Family History Stories

Getting young kids interested in history is as easy as telling the stories of those who lived before. Reading a history book can be boring but reading personal stories of those who lived through the events can make a historical event come alive. These stories can be slightly altering and made kid friendly and will quickly become bedtime favorites.

History through Stories

History doesn't have to be a boring subject consisting of memorizing facts and dates. It can be taught through stories. Every one of us has an ancestor that was alive through every historical event, they may not have been at the actual event but they most likely knew about it.  If we can make history come alive kids will take it to heart. They will begin to understand that these were actual events that occurred and people lived through. They aren't just random words or names on a piece of paper. When teaching history it's best to start with the child and work your way back. Kids, especially young kids have a difficult time understanding abstract concepts without a firm base. When you start learning about them, and move to the relatives they know it is easier to understand and believe that the names on their family tree were real people and the events they lived through were real.

There are lots of resources and ways to teach HIS STORY. Here are a few.

If you'd like to hear more about my journey with family history you can go here.

Teach Your Monster to Read

My 5 year old son informed me that he didn't like ANY of the computer games I had found and they were all boring yesterday. Time to begin another internet search for "fun" games. We stumbled upon "Teach Your Monster to Read" which was created by The Usborne Foundation. My kids really enjoy our Usborne books so I decided we should give it a try. I asked my 5 year old what he thought about it and well he was less than excited because it was a learning game until he started playing it.

Teach Your Monster to Read teaches letters, sounds and is COMPLETELY FREE for the computer version. They do have an app available for 4.99 which they charge for to help pay for creating new games. It was easy to register.

Setting my son up was simple. Just had to put his name in. I can add as many players as I want. On the HOME page I can check the stats, see what my son is working on, how he has done with the other sounds, so much information is available to help ME teach my son. I can also download a printable poster of his monster which he can name.




I was able to choose a level for my son. I got to choose the level for my son using the information the site provided below.  I could look at what they would learn in each level to help determine where to place him. It's solely based off a parent placement, not placement tests, just what I felt was best. I chose level 2 for my son, which started with the ch, sh, sounds which is about where he is. You  can only start at the beginning of a level so if your child already knows some of the information it's a good review and allows them the chance to learn how the games work before adding learning new content AND trying to learn how the games work which can become very confusing for kids.

Like I said earlier at first my 5 year old boy was not excited but that was more due to him being in a bad mood then him not liking the game because once he got started I had a hard time getting him off. He got to design a monster character to play with which he thought was awesome. The monsters were cute and there were so many options. You could change just about anything using their pre-made options.

He then started playing the games and was very excited to learn some new sounds and review some he already knew. It began by introducing a sound, asking them to say it, then finding it in words. When the game asked  him to repeat the sounds I told my son that his monster could hear him so he'd actually do it, the game can't really hear them but it sure got him participating. Things happen on the game after they say the sound, a door opens, they get to gather stars, or play a new game. It's very interactive.
This is an awesome site and I recommend it for kids who are showing interest in learning their letter sounds which is usually anywhere from 4-6 year olds.  If you start with level 1 and work your way through the whole program at 20 minutes a day (their recommendation) you'd finish all three levels in about 43 weeks. Another great thing about this program is you can go at your child's pace. The game remembers them and where they left off so if you don't want to do 20 minutes 5 days a week you don't have to. If your child is read to move to another level you can change that level on your HOME page instead of having to create a new player for them.

This site DID NOT have any other ads on the sides that would lead kids to dangerous places which I love! There are also a ton of free resources in the classroom section. You can find this by clicking on the teacher's area. I honestly just keep finding more and more exciting things with this site. The Usborne Foundation has done an awesome job creating this for new readers.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

Alphabet

I just found a neat game for kids called Alphabet Marks the Spot. It's like twister, with a twist. It's an alphabet mat. The goal of the game is to run to the beginning letter of the picture on the dice before your opponent.

Family History

What a better way to learn about history than by talking to those who actually lived through it? I have been working on my other passion, scrapbooking. I love scrapbooking. For Christmas I have taken all the old pictures from my grandma and scanned them into my computer to give my mom, aunts, grandma, and cousins a special gift for Christmas. Their dad, my grandpa, passed away when I was only 8 years old so close to 20 years ago. Many of my cousins don't remember him at all. So I have taken all the pictures I have been able to find of him and am writing a children's book to help them get to know the grandpa they never did. Through this process I have learned so much about my grandpa and where he came from. Things that I never knew before like that he joined the air force so he wouldn't be drafted into the army and that is where his love of air planes came from. Just little things that no one had ever thought to tell me.

Handwriting

Handwriting is an important part of who we are. Through practice we train our hand to form the letters quickly but practice makes perfect. When I first started teaching I thought handwriting just came naturally to kids and if I showed them how to do it on the board they would get it. Many did and things went well. Then I took a Spalding course. Honestly this was a course I HATED taking but I really did like a few of the strategies I took from the course.