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?"

Color Fun x2

Playing with food coloring and water can be a fun way to learn about the primary and secondary colors. It's fun to mix and see what you create. 

We started with clear containers so everyone could see what was happening and added red, yellow, and blue food coloring to the water. I grabbed a few extra containers to do the mixing.  

Turtle Diary

 Turtlediary.com is a fun website for pre-K-2nd grade. They offer a wide range of activities including math, esl (which is basically Language Arts), and science games, experiments, videos, stories, worksheets, and more. You can play a a guest, create and account or purchase the upgrade. I just played with the basic account. 

Reading Comprehension - Goodreads.com

My son has just started reading chapter books. We have reached a new educational achievement. The chapter book phase. I'm so excited for him but I still feel it is very important for him to tell me about what he is reading so I can make sure he is comprehending it. See my son is only 5 and hasn't started kindergarten yet. I don't want to push him into things before he is ready. Now before you start getting upset with me for not letting my kid be a kid, I have had people do that or blame it on the fact that I'm a teacher, let me tell you a little bit about my son.

Shodor.org

Oh the things I just happen to stumble upon when I'm trying to avoid laundry. I connected to this site http://shodor.org/interactivate/activities/ through a series of links and was so intrigued by it I stopped to play. This site is really neat and kind of confusing. The site's objective is to help people understand math through visual representations or graphs. I played around in the Number operations section.

How to know if an educational site will be a lemon

I frequently have people ask me what I think about different websites. I LOVE it!!!! Please keep the site you  find coming. I don't know about all the educational websites and love hearing about more. I thought I would list how I judge a website and determine if it's a site I would like my kids to play on or not to help others know what to look for in an educational website.

Preparing for Kindergarten

I was reading a blog and unfortunately I don't remember where it was, but it was a blog from a Kindergarten Teacher. She was encouraging people to prepare their kids for Kindergarten and said that Kindergarten is no longer what it use to be. By the end of Kindergarten kids are now expected to read simple words. What can you do to make sure your kids are ready?

Motivation

My son has just recently started reading. He loves it when I read to him but getting him to read now that's another story. I was helping my kids write a simple story and when it was finished he wanted me to turn it into a movie so he wouldn't have to do any work. That's my boy!! So how do you motivate kids to do something?

FREE STORY TIME

Story time is so much fun. My kids love it. They love listening to the librarian read to them at library story time. We don't make it very often but I found a solution. Barnes and Noble offers FREE story time with authors and celebrities reading the stories.

Equation race

Here's a fun game the whole family can play. You need 6 dice (3 dice with numbers 1-6 and 3 with 0, 1, 2, 7, 8, 9), paper and pencils.

Spelling

Spelling - UGGGG. Spelling. Remind your kids that if they learn the phonics rules it will make spelling so much easier. If they learn their Phonics sounds (ph says f, ea-says long e, short e or a) It will make this task much easier.

You Are Your Words

Here is a neat site. YouAreYourWords.com It takes your picture and turns it into your words. What a powerful way to teach kids about how their words makes them who they are. This would be a great way to teach about bullying, just a fun way to do a writing project about a historical figure, or a great scrapbook keep sake.

Dreambox

I just found out about dreambox math when a reader posted a comment. Thanks for telling me about it. I'm always looking for new sites to review. We just signed up for the free 14 day trial and so far it's been really fun.

Virtual Field Trip

Ever wanted to take your kids some place far away but couldn't afford the plane tickets. How about a trip to Ellis Island? To the White House? Try looking for a virtual tour. Virtual tours are becoming more popular and easier to find on-line. What a GREAT way to help your kids see places you can't fly them too to experience first hand. I have used the White House Virtual Tour and have used it in my classroom before. The kids really relate to it a lot more than pictures in a book. The Virtual Field Trip to Ellis Island is brand new!

English

Isn't English just one of the most confusing languages around. Some letters make 2 sounds depending on which other letter is sitting next to it, vowels say 2 sometimes 3 sounds, e's do different things to different letters and words. And that's just phonics. Then there's the grammar. Instead of saying "Yesterday she sayed" we say "Yesterday she said." Instead of "We goed to gramdma's house" we say "We went to Grandma's house."

Does better handwriting mean higher scores in school?

I happened to stumble upon an article on CNN called "Connecting the dots between handwriting and hight scores." The article states the Dr. Laura Dinehart discovered that a child's ability for form letters when they are 4 was a strong indicator of their academic achievement later in life. She stated that those with better penmanship had higher reading and math scores.

Animal Alphabet Book

The other day the kids and I were just playing around and reading books. I got the idea to have them write their own animal alphabet book. We have taken each letter and come up with an animal that begins with that letter. It has been so much fun. My kids look forward to doing a little bit each day.

Sqool Tube

Tonight at the dinner table my so was telling us about bats and how they find bugs by making a noise. We said that was a really neat thing. My husband then asked if he wanted to learn something else about bats. My son said yes. My husband then told him that bat's can't see. This started an argument between my son and husband. In an effort to settle the argument I wanted to find the Magic School episode on Bats, with no luck. Netflix doesn't have them. The only place I have seen them is on Youtube. I did however stumble upon this really neat site that offers videos on just about any subject.