Reading Incentive Programs

I was recently talking with my child's teacher about reading programs. The school use to use a program called Accelerated Reading or AR for short. Many of the schools in Utah used this program. The my son attends just recently stopped using this program because it was costing too much to run. They felt the money they were spending on AR could be more productively spent elsewhere. I still wanted to reward my son for reading. I have discovered he, like most children, works well if there is a carrot attached to the workload. I want him to develop a love of reading and hopefully he will begin to read just because it's fun and not for the reward but we have to start somewhere and right now this is where we are at.

Virtual Math Manipulatives

My sister came over today asking to use the base 10 blocks I had to help her son understand what the numbers look like. It just so happened that I had a bunch from a kit I had purchased, but not everyone has access to these things or wants to store them. The internet is such an amazing tool and is so helpful. You no longer have to spend hundreds of dollars to build up a stock of manipulatives for kids to use so they can see and understand their math.

Virtual Manipulatives can be very helpful. The mess is easy to clean up (you hit the red x and everything disappears). Most kids will be using these in a classroom so they will all ready know how to play with them on-line. They will also help kids see what they are doing with the numbers and shapes so they can better understand the abstract symbols and concepts.

Math-Aids.com

Today my 6 year old came home from school with a math worksheet asking him to complete the number bonds. Ummmm. Number bonds. I was pretty sure just by looking at the assignment what they wanted him to do but thought I better be sure before I taught him wrong so I went to the internet and found this really cool site called Math-aids.com. This site was so helpful.

Dictionary Game

 I stumbled upon this game site Fun English Games while searching for some reading comprehension games for my son. This game gives you clues to a dictionary word. It would be a wonderful game for 4th, 5th and 6th graders, or anyone who wants to improve their vocabulary. 

You are given a clue and then go to the game's dictionary to use the word definitions to help you find the correct answer. 

When you select a word it gives you the word definition and you then have to pick the word with the definition that best fits the clue. Most aren't too hard and some clues even give you the letter the mystery word starts with. 

Once you pick your word it makes a label for it and they you get to see if it was in the box.

This site also has a fun game I haven't seen before. It's a reading comprehension game with poems. You read the first 5 lines of a poem and then answer 3 questions about what you just read. I have seen many games like with reading passages but never one with poems before so I found this game to be unique. The questions ranged from "what does the author mean" to "what form of speech is being used in this example." It would also be a great game for older aged kids. 

I found this site fun. The only problem with these games is that once you've played them, you've played them. They don't change. I found them very kid friendly, educational, and fun. http://www.funenglishgames.com/readinggames.htmlhttp://www.funenglishgames.com/readinggames.html

Math 101

I was talking to a friend this week and she was confused by her 5th graders math. It wasn't that she didn't understand the math, she didn't understand the vocabulary that her 5th grader was using and therefore couldn't help her.

Math has changed. Well the math hasn't changed, the words teachers are using to teach kids math had changed. No longer do we call 3 a number, it's a digit, we no longer "borrow from our neighbor" we "regroup". This can become frustrating for the child and the parent. There are also some weird looking methods to do math like the Lattice Multiplication method. Schools have moved this way to better prepare kids for the math language. So later on in life they won't need to re-learn that 364 is made up of the digits 3 6 and 4.

Grammar Monster

English is such a confusing language.  Have you ever wondered when it should be an apostrophe before the s or after, or when to use a colon, or semi colon. When to use fewer or less. I just stumbled upon a great site that teaches and tests you on your grammar skills. It's  called Grammar-Monster.com. I love that they work on a little bit of everything grammar related. 

On a Personal Note -

I know I haven't posted for a long time. Things have been crazy at our house. My oldest just started school so we have been adjusting to that schedule, homework, and all the fun that comes with Kindergarten. He is enjoying it and having a blast.

Today I want to talk about what has happened since my son started school. I posted a while ago about my son and about what he can do. My son just turned 6 and has been reading for well over a year now.  He is going to a title 1 school (a school where a majority of the kids are low income so the school receives extra money to help them because most aren't on grade level). I didn't want him to waste a year learning his ABC's when he was already capable of, but doesn't like to, read chapter books. I spoke with his teacher and after testing him to see what his ability level was we decided to put him in a first grade reading group so he wouldn't get bored.

After about two weeks of him going to first grade for reading I finally got to meet the first grade teacher that he is working with. She asked me "If he's in a first grade reading group now what are your plans for him next year?"