Bean bag toss

I still felt like there was a lot of use in the paper that I had put on the wall, that was now covered with words and stickers.
I decided to make a beanbag and put the paper on the floor for a new game of bean bag toss. I made a bean bag out of corvette material in order to make it a bit more appealing to boys. The rules are simple, toss the bean bag and read the word.

Game- sorting words in FFP

I picked up some florest picks and stuck them into playdough. I am trying to keep the playdough pliable by keeping it in a snack bag. This way I can still squish it around the pick to make it stand up. The signs were a bit too heavy to actually stand up in the pick so I had to scotch tape them. The kids thought it was neat anyway. They took turns deciding where each word fits into the fair.

Advertising

My friend had her vehicle plastered with signs advertising her business. The price was very reasonable so I looked into it.
For $150.00 I think I will get a lot for my advertising dollar. I thought it was a good idea to put the age on the truck as most people have never thought of sending a 3 year old to phonics tutoring.

ORGANIZATION

I have 8 different groups of kids that come twice a week. Some are solo and some are in groups of 4. That means that I have a 8 different lessons to prepare. At the beginning I could just prepare a lesson for level one and another for level two. Now that some are moving ahead faster than others I am finding I need to have a lot more lessons ready. I find that I need so many activities at my fingertips that my counter top isn't big enough. If I don't see what I need right away I find the kids get out of control. Parents are paying so much for a lesson I feel very responsible to not be wasting their time. I started looking around my room to see if there is any way that I can get more surface area available. I spied these shelves that I have been using for a shoe rack. Low and behold they just fit the top of my counter. Now I have 3 shelves that I can put activities for the day so they are at my fingertips.

J's progress (down syndrome)

J is making unbelievable progress in reading. I have decided to start him on lesson one of the "ready to read" program. His hand writing is all but intelligible but he can read the first pages and he can spell the words. I will take one lesson at a time and then stop if he gets stuck, go back and review for awhile. We are still working on the "year one" stuff but he seems ready for more, so I will keep him challenged.
He hasn't gotten it down 100%, but he seems to understand the concept of sitting and standing clowns. He can also read most of the blends (bumper cars ). Since he can do all of that, I decided that he should have a binder and start on the lessons.
I feel so privileged to be teaching him.

Progress Oct 14th

We are moving ahead with our lessons at a slow pace. I know that it is because my kids this year are new to fun family phonics but they are still getting it. We are in the middle of blends right now and that seems to be a lot easier for them than the "clowns". I haven't moved away from the clowns yet but keep reviewing them in different ways each time. When we finished reading "The Fun Family Book" I expected that they would all be able to read the whole book, but that wasn't so. I don't know how others groups have found this, but most of my kids can still only read 3 letter words so words like Teddy, family and even book were too hard for them. I haven't been using the "new word" sheets very much, perhaps I need to find more ways to fit that in. I do have them in the form of a Bingo game but it seems really hard for them. There are a lot of sight words that completely stump them, such as "and, so, the etc. On the plus side, if you compare what they can read now compared to the fist of Sept. they have all improved. The other plus is that they still love coming here, and I still love having them here. I am still amazed everyday that this is my job and I actually get paid to do it. What a blessing.!

Using small puppets to create a story for "blends"

I bought a small finger puppet theatre at a garage sale for $2.00. I have been looking at it for awhile, thinking that I should make use of it. I tried making finger puppets to correspond to each of the letters of the alphabet but it seems like a daunting task and I stopped at about letter g.
I decided to try using it for one of the "stories"
I used foam material and did my best at drawing some of the characters in the story. Dave, frog etc.
It looks like it might add interest to a story,I will give it a try on the kids tomorrow.