Treasure Box

One of my goals is to make "phonics tutoring" a place that kids love to come to. To that end I give out candy and prizes. I try not to give out too many so that by the end of the hour the children have eaten about 4 gummy bears and 2 or 3 mini marshmallows. Hopefully, that isn't too much sugar to fill them with. I have one boy with a peanut allergy so I try not to vary the candies so that I don't accidentally put in m&m's or something that would cause an allergic reaction.
One big hit that I use is a Treasure Box. Sometime during the lesson I let them look through a box of prizes and choose one to take home with them. It is verily expensive but I think the investment is worth it. Last year I gave the kids a snack of ice cream or popcorn every time. That was fine when there was only 2 and one was my grandson.(the other was a boy that reading was second nature to him). With the kids that I have this year I seem to need every second to try to teach them the hour seems to fly by so fast. Also, the expense of that big snack would have be huge for the big group I have this year. Thankfully none of them have even thought that I should give them a snack so it isn't a problem. I do have a supply of saltine crackers available (I checked the box- no peanuts) to give to the kids that say "I am hungry", I'm sure that they wouldn't be able to concentrate if their stomach is growling.

Game review

I found that I only had time for one of the games today and I had too many pairs of card for the game. I turned over all the pairs of cards on the table and mixed them up. I had about 17 pairs and that was too many for the boys to remember where they had seen one that matched the one they turned over. I have taken out about 5 pairs and will try the game with the next group of kids tomorrow.
Most of the boys haven't been practicing the song at home so it is taking us a long time to get into the lesson as we are working on the sounds and shapes of the letters for so long. It is going to take a lot of repetition for some of these boys as it is not coming easy for them.
First Year Program:
I am taking my time with the kindergarten kids as well. We have spent 3 lessons on letter a and b. This Wed. we will still review b and then add the letter c. They are still having a difficult time hearing the beginning sound of words. I have been trying many different ways for them to see a picture and then try to tell me the beginning sound. Today I put one picture on my sentence board and then hid another picture that matches it around the room. They scrambled to find the card then as they matched them to the ones on the sentence strip they would get a minimarshmallow (if they could give me the beginning sound and the phrase ie bobby with is bag. etc.)
These picture are part of the supplies that came with Fun Family Phonics. I just bought 2 sets so that I can use them for games.

Games

I made two new games and I reviewed the rules of a third this afternoon.
Game 1.
I cut up the words on the new word sheet and taped them to a cardboard backing. Two of each word. For the second game I just wrote on some cardstock squares words that have the sitting clown "a" and sitting clown "e". Two of each. With these words we can play the game in 2 ways. First just the regular memory game of turning them all upside down on the table, the children turn over 2 cards at a time. If they match they keep them. Everytime that they turn over a word- they read it out loud. The other way is to hide one of each pair of words around the room, put the matching word on your sentence strip board on the wall. The children find the words then take turn reading them to the class and putting them on the wall chart.
The 3rd game I played with my grandson this afternoon to be sure that I had the rules right. It is called "Go fish". For this game I used a purchased "Rhyme time" card game. These cards are simply a set of cards made up of a picture on the card with the name printing under the picture. For each card there is a card that rhymes with it. To play the game you deal out 5 cards to each player. ( chose the number 5 because it was all they could hold in their hands) The rest are in a pile in the middle upside down. The first player asks another player if they have a card that rhymes with a card that they have. If the player doesn't have a card that rhymes he says "go fish" and player number 1 picks up a card from the middle. If they do have a card that rhymes they give it to the one who asked for it. At the end we count who has the most pairs.
I found that my boys that are in grade 1 don't know how to rhyme but I think they will be able to play this game (I hope) I will try it this week.

For each game that I make I put them in a used envelope and file them with the worksheets etc. for this lesson. I tried using sandwich bags but I found them to be so slippery that they were hard to handle.

The end of the first week

After the shakedown of the first week, I have gotten the kids sorted into groups according to what they are working on. The two boys who are actually in grade one but it is not coming easy for, I am slowing down on the "ready to read" program. I have told the parents that they will not start that program perhaps even until next fall. They were both fine with that.
For the kids in the ready to read program.
I have settled into a routine for some things, I start each day with the phonics song. I then review the letters in the fun family phonics book. We are up to letter "J" now. I let them hold Dave and the magnifying glass and find objects that start with the letters on each page.
I then move into a game of hiding the new words around the room. When they find the words they sit in a circle by my sentence strip board. They read the words and then get a marshmallow for each word then match them onto the sentence strip.
We then move to the table and are working on the alphabet worksheets then into the ready to read take home page.
I have done 2 pages so far. We haven't had time to do the fun family stories pages so next week I am going to fit in a review day and work on them. I feel I am rushing the kids a bit too much so we are going to slow down next week and fit in more games and review. I may think about sending home a note to the parents and tell them we may not be finished by June but I will wait awhile and see how it goes. The kids that are in grade 2 and 3 are having no trouble keeping up the pace of one "ready to read" page a day. The kids that are in grade 1 but have no background in FFP are finding this very fast.

First Day

I found the first day to be very stressful. I had some boys that I hadn't taught before join in. I found them to be very active. The other problem is knowing where to begin. It sounds like it should be simple but I can't begin at the beginning with kids that are in grade 3.. All of the children had the first 3 books to learn over the past month. Some did a great job and others have hardly looked at it. I am trying to review the first 3 books at the same time as go ahead with lesson one. The games that I used for review were,1. I hid an object in a bucket that started with the letter a. the kids had to guess what it was. 2.I also had a lot of objects that started with letters a-e - I played the game of take away one and guess what it is. It was very challenging day. I guess it boils down to- the ones that have great parental support will do better. One boy is quite far behind and I am going to volunteer to work with him for a couple of hours on a Friday by himself to bring him up to speed.
Anyway, I went ahead with lesson one- sitting clowns. I made a die from two kraft dinner boxes that I cut down to have 6 equal sides. I then wrote a,e,i,o, and u on each side. The children took turns throwing the die and then saying the sitting clown song. It was very successful. I also had the kids paint a long tube (the inside from plastic laminate) so that they will have their own personalized baton for singing the clown song.
I find myself being more organized that I should be at time. I put away all the props that I had used in the quessing games and then I realized that I would need them again the next day.
I hung my white board on the wall and then put velcro on the edges to stick a marker and eraser to it. I am finding one of the tricks it to be very orgnized and have stuff at your fingertips. Anytime, you are looking for something or hesitating for a minute - that is when they get out of control

Payment schedule

Last year, when I only had 3 students, I gave the parents an invoice by the 3rd week of the month. Thankfully, when Muriel was here she gave me a different idea of how to collect the money.
There are 68 lessons in the school year. If you are charging $15.00 per lesson that is $1020 per year. She told me this should be devided into 9 equal payments for Sept. to May. The lessons go into June a bit, but there is no payment for that month. This makes 9 equal payments of $113.00 per month. I was nervous about telling the parents this as it was not what I had told them when they first phoned me. I wrote it all up on a sheet of paper to give to the parents in a very professional manner and they all thought it was a great idea.
Just to make collecting even easier I asked for post-dated cheques. All parents except one gave me post-dated cheques. One parents says that she only uses cash so I said ok, as long as she is always a month ahead.
The other idea that my daughter presented was to give a discount if they pay the whole year in advance. I had 3 people utilize this option.

Free Phonics Camp-Huge success

The phonics camp went better than I ever dreamed it could. I had kids booked every hour during the day, 08:30-5:30 (10 minutes between each and 1/2 hr. for lunch). On the second day I decided to move 1 child earlier and 1 later into different groups so I actually had an extra hour free in the afternoon. The Sunday before it all started I began to have butterflies that maybe I had booked way too many kids. As it turned out it was fine. I had classes with 1, 2 and 4 kids in them. (Depending on the need and/or ability) 18 kids each day.
The purpose of the free camp was simply to get the word out into the community, that purpose was fully realized. I have now got 17 kids booked, with down payments paid for Sept. I actually have 2 kids that have paid the whole year in advance.
Another benefit from the free camp was that I was able to see how some kids behaved in a tutoring session and also what level they are at. This will save me some time, in the fall, getting going at their level.
I struggled deciding what to do with all the time that I would have to fill every day. I didn't want to get into the FFP reading program too fully as that could put them ahead of others that are going to be in their class is Sept. I finally decided to read them a few pages from a book each day and then get the kids to make their own book during the week, one page each day. That was a great way to fill at least 20 minutes each day. I chose a book about sharks, with the main character being a girl. This made the book appeal to the boys and the girls. The rest of the hour I spent learning the FFP song and playing games with the picture cards. For the older kids I focused on the "standing and sitting clowns" as I thought that would benefit all the kids whether they were coming here in the fall or not.
Now that I am starting to get the word out I am hoping it will be easier to get a full enrolment next year. As successful as this phonics camp was, it was still a ton of work (and some money) for me. Of course I am thinking of next year and how to keep this mementum going. I hope that I won't have to do another free camp but I may just offer it for 4 year olds if I need it.