Slammer car game

Children have a tendency to push us and keep us on our toes. One of the girls wanted to play the "mailbox game". The only way that I have used that game before was to give the kids a picture and they put it in the correct letter sound. These girls are way past that so I had to get creative. I made up some "letters" to mail out of cardstock, then I wrote a "slammer car" for and address on the houses. I said the word orally and they put the "letter" into the correct spelling.

Graduation Day

Wow!It couldn't have been better. The weather was perfect, the kids did great and I think the parents loved it.
As it turned out, the graduation day was the same day as the last game of the Stanley cup Playoffs, in some ways that was good as our program was very short and I think everyone was glad to be on their way home.
It was a good thing that we didn't have to fit into my living room, as there were about 20 people in all.
We started with the readers theatre and I think everyone enjoyed it, the children had no problem reading their lines.
Next on the program I gave each one certificate. Two of the children skipped about 10 lessons and they actually didn't complete the program, so I just gave them a paper saying "good job, etc etc.".
After the short program each child got an ice cream cone and the whole thing was over in 30 minutes.
I was very pleased with the entire ceremony.

Free Camp in almost full. I am almost full for next fall. It is amazing what a week or two will do. I guess parents like to wait until the last minute.

I have 3 girls in my graduating class that wanted a party for the last day, so we decided to do a Readers Theatre. The kids are so excited. We will have 2 different plays. A group of 3 boys, then the 3 girls with me as Narrator. When I read about the research on this type of play I was pretty excited that we chose it. Apparently, according to Mr. Google, "Readers Theatre will help students improve their reading skills and gain improvement in vocabulary, comprehension, and retention".
So this Monday is the day, with certificates handed out after their performance and an ice cream cone to send them on their way, I'm sure they will feel that they have made a great accomplishment.

I am hoping for a nice day because the backyard will be a perfect spot, it would be miserable to squish everyone in our living room. I'll tell my husband to not rush home from work that day and it will be all over by 6pm.

Free Camp

It is mid May. I have advertised my free camp at a lot of day cares and put posters around town. I am very disappointed with the results. I'm not sure what the reason but I only have 7 children signed up. I am not full next fall yet so I feel I really need this Free camp. Also, it is so nice to see children before you assign them to a class. Its nice to see exactly how they act in a small classroom setting.
Since I really feel that I need more exposure I will go ahead and put an ad in the newspaper. See what happens, maybe everyone will phone at the last minute.

Down Syndrome

I am so pleased to announce that J. my `Down Syndrome` student has learned to read. I must admit, 2 years ago when J. first entered my tutoring room I was wondering if this Phonics Program would work for a child with Down Syndrome. Typically children with this syndrome learn to read by memorizing sight words.

As J. reads new words now, I see that he has actually mastered most of the phonetic constructs. He can take a new word, attack it phonetically and come up with the right pronunciation.

It should be noted that J. is a very high functioning Down Syndrome child.

J. has a great deal of difficulty with hand eye co-ordination and printing is a real chore that quite often does not resemble anything. He is also lost when it comes to spelling a word, until it is sounded out VERY slowly, then he sometimes gets it right.

The beauty of FUN FAMILY PHONICS is that being a song and play based program it can hold the interest of almost any child. J. loves both songs and games, and I think this has been the ticket to him mastering reading.

Stories

I needed a new approach to read the "Stories" during class time. We have highlighted the key words and I have cut them into sentence strips.
I had an idea and the kids loved it. I had 3 students, so I highlighted different words for each of them to read. We read the story with each of them reading their highlighted words. It took us 4 times to "get it right", they never wanted to give up until we were reading it smoothly. It was a great way to learn the new words.

I love to go to garage sale and find games or parts of games and reinvent them to be Fun Family Phonics Games.
This is a Dora game that I bought. The way the board is laid out gave me the idea to have each child work from the corner in to the middle. They can roll a dice and move along the black line, reading the words that they land on. First to the centre wins.

Turning Lemons into Lemon Aid

This board is an example of how a person can turn lemons into lemonade. When we first added on this room we were completely finished (we thought) so we called the building inspector for our final inspection. He was very surprised that we had called him because we had no railings on our stairs. No one had told us that we needed railings so we figured we were done. I was quite upset as the cost of railings on both sides would take care of a few hundred bucks which we didn't want to spend. The building inspector told us that we could put a short wall up which would be a lot cheaper than railings. After checking, we decided that he was right the wall would be cheaper. So here it is.
Now I have just found out about magnetic paint (my daughter just mentioned it in conversation) I had never heard of such a thing. Right away I could see a use for that on this "wall" My husband did a great job of painting this for me and it works great for decoding phonics words. As I used it this morning I sometimes wished that I could write on it as well....my husband had gone to the hardware store to buy white board paint to paint on top of my magnetic paint! Wow, what a benefit this wall has become to me.

The evolution of a chair

I have gone from having 4 to 5 children at a time. I have known that I would need another chair for some time but I kept putting it off. I wanted a chair to match and at $50.00 per chair I was delaying.
Now all of the sudden I needed a chair this afternoon. I walked around the house looking for a stool or anything that might be about the right height. I spotted a filing box, measured it and if it wasn't the perfect height. I remembered that I had an empty file box in storage under the house that was the same size, so I got that out, turned it over and put a pillow on. I now had a chair but the wheels were turning; all this space inside that I could use for filing if it was the right side up. My husband and I talked over different ideas, like slats held on with velcro, a piece of plywood with hinges. We just kept stalling, nothing seemed quite right.
Last Saturday I got some more shelving. I had 2 extra pieces, well you can see from the picture how it turned out when we put wire ties on one edge. I can now lift up the lid and do filing, put the pillow on and it is the favourite chair that I have now. I have to keep the kids from fighting to sit on it.

Gentle Care Books

I am ready for something new to do by about this time of the year. I came up with the idea of this little book. I had to use my sewing machine to attach the pages as my stapler wasn't big enough. On the left side of each page I typed the words from each section. e.g. ce: face, space, dance. gy: gym
The right side I left blank. The children read the words, decide what to draw and then when they have finished their drawing they print the corresponding word.
I must say it has been a huge hit. They are very pound of their "Gentle Care Books"