assess their prior knowledge.

With Isaac, I know that he knows his ABC's, numbers, letters and letter sounds, shapes, and some basic words. With him I am going to start working on making and reading 3 letter words. For math skills we will begin with making numbers. (with things like beans and pasta- groups of 3 for example)

The twins are a little harder. For one thing, Abby is annoying and wants to do everything Isaac does, even though she is not on his level. Already I am having to diversify my instruction to make her feel like she is involved, without having to actively work with her while I work with Ike.
Today Abby saw Ike working with markers. So, I let her work with markers too.



I let Andy work with the Leap Frog alphabet magnets. He was happy as a clam. (No picture, sorry)

So, here is Day 1 at the Delk Summer School...

Isaac worked with the 3-letter word cards that I found at Target. He put the cards together, spelled the word and said the word. After he did 3 sets of cards I had him write the words. He wrote 9 words before becoming antsy. Not bad for the first day. ( No math today. I need to get some glue before starting our math lesson)



With Abby and Andy, I let them do their "Individual Learning Centers" while I worked with Isaac, then I assessed their vocabulary using the picture flash cards. For Andy this was a double whammy since it let me know what he recognized, and it helped with his speech therapy. From here, we can work on making 2-4 word phrases with the picture cards. (Ex.- I see a cat.)



Great job, Andy!!



Andy recognized and could properly verbalize 27 of the picture cards. I wrote down the pictures he recognized and added any extra words he added. (ex. for "boots" he said "shoes". I counted it, but documented the swap.) Yea Andy!!


It did not surprise me that Abby had a larger vocabulary than Andy. I already knew that just from her speech. However, even though she has a more extensive vernacular, that does not mean she is ahead of Andy in all areas. She does not recognize all of her letters, for example the way Andy does.



Abby recognized 39 picture cards! I also documented any swapped words that she said. (ex- "airplane" for the word "jet") My favorite of her swaps was when she said "coffee" for "cup". She recognizes that a lot of the adults in her life like to drink that disgusting brown stuff. (not I, obviously)

It was a start. I played Beethoven, softly, in the background while we worked. The kids had a good time and I feel like I accomplished something. Tomorrow we will work on math. I hope. I might even start making lesson plans. Cause I'm anal like that. :)