Testy yet trying

Apraxia Therapy: Early Apraxia Therapy (Where to Begin) Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Fri, 23 May 2014 11:00:00 +0000

I frequently receive requests for information from parents or therapists of very young children - usually between the ages of 18 and 30 months. The children have very few, if any, words. They make few sounds. They have a history of reduced or absent babbling. They have difficulty imitating and difficulty making volitional utterances. They are beginning to become aware that they are different. They want to communicate and yet struggle. Frustration is increasing on the part of both parents and children. The child may begin to act out in negative ways. What do you do? Where do you start?

You have three immediate goals:

Reduce frustration.

Establish and increase frequency of volitional utterances.

Increase number of daily speech utterances through structured practice.

Early Apraxia Treatment - Reducing frustration.

Read about how to address this goal in part one of my Early Apraxia Therapy (Where to Begin) series.

Early Apraxia Treatment - Establishing and increasing frequency of volitional utterances.

Read about how to address this goal in part two of my Early Apraxia Therapy (Where to Begin) series.

Early Apraxia Treatment - Increase number of daily speech utterances through structured practice.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech is a disorder of the motor planning of speech movements. The brain knows what the child wants to say. The mouth is capable of making the movements necessary. The planning of those movements gets jumbled in between. Children with apraxia need repetition, repetition, repetition in order to establish proper motor planning routines and make those routines smooth and automatic. One of the most efficient ways to increase the sheer number of repetitions your child makes is through drill. You can do drill activities with very young children, but first you need to figure out what to drill. I will outline a sequence of steps that will show you how to determine which sounds to target first for a specific child and help you find the resources and methods for doing those drill activities with young children.

Take a speech sound inventory - Young children with apraxia often have a “limited phonemic repertoire”. This is just a fancy way of saying that they can’t make very many sounds. Even if they are trying to mimic a wide variety of words, the sounds they are actually producing often are not the sounds that should be in the words they are trying to imitate. Listen carefully to your child when they are verbalizing. Take videos of several times when your child is “chatty”. Then go back and really listen to those utterances. Transcribe them if you can. What sounds do you hear? What vowels? What consonants? Write those down. For example, check out this speech sample of a child with apraxia at 23 months of age. You can see the transcript of the words Ava was saying and the actual sounds she produced. You'll want to do this several times so that you can be sure that you have a fairly complete collection of the types of utterances your child can make.
Analyze the speech sound data you collected - Take your lists of the transcribed words your child makes (if you are a parent, you don't have to use fancy transcription symbols like I did -just note vowels and consonants as best you can). From those lists, make a final list of all the consonant sounds your child can produce. If you can, note next to each consonant whether you heard it at the beginning of the word (in initial position) or at the end of the word (in final position) or both. Your list of consonants may be very small. When I started working with Ava, her only consonant was /d/. You may hear several consonants. If so, try to identify the one or two consonants your child uses most often. Or, the one or two consonants they can imitate best.
Choose speech practice target sounds - This may seem counterintuitive, but you want to begin by working with the sounds your child is most successful with. You are going to begin practicing with the one or two sounds that they already use the most and/or that they can imitate the best. You are going to do this for two reasons. First, you want them to experience success. Early apraxia therapy is all about turning speech from a frustrating activity the child feels like a failure at to a fun activity they can enjoy and consistently participate in at some level. Second, it is likely that they are only using those "best" consonants in a single word, or that they cannot produce them at will in many situations. You want to take that sound that they are currently only using in one word, at home, with you and turn it into a sound they can use in many words (with different vowels to mean different things) in many different situations (school, with other family members, at the park, etc.).
Make therapy practice materials - Go to my free speech articulation materials page and download a free card set or two. Choose a card set that features the sounds you identified in the previous step. If your child uses the sound at the beginning of their words, download the initial card set for that sound. If your child uses the sound at the end of their words, download the final card set for that sound. The card set is designed to pair that consonant your child can produce successfully with multiple vowels. If they leave off a sound (for example, "pah" for "pop"), accept that as correct and move on. If there are cards in the set that your child cannot produce because they can't imitate that vowel sound at all, don’t use them. Right now you want your child to think that this game is fun. You want them to experience success.

Scroll down to the bottom of the free card set page for some tips on doing speech practice with young children and 30 ideas of games and activities to do with those cards.
Practice, practice, practice - Keep practice sessions short. Treat it as play. Tell your child that you're going to play a speech game and then follow through with making it fun. If your child is struggling, ask for just one more, and then put it aside and come back to it later, with a different game. Remember that all of these speech repetitions are cumulative. You are using a variety of strategies throughout the child's entire day to increase the number of speech utterances they produce. Structured practice with picture cards can easily double a the number of speech utterances a child produces in a day in a very short amount of time. It is a valuable tool. It also allows your child to practice using very simple combinations of sounds to produce a wide variety of words that they will hopefully begin to be able to incorporate into their own spontaneous use.

If you found this article useful, check out other articles I've written about Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

Apraxia Therapy: Early Apraxia Therapy (Where to Begin) Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Thu, 22 May 2014 11:00:00 +0000

Reduce frustration.

Establish and increase frequency of volitional utterances.

Increase number of daily speech utterances through structured practice.

Early Apraxia Treatment - Reducing frustration.

Read about how to address this goal in part one of my Early Apraxia Therapy (Where to Begin) series.

Early Apraxia Treatment - Establishing and increasing frequency of volitional utterances.

Typically, very young children with apraxia have difficulty producing sounds when they want to. You want to help them be able to intentionally vocalize. If they already can vocalize at will, you want to increase the number of those utterances and the contexts in which they can produce those utterances. Note that for the purpose of this goal, you should not care if the utterance is phonetically accurate. For example, if the child is trying to say, “baby”, and the utterance they make doesn’t sound anything like “baby,” that is all right. If they produce something different each time, that is all right too. You simply want them to be able to reliably produce an utterance in response to a stimulus.

Every time a child with apraxia makes a vocalization (any vocalization) on purpose they are practicing formulating a message in their mind, creating a motor-speech plan, and successfully coordinating breath, phonation, and movement of the speech articulators to produce sound. For these children, that sequence of events is a huge success and a necessary beginning. You need this to happen before you can begin to fine tune the specific sounds that emerge. There are many ways to establish and increase practice opportunities for volitional utterances. I will describe four methods below.

Echoing - One of the simplest ways to establish or increase the number of volitional utterances is to echo any utterances your child does make back at them. Remember that every single time your child deliberately makes a sound to communicate they are coordinating intent with breath, phonation, and movement of speech muscles and structures. This is essential practice in early apraxia therapy. So, if your child happens to make a sound (not a frustration sound, but any other sound) echo it back at them. You want to try to create a fun feedback loop or simple game out of bouncing that word/sound/exclamation/utterance back and forth. For example, there was a time when my daughter's only word was "da?" (for "that?"). She would use it to label items she already knew the name for, to request the name for unknown items, and to request items she couldn't reach. She and I could have an entire conversation consisting of bouncing that one word back and forth. She would point to an unknown item (let's say... a marble, just for the sake of this example). The conversation would unfold as follows:
- Ava: "Da?" (What's that?)
- Mama: "Da?" (You mean this?)
- Ava: "Da!" (Yep!)
- Mama: "Da?" (You sure you mean this?)
- Ava: "Da!" (Yep mama. Tell me already!)
- Mama: "Marble."
So, instead of her making a single utterance and then receiving either the marble or the label for the marble and being done, Ava practiced making an utterance three times in the context of a true, turn-taking conversation. Over time, this simple technique can result in dozens, or hundreds of extra utterances a day. You can listen to an example of a father using this technique with his 21 month old daughter in the first apraxia speech sample audio clip of this post.
Interactive book reading - Sit down with your child and a picture book. Your goal is to use the book interactively to elicit speech from your child. Read the same book each night so that the child sees the book as a familiar and fun activity. You do not want to read the book to your child, although you can make reading the text on each page part of what you do. You want to engage your child in commenting on the action in the pictures by pointing and asking questions. For example, if a story involves a character who falls, every time you read that page, point to the character and say, “Uh oh!” Then encourage your child to mimic you. Go back and forth several times. Have fun with it. Other utterances that can be worked into reading many children’s books include “hi,” “oh no,” “shhhh,” “bye bye,” “mama,” “daddy,” etc. Again, it doesn’t matter so much that your child mimics those words correctly. You simply want them to experience the turn taking and joint attention that comes with playing the game.

You can watch a video of this type of interaction in my Case Study of Apraxia – Audio Samples from 21-30 months post. I am reading a book with my 21 month old daughter with apraxia. I also highly recommend the Big Book of Exclamations by Teri K. Peterson. The author is a speech pathologist who designed the book to provide many, many opportunities for interactions and vocalizations. Read my review of The Big Book of Exclamations for more information on this great book.
Pair actions and vocalizations - Often children with apraxia find vocalizing easier when their efforts are paired with motion. Encourage your child to say “whee” while sliding down a slide or swinging on a swing. Play horsie and bounce them on your knee or on an exercise ball while saying “ba bump, ba bump, ba bump”. Blow bubbles and encourage them to say “pop” as they pop each one with their finger. Crash cars together and have them mimic “bam!” Give them a ball of play dough and let them poke holes in it imitating “squish” each time. Line up blocks along the end of a table and have them say “uh oh” each time they push one off. Then they can say “up” each time they put one back up setting up for the next round. Possibilities are endless. Again, it doesn’t so much matter what sound they make. What matters is that they do make a sound. You want them to enjoy making the sound. Making a sound is part of the game. Without a sound, the game isn’t as much fun.
Strategic Withholding - Create speech opportunities in daily life. Structure interactions to require speech. It is so easy with a minimally verbal child to start anticipating their needs and eliminate the need for them to even try to vocalize. Instead, deliberately place a few favorite things out of reach so they have to ask for your help to reach them. Give them a small serving of their favorite food so they’ll need to ask for more. If you are coloring with them, deliberately place the colors just a little out of their reach so they’ll have to ask you to hand them the crayons. These are just a few simple examples, but extend the concept as much as possible during the day. Through this simple technique you can create dozens of opportunities for your child to verbalize each day. Every single utterance adds up to extra practice. A child with apraxia needs as much practice as you can possible squeeze in.

Do not take this to extremes. You are not trying to be mean, or to deliberately frustrate the child. You are simply intentionally creating opportunities for requests. You want the process to feel natural and not forced. If the child is not able to vocalize a request, respond to nonverbal requests (and signs) as well. You want to avoid increasing frustration. Think “create opportunities” rather than “force practice.”

Trying to write this as one continuous post was simply too long. Look for the continuation of this series the rest of the week. In the meantime, if you need more general information about Childhood Apraxia of Speech, the following posts may be useful:

Apraxia Therapy: Early Apraxia Therapy (Where to Begin) Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Wed, 21 May 2014 11:00:00 +0000

Reduce frustration.

Establish and increase frequency of volitional utterances.

Increase number of daily speech utterances through structured practice.

Early Apraxia Treatment - Reducing frustration.

Both child and parents experience increasing frustration. The child has the cognition and underlying receptive and expressive language skills to want to communicate and yet the child is unable to talk. The child wants to initiate simple requests - they want attention, food, help, an item out of reach, etc. When they are unable to make those requests they are frustrated and act out in frustration. They also resort to grabbing, pulling, pointing, crying, and grunting as they attempt to communicate. You need to reduce all of this frustration to improve the quality of life for the child and everyone around him or her. The child needs to be able to communicate their basic needs. You need to teach temporary ways for the child to communicate effectively.

Teach simple signs - Teach the child simple signs such as "no, stop, more, help, eat, drink," etc. Teach the same signs to any adults and other children who regularly spend time with the child. Incorporate the use of these signs into daily routines and encourage the child to use them as well. Adults and other children should pair the use of the sign with the matching spoken word, but do not push the child with apraxia to vocalize. The purpose of using the signs at this point is to allow the child to communicate functionally when their voice fails them. This will result in a happier child who will be able to better understand the underlying give-and-take nature of communication when you are ready to bridge to verbal communication. Here's a visual guide to 21 signs useful with young children.
Create communication boards - Create communication boards and post them in key areas of the child's home. Make a simple chart of food and drink items to put on the wall in the kitchen (at a height the child can reach). Post another chart with characters from their favorite TV shows near the television. A third chart might include pictures of the toys they request most often posted near the place toys are put away. This gives the child a way to request specific things without needing to be able to verbalize complex sounds.

Think about the things the child most often struggles to communicate and create boards that feature those things. For more in depth information, read about why and how to make and use communication boards in my Apraxia Therapy: Communication Boards post.

Pros and Cons of a Sick Homeschooling Household

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Wed, 02 Oct 2013 10:00:00 +0000

We were all sick last week. Ava came down with it first. She was sniffly and slightly feverish. She was achy with a sore throat. She was irritable - for her. This resulted in the children being snippy with each other. They usually get along well and the lack of harmony really grated on my nerves. If the children were in school I would have needed to keep her home. Or send her in and feel guilty and worried about her all day.

Instead we just kept to our usual routine. I leaned a little more on Michael for answers and a little less on Ava. We took more breaks. But overall, school continued. The kids like our school work and they get bored when just left on their own for too long. Ava in particular likes to be with her loved ones and so she didn't complain at all.

Michael was also irritable all week. He didn't seem to get the sore throat or fever, but he did get the runny nose and cough. Again, we just kept to a slightly less cheerful and intense version of the usual routine. The children being irritable was driving me crazy though. I felt like I was intervening in some sort of squabble at least once every 30 minutes and it was killing me. My mood was off and I was atypically grumpy and short tempered. In retrospect, I should have known I was next.

Then it was my turn. If the children felt even a fraction as miserable as I did, I am in awe of how well they had actually been doing all week. I was taking two different types of over the counter pain killers and it still felt like my throat and Eustachian tubes were on fire with every breath. This was keeping me from sleeping. I was running the same low grade fever the children had been running. The details aren't important. Let's just say that if I weren't homeschooling I would have been spending my days in bed.

Instead, I got up and got breakfast into the littles and got through our first two lessons of the day - circle time and math. At that point, instead of transitioning to reading or Scholastic News I let the children have free time and informed them that I was going to read. They could come find me when they were ready to do their reading lesson. Admittedly, that was a bit pitiful, but it worked. The children played independently for almost two hours while I dozed on the sofa. Then Ava came to ask to do her reading lesson. The rest gave me enough energy to get through Ava's reading lesson and lunch. Then it was more free play for the children until Michael came to ask for his reading lesson. At that point in the afternoon I typically read to the children for an hour or we do art, but there was no way my throat was going to participate in an hour of reading aloud so we watched a movie instead.

It wasn't elegant, but it got done. We repeated that same schedule the next day. Even though the entire household was sick, we still managed circle time, word wall activities, math, and reading every day. It wasn't as high energy, efficient, or on schedule, but it still all happened. It was a workable solution. I'm looking forward to being back to full energy and patience this week (I'm still shaking off the cold), but it was nice to see that we can work this homeschooling thing through a household illness.

Interactive Word Wall - Refining and Differentiated Instruction

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 10:00:00 +0000

We have now been using our word wall in our Pre-Kindergarten / Kindergarten level homeschool for about six weeks. I wrote about planning and creating the word wall and my intentions for using it interactively several weeks ago. I have learned a few things and refined my technique since then.

Choosing and Introducing Word Wall Words

There are many ways to use a word wall. Some choose to use their word wall to highlight content area vocabulary or with themes. My children are very young so I am using the word wall to facilitate the reading and spelling of early sight words. I am pulling most of the words from the Dolch lists. I am introducing six new words each week. Here's the key though. I'm not just going through those lists in order. I make sure the six words I choose each week can be combined to make a sentence. This is absolutely key! I print the words on plain white paper and cut them out so that you can see the word shape. Then I tape them each to a differently colored background and laminate the cards. Finally I stick a magnet on the back of each word.

Monday - I introduce the words on Monday during circle time. We clap and snap each word taking the time to discuss the word shape (small, tall, and fall letters - does the word look like a rectangle or squares - etc.) and how to decode the individual phonemes. Then we build a sentence from the words. We build one or two sentences that make sense and we build silly sentences that do not make sense. The children love it.
Tuesday-Thursday - I display one word at a time and ask my preschooler to read the word. If she has difficulty, I help her decode the word. We then snap and clap the word and its spelling. Then I have my kindergartner spell the word (he can read all the words easily, so this is how I differentiate instruction).

After reviewing all six words, we continue to build sentences with the words. I use a dry erase marker and show making the first letter of the sentence a capital and adding punctuation as appropriate. The clapping and snapping the word, discussion of word shape, and decoding the words using phonics are all important, but it is using the words to build sentences that really cements them in the minds of the children. Ava gets practice reading the words in a sentence context. Michael gets to read with inflection and discuss capitalization and punctuation. We get to work collaboratively and take turns composing and reading the sentences. And we all get to laugh together at some of the nonsense sentences we create. In five minutes or less the children have practiced reading the six words at least a dozen times each and they don't even realize it.
Friday - On Friday we repeat the same routine. When we are finished, the children each take three of the words and put them in the appropriate spots on the word wall. Now these words are integrated in with the words from previous weeks and we are ready to introduce six new words during circle time on the next Monday.

Using and Practicing Word Wall Words - Daily

Each day, immediately after circle time, we do a word wall game. This can take anywhere from 5-15 minutes. The children LOVE this time of day. They remind me if I forget. I made a printable list of 15 Word Wall Games, and you can find many more with a simple internet search. I rotate through the games so we're never doing the same one twice a week. The children particularly like Tall Towers, Word Wall Tic Tac Toe, and Word Wall Word Search. Whenever appropriate, I differentiate instruction by asking Michael to spell the word while Ava only needs to read the word. I also keep track informally of which words (from the wall) that they know well and which ones they still need practice on and try to rotate in the ones they need more practice with more often.

Does it work?

Let's think of having a word wall in a classroom as a three stage process.

Part 1: Teacher creates a word wall space, chooses words, and gets those words onto the wall alphabetically.
Part 2: Teacher chooses new words each week and devotes class time to introducing the words and reviewing them daily.
Part 3: Teacher devotes additional daily classroom time to having children work with the word wall words interactively in a game format.

Part 1 alone? - Not enough.

Part 1 and Part 2? Adequate for familiarity and some automaticity, but not for true mastery.

All 3 Parts? This works!

Word Wall=Sight Words - But what about phonics?

All About Reading program

Super Reading and The Magic Tree House Books

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I'll admit it. I was struggling in the afternoons. Our mornings are fairly structured. Time goes quickly. We get a lot done. Circle time, word wall games, math, Scholastic News, and our reading program fill the morning. Then, about 4 hours after we started, we are all ready for a significant break.

I let the kids watch some tv while I prepare lunch. Then I let them eat lunch in front of the tv while I have some quiet time. I know it isn't perfect, but I'm human and an introvert and my sanity is important too. So we all have a mid-day break and I do use the television to make that happen. The problem was that I was having trouble finding the motivation to pull us all back together afterwards. I found excuses to delay... and delay... and delay. Then I had an ephiphany. I realized that we needed something truly fun to pull us all back together - something that made me glad to leave my little bit of solitude and something that made the children excited about turning off the television.

So now I read to the children in the afternoons. It's not a lesson. Michael isn't reading or taking turns reading. They simply get to listen to me read. I'm not feeling rushed like I often feel during the reading time that is part of our bedtime routine. If we're all enjoying it we can just keep reading. We often read for 60-90 minutes in the afternoon and we all love it. Michael calls it "Super Reading Time".

One of the purchases I indulged in with my first Scholastic Reading Club order was a Magic Tree House book set. We now are the proud owners of books 1-45. (If you want the full set, the best price per book by far is from the Scholastic Reading clubs. Any library should have these books too.) The main characters are an older brother and a younger sister who are only a year apart - just like my two. The older boy is conservative and loves books and knowledge. The younger girl is imaginative and adventurous and loves animals. I think part of the reason the children love the books so much is because they identify with Jack and Annie. Michael has even started using some of the phrases that Jack frequently uses in the books. I'm not super fond of the phrase, "Is she nuts?" but hearing him imitate Jack is pretty cute.

The stories are about two children who discover a magic tree house in the woods near their house. The tree house is filled with books. When they point to a picture in the book and wish to travel there the tree house takes them to the location (and time) of the picture in the book. So far, there are story arcs that bridge several books. In each of the first four books they discover a clue about the owner of the tree house and they meet her at the end of the fourth book. At the beginning of the fifth book they discover that the tree house's owner has a spell cast on her and they have to collect four things to break the spell. They collect those four things over the course of their adventures in the next four books and then rescue her at the end of the eighth book. We've just started it, but the story arc for books 9-12 appears to be Jack and Annie answering four riddles in order to pass the test to become "Master Librarians". The children enjoy the individual stories, but they also very much enjoy the story arcs as well and definitely keep track of the progress Jack and Annie are making towards the larger goal.

Each book is 10 chapters. In each story they travel to a new location in time or space and there is a lot of science and social studies content embedded in the books. That is a great bonus while homeschooling. We read half a book (5 chapters) each day so it takes us two days to read each book. Many of the books also have a nonfiction companion book. So, for example, the fictional story "Mummies in the Morning" has a nonfiction companion book "Mummies and Pyramids". The nonfiction books are fairly dense with a great deal of interesting information. They are written from the perspective of Jack and Annie with the story being that when they got back from Ancient Egypt they wanted to know more about it. So they went to the library, learned more about it, and wrote this book to share the information with other children. I tried the Fact Trackers on a whim. I was almost positive the reading level would just be too high for my 4 and 5 year old, but they seem to like them. So each day we read 5 chapters of the next Magic Tree house book, and then a couple chapters of a Fact Tracker book about one of the fictional books we've already read. So far we've done "Knights and Castles" and most of "Mummies and Pyramids."

Another great thing about reading this book as a series is the Magic Tree House companion website. There you can print out a passport. Each time you finish a book you can earn a passport stamp by answering three questions about the story. My children LOVE this. You can also earn passports for the Fact Tracker nonfiction companion books. The site also has a game where you can complete missions by answering questions about four different books (earning a clue for each answer) and then solving a puzzle at the end. You earn a medallion for each successfully completed mission. This part of the website fascinates my children and I would love to let them do it. Unfortunately, the missions seem to choose randomly between ALL the books. If they would limit it to just books the children have already read (ones they've earned passport stamps for) then you would be able to play the mission game and begin to earn medallions no matter how many of the books you've read. As it is, we can't really play that game at all.

"Super reading" and the Magic Tree House books have completely transformed our afternoons. Now we all look forward to the time after lunch and we come back together for some snuggly reading time on the sofa together. It has become a really special time of our homeschooling day.

Vestigial

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 10:00:00 +0000

We traveled last weekend. We drove to New Orleans for a wedding. The wedding was lovely. The children were delightful. We couldn't have been more proud of their behavior. We very much enjoyed visiting with family.

One morning while enjoying the free continental breakfast at the hotel Michael was sitting in my lap and wiggling a bit as five year olds are prone to do. His tailbone was grinding into my leg rather painfully and I asked him to sit still because his tailbone was hurting me. He looked at me like I was crazy. I found myself explaining vestigial body parts to him. My cousins and I thought of wisdom teeth, and appendixes in addition to the tailbone and then conversation moved elsewhere.

I should have known Michael was deep in thought because, in retrospect, he was uncharacteristically quiet, but I was distracted with visiting. Several minutes later he popped in with this thoughtful insight... "Mama, you know what else is vestigial?" At my prompt of, "Yes sweetheart?" he replied, "Newspapers!" He then earnestly supported his assertion with rather well thought out examples of all the other ways we can learn things today. We all burst out laughing as I tried to defend newspapers to my son.

Although we had obviously missed some subtleties as we explained the meaning of "vestigial" to Michael I was astonished at his ability to swiftly comprehend a rather abstract concept and then promptly turn around and apply the newly gained knowledge to an entirely different context. Sometimes I wonder how I will ever keep up with him.

Scholastic News Classroom Magazine: from a Homeschool Perspective

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Mon, 02 Sep 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I subscribed to the first and second grade editions of the Scholastic News Magazine for this school year. I added Science Spin on to the subscription for each. Now, fair warning. I thought I was going to be able to subscribe for the stated price of $4.49 per student + $0.99 cents for Science Spin. I found out that you only get that price if you are ordering for 10 or more students. When you want to order a single copy, you must call the 1-800 number and they charge significantly more. I don't recall what the price was since I ordered 4 or 5 months ago, but I'm going to guess it was something like $15 or so per subscription.

It was completely worth it. If you subscribe to Scholastic News and Science spin, you get 5 magazines per month (one Scholastic News per week and 1 Science Spin per month). The "magazines" are only 4 pages long. You have the cover, a two page spread in the middle, and an activity/review on the back. The topics are usually science or social studies oriented. They are supposed to increase in complexity and language level over the course of the school year. My kids LOVE them. That's not even the best part though.

As part of the subscription you get access to Scholastic News online. There you can find teacher's guides, printable worksheets, and online versions of each magazine. The online version of the magazine can be read at the regular reading level, or switched to a lower reading level. There is at least one video and sometimes more that is associated with each magazine and the final page of the magazine (the activity page) is interactive and can be completed online. There is also an online "game" for every magazine which is really a learning activity/review.

The online site for each grade level also has access to the digital versions of the past two year's worth of magazines and all the videos and printables. You can easily do a magazine a day online. I find that the children adore sitting down at the computer for our Scholastic News magazine time.

Eventually, you will need to log in to access the Scholastic News online content, but the site is completely open through the end of September. Check it out. Use it between now and then. If you like it, you can call and subscribe for the rest of the school year. We've even used a couple of the digital versions of the Grade 3 magazines while they're accessible for free.

I like that the magazines are a fun way to hit language arts while browsing through a wide variety of science and social studies topics. The activities on the final pages and the online games are an entertaining way to introduce young children to a wide variety of skills such as graphing, main ideas and supporting details, opposites, and more. And all that was just in the first month.

Enjoy!

Dr. John's Candies - A Review

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Fri, 30 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I've been trying to reduce the presence of sugar in my life. Which is great for health, but otherwise rather sad. I intensely dislike the taste and aftertaste of artificial sweeteners which eliminates the option of replacing sodas and candies with diet products or products aimed at diabetics. One of the things I mourned most was the loss of my tea because I just can't drink it unsweetened and I dislike it with the usual suspects of artificial sweeteners.

Then I discovered the sugar alcohols xylitol and erythritol. These are natural, low or zero calorie sugar alternatives that are low-glycemic and do not contribute to cavities. Xylitol actually fights cavities. And they taste pretty great with no aftertaste. Now I find I like the flavor of xylitol and erythritol mixed together at about a 1:1 ratio. Some people experience... gastric distress if they consume too much xylitol and so some people I've converted to xylitol and erythritol choose to consume erythritol straight over xylitol. Xylitol's is slightly better for the teeth. They also have slightly different tastes. Experiment and choose for yourself. I have been unable to find them locally and so I've been buying them on Amazon for over a year now. I use them just for sweetening tea and I haven't tried using them as substitutions for baking, so I have no comments on how they work in that capacity, but I don't use sugar at all in tea any more.

I recently discovered Dr. John's Candies. These are xylitol candies. Xylitol has 75% fewer calories than sugar. It also inhibits the growth of cavity causing bacteria in the mouth. It does not raise blood glucose levels. And they taste great. The children are just as delighted to have a Dr. John's lollipop as they are to have a regular one. I adore their hard candies. They taste great. Seriously. I've tried the butterscotch, strawberry cheesecake, mango, natural cafe caramel, and natural double dutch fudge hard candies and I really like them all. Ok. I've also tried a yet to be released cream soda flavor which is my absolute favorite because they happened to include it in the sampler I ordered. When I couldn't find one that looked like it on the website I called their customer service to ask about it and discovered it isn't available yet on their website. I'll be making another order as soon as it appears. My son enjoyed a chocolate caramel from the sampler and claimed to like it even more than the lollipops. I wasn't as impressed with the caramel that I tried, but I'm not a huge fan of caramels in general.

I just wanted to let you guys know that there is a candy out there that you can feel good about giving to your kids that tastes really great, doesn't contain sugar or artificial sweeteners, and is actually good for the teeth. You can also enjoy them guilt free yourself. I find that a couple of Dr. John's hard candies will help curb a sugar craving.

The company also has some chocolates that I would love to try given how good their hard candies are, but the price is just a little too high. You can't get them in a sample size, and at nearly $20 per box, I just can't justify trying something I might not like. If anyone out there has tried their chocolates and wants to let me know what they thought, please leave a comment!

Happiness is...

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

We put the children to bed, turn off the lights, sing a couple of songs, and sneak out of their rooms. Ava is younger, and is almost always asleep by the time we finish the process and stays that way. Michael, on the other hand, often will pop back up after we leave and play a while. I don't have a huge problem with that. He plays completely independently and puts himself back down when he's done. His room is a disaster in the morning, with legos and playmobil everywhere, but I feel that's a small price to pay for the independence. We look to see if his light is still on when we go to sleep. If it is, we just go in and shut it off.

At about 9:30 one night recently we heard the tell tale thumping of his feet through the living room ceiling (his room is above the living room). So we knew he was up and moving about. It was a little late and he had been up and playing for a hour and a half so my husband went up to settle him. This time, instead of finding him absorbed in legos or playmobile, he found Michael in his bed surrounded by books. He was reading a Mr. Putter and Tabby book to himself. He looked up at my husband and said, "I've been reading THOUSANDS of books!"

He's been reading remarkably well for a five year old just starting kindergarten for quite some time, but he didn't have the "bug" yet. He wasn't quite fluent or confident enough to just pick up a book and read it to himself for pleasure. A couple of weeks ago, when re-organizing his bookshelf I sorted them into two sections. On the left are books for adults to read to children. On the right are books for children to read to adults. All the books on the right are "Michael's books" - books he can read independently.

Seeing that half of the books are ones he can read on his own was powerful for him. Now, each night, he chooses a couple of books for me to read to him and he chooses one from his side of the shelf to read to me. I was pretty pleased at that progress. It was apparently the last little encouragement he needed. Now he's spending his free time reading - for fun. I am so very happy.

All About Reading - Level 2: Curriculum Review

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

All About Reading: Level 2 - A Homeschooling Parent's Review

Background

I am a certified Elementary and Early Childhood teacher and a certified Speech-Language Pathologist. I am homeschooling my kindergartener and preschooler. My son was always precocious where reading is concerned. He's reading independently at this point and I credit our experiences with All About Reading for much of that.

Even as a toddler, he was always interested in his letters. When we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom to him as a toddler he was very interested in identifying all the letters at the beginning and end of the book. We fed that interest. He just loved to tune into letters and their sounds. So, a little over a year ago, when I began to think about homeschooling I decided to dip my toe into the water, so to speak, with a reading program. Michael loved letters. I loved reading. It seemed like a great place to start.

After researching many programs and trying the free sample materials for All About Reading Level 1, I decided that I wanted to go with the All About Reading curriculum. I wanted a phonics based program. Research supports a solid understanding of phonics as being essential to reading. I also knew I wanted a program that specifically addressed fluency. The fluency sheets in this program are well designed to practice single words, phrases, and sentences. The readers are exquisite and address phonics skills at the story level and reading comprehension at the same time. The flash cards teach sight words to mastery. The teacher's manual ties together all of these elements in an easy to teach way. I liked the design of the program. I liked it a lot. Also, they have a 100% satisfaction guarantee for a whole year. You have a full year to try the materials. If you are unhappy for any reason, just return the materials for a full refund.

When I received them, the materials were amazing. The program is comprehensive and full-featured. The active online forums were helpful more than once. The customer service was prompt and went above and beyond to be helpful (they sent me out a free replacement CD-ROM that I had lost). After completing Level 1 with Michael I purchased Level 2 for Michael and the Pre-Reading Level for Ava. That is how happy I am with the reading programs by the All About Learning Press.

Program Overview - All About Reading: Level 2

The program is multi-faceted. You get two lovely hardback readers. The black & white line drawing illustrations are beautiful and Michael found the stories to be genuinely entertaining. The words used in each story are matched to highlight the new phonics concepts recently taught and review phonics already mastered. You have a box of index cards that lets you review sight words and phonograms (the sounds that are associated with each letter or letter combination). There are magnetic letter tiles that help you build words and practice blending and breaking words apart. The teacher's manual is well written and easy to follow along with. You are walked through exactly what to do and when. Lessons move along at a pace that introduce new concepts while still reviewing the old ones so that concepts are consistently practiced until mastered. The lessons are accompanied by fluency pages for essential practice and fun games and activities that my children absolutely adore. They even include a progress chart to keep track of lesson progress with stickers and a certificate of achievement for the end of the level.

For the most part, the lessons follow an A B pattern. In the first lesson you teach a new phonics concept, play a game or activity to reinforce using that concept to decode words, and read fluency sheets that feature words that use the new phonics concept. Then you practice flash cards with words that use the concept. Those cards are then intermixed with the other flash cards that are not yet mastered for review at the beginning of the next lesson. In the second lesson of each pair, you begin with a pre-reading worksheet that previews key words and phrases that will be in the story. The lesson plan walks you through some brief pre-reading conversation designed to activate prior knowledge and then the child reads the story from the reader to you. There is some kind of post-reading discussion or activity to be done after the reading of the story. I often begin the second lesson in each pair by having Michael choose one story from the reader that he has already read to re-read before we move on to the new material.

Organizing the Materials and Using the Program

Michael and I are 10 lessons away from finishing All About Reading: Level 2. We have loved going through the program and are anxiously awaiting the release of Level 3. When I received the program materials there was a lot of preparation. I spent at least a couple of hours - maybe more - getting all the materials organized. All of the flashcards are printed on full sheets and have to be torn apart along the perforated lines and then placed behind the appropriate index card dividers in the index box. I took all of the activities and fluency pages out of the student book (again along perforated lines) and 3-hole punched them and put them in a binder. I did the same with the lesson plans. That way I have everything I need in one binder. I keep all of the materials together in a single bin on a nearby bookshelf. When it is time for Michael's reading we simply have to grab the bin and go. (Here's a peek in our bin.)

Once the initial preparation is done, very little planning time is needed after that. At the end of each lesson I let Michael have a few minutes of free time (no more than 5 minutes usually) while I preview the next lesson. I highlight the sections of the lesson plan I need to focus on. I cut out the parts of the activity for the next day. I make a few notes about how the day's lesson went and what I want to remember for next time. That way, everything is absolutely ready to go for the next day.

Time Commitment

Once the initial setup is done, planning does not require more than 5-10 minutes (at most) per lesson. If you're happy to cut a few things out during a lesson rather than before, preparation time is even less. The program is designed to be done with a teacher. It is not the type of curriculum where you can set a child up and then let them work independently while you do something else. You need 30-60 minutes at least 3-5 days a week to devote to this.

Download Free Samples

You can download generously sized free samples of key program components like the teacher's manual, student activity book, and the first and second hardback readers. It isn't quite try before you buy, because the included lessons are not consecutive, but it is enough to get a good feel for how the program works. The teacher's manual includes the table of contents, introduction, and lessons 1, 4, 5, 27, 38. The student activity book samples include some sample games and activities and some sample fluency pages. The sample from the first reader includes 3 entire stories out of the 12 stories in the reader. The sample from the second reader also includes three full stories of the eleven in the reader, including Pumpkin and the Kitten. We just read this one last week. Michael was fascinated by the story and Ava abandoned her independent play to come over and follow along while he read it. When Pumpkin is jealous of the new kitten and verbalizes a plan to get rid of the kitten Michael's voice got very quiet and his sister and I had to strain to hear him. He obviously found the story to be quite powerful. Both children were delighted when Pumpkin learned to give the kitten a chance at the end of the story. The storybook samples are definitely worth checking out!

Which of the products I actually bought.

Absolutely necessary: You definitely need the teacher's manual and one student packet for each student you will be teaching with the program. You'll definitely need the two readers as well.

Very nice to have: I very much enjoy having the reading review box and the index divider cards. You could just as easily buy an inexpensive index card box and make your own divider cards though.

Depends on the child: The letter tiles and magnets for the letter tiles are considered to be a main part of the program. If you have a child who is tactile and learns best with manipulatives you'll want these. I bought them, but rarely use them. Instead I use a small dry erase board and dry erase markers for the sections of the program that are designed for the magnet tiles. I find it quicker and more space efficient and Michael simply doesn't need to move tiles around to get the phonics concepts. In fact, when I do get them out he's distracted and I spend more time keeping him on task.

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you click on one of those links and make a purchase a portion of your purchase will go towards offsetting the costs of running this blog. I purchased all of the products I reviewed in this post on my own, long before I started using affiliate links and the opinions expressed are completely my own.

4 Fun Halloween Picture Books

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Fri, 23 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

What is it about monsters, ghosts, witches, ghouls, and goblins? My children love stories about them (as long as they're nice, and not scary). We discover them when they're out and about during the Halloween time of year, but we tend to keep them on the shelf and enjoy them year-round. Here are four of our favorites that we've been enjoying for several years now.

These are listed in no particular order of preference. Three are meant to be sung and one is just a great story.

1. The Spooky Wheels on the Bus by J. Elizabeth Mills. This is a Halloween version of The Wheels on the Bus crossed with a counting book (up to 10). It begins, "One spooky bus goes RATTLE and SHAKE, RATTLE and SHAKE, RATTLE and SHAKE. One spooky bus goes RATTLE and SHAKE, All through the town. It continues with 2 white wipers (skeleton arms), 3 black cats, 4 glowing wheels (jack o'lanterns), 5 big spiders, 6 singing mummies, 7 silly monsters, 8 wacky witches, 9 magic brooms, and 10 goofy ghosts before returning to the original lyric. The children enjoy the lyrics and love the pictures. They are not scary at all. They are full of detail. We had read / sung the book at least a dozen times before we notices that each picture gives a hint of what is to come on the next page. You can actually guess who is about to get on the bus next. All in all, it is a fun adaptation that we enjoy every time.

2. Ten Timid Ghosts by Jennifer O'Connell. I sing this book. For the life of me, I cannot think of what the tune I use is so that I can tell you. Hopefully it will just come to you as you read the book. You could also simply read the book. It is enjoyable either way. It is a countdown book. It begins with 10 and counts down to one. It begins, "Ten timid ghosts in a haunted house - A witch moved in and wanted them out." She proceeds to do a series of practical jokes on the ghosts each one scaring off another ghost. The children love searching the illustrations to figure out how the witch is pulling off her trick and if you look you can always find her. At the end, the last little ghost figures out that it was the witch all along and tells his friends and the witch gets her comeuppance in the end. It is fun to sing, the story is cute, and the illustrations are well done and add something fun to the experience of reading the story.

3. The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano. This is a great story that celebrates differences. Spookley is the only square pumpkin in the pumpkin patch but that quality about him saves the day during a storm. When the farmer realized how special Spookley was he saved his seeds for the next season. The next season all the pumpkins in the patch were unique and people came from miles around to choose a special pumpkin. My retelling doesn't really do the story justice. The pictures complement the story beautifully and the story is told in a rhyme that it fun to read. Excellent book.

4. Little Goblins Ten by Pamela Jane. This is an adaptation of the song/nursery rhyme Over in the Meadow (click here to hear a lovely version sung). I've always loved the melody of this song and I've always loved singing the traditional nursery rhyme version. It is just as much fun, if not more to use the same melody while singing this book. This halloween version begins, "Over in the forest, Where the trees hide the sun, Lived a big mommy monster, And her little monster one." The song hits 9 other types of halloween monsters. The illustrations are gorgeous and not at all scary. The children love seeing the various Halloween creatures and their parents. The final page has all of the creatures together setting off to Trick or Treat.

If you liked these children's book suggestions, I have several others ranging from board books through early chapter books. Check them out.

Language Explosion = Speech Intelligibility Issues

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Wed, 21 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

As I mentioned, almost in passing, Ava was discharged from speech therapy at the end of the school year. I was fine with that. She had achieved all of her goals working on specific age-appropriate sound targets. We finally got the /k/ and /g/ sounds even at the conversational level and the only sounds she makes errors with at the word level aren't eligible for therapy until she's much older. Besides, we were beginning homeschooling, and as a SLP myself, I'd rather do therapy here at home from here on out.

I've taken a more laid back approach with Ava at home. Once she started making progress and her intelligibility was no longer an issue, I decided to let structured therapy happen with her therapists and let her time at home with Mama just be Mama time. And it has been fine. She's doing so well. Most people can understand her most of the time. You would no longer pick her out from a crowd of her peers and notice her speech. All of these things are wonderful and amazing and facts I wish I could have known about two or three years ago. It would have saved me so much worry.

However... She's 4. She has so much to say. Her language skills are perfectly normal and so her sentence length and grammatical complexity are shooting up. She want to tell stories and participate in active conversations and is competing with an extremely verbal older brother. And we're starting to have trouble understanding her again. It certainly isn't all the time, but several times a week she'll say something and we won't have any idea what a couple of key words are. We'll ask her to repeat herself, and that doesn't help. I'm finding myself asking questions like, "Can you tell me something else about it?", or "What does it do?" in order to try to figure out what she's trying to tell me.

Some of that is specific sound errors. She has a consistent /v/ for voiced /th/ and /f/ for voiceless /th/ substitution. /w/ and /r/ are weak. But some of it is the mild apraxia rearing it's head as utterance length and complexity increases. Soon it will be time to incorporate some structured speech therapy into our homeschooling routine. If it weren't affecting her intelligibility, I would wait. But it is. So, soon...

Interactive Word Wall - Creating and Daily Use of a Classroom Word Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

In our schoolroom we have two 4' by 3' magnetic dry erase boards I got for a bargain at a local office supply store. I use one as our circle time center. The other I decided to turn into a word wall. Our homeschool focus this year (pre-K and kindergarten) is on math and literacy and a word wall fits in beautifully with that focus. I'm going to discuss the creation of the word wall, how I plan to introduce new words each week, and short activities I plan to do with the word wall on a daily basis.

Creation of the Word Wall

I took the same letters I used when making my phonics/handwriting alphabet border and used them to create the alphabet headings for the word wall. It puts a handwriting reference in yet another place in the classroom and brings that reference physically down to their level. Then I laminated them, cut them out, and slapped some magnets on the backs. I've found the most economical way to magnetize things for use on a magnetic dry erase board is to buy inexpensive magnetic vent covers (like these, except you can get them for around $5 at a local hardware store) and just cut squares to size out of the vent covers and attach them to your words (or calendars, or decorations) with double sided tape. I also wanted to separate out the digraphs so I made separate headers for those. Our reading program (All About Reading) treats them as separate phonograms, and we do a lot of speech therapy in this house, so it makes sense for us to separate those out.

I also made a starter set of words. I printed colored rectangles in 6 different colors because I've read that it is helpful for visual discrimination and sight word recognition to have each word under a heading placed on a different color background. (Hmm, in retrospect I could have saved a lot of color ink by just cutting the rectangle backgrounds out of six different colors of cardstock.) I printed the words on white paper. I then cut the words out taking the time to cut around the shapes of the words. I stuck them on the background with a tiny bit of double sided tape just to hold them in place as I ran them through the laminator. I made sure that all words that would end up under the same header (all the G words, for example) were attached to differently colored backgrounds.) Once they were laminated, I cut them out and attached magnets. I did not attach all of them to the word wall yet though.

Introduction of Word Wall Words

I am going to introduce no more than 4-6 new word wall words each week. We will learn and interact with the new words of the week during circle time. Each of the words for the week has a differently colored background. I also try to choose words that we can make into a sentence. During circle time we will look at each word and Clap and Snap the word. To clap and snap a word, say the word followed by a clap, spell the letters each followed by a snap, and then say the word again followed by a snap. So "and" would be: "and" (clap) a (snap) n (snap) d (snap) "and" (clap). Then we will build a sentence using a lap-size magnetic dry erase board. The entire process should take no more than 5 minutes each morning during circle time. At the end of the week the words will be moved over to the word wall and we'll begin a new set the following week.

Daily Word Wall Games and Activities

During each day we will play a short word wall game as a fun transition from one activity to another (probably in between writing journals and math). We will choose from the following list (these were chosen because they will work well in a small-group, homeschool environment but most would work in a classroom as well):

Find and Erase - Write 5-10 word wall words on lap-size dry erase boards with dry erase markers (you can use plastic plates or a piece of blank laminated paper for this purpose too). Say a word at random and have the children find that word on their board and erase it. Continue until all the words are gone. If your children are writing, they can write the words themselves. Otherwise, write the words for them.
Tall Towers - When you make your word wall cards, write a number between 1 and 3 in a corner on the back of each card. When you begin this activity choose 6-12 word wall cards at random from the board and use them as a mini card deck. Also grab blocks, snap cubes, legos, duplos, or anything other manipulative children can build towers with. Shuffle the cards. Have the children take turns pulling a card and reading the word on the front. If successful they turn the card over and add that many bricks (blocks, cubes, etc.) to their tower. If not, they return the card to the deck. Continue in this manner until all the cards are gone. Sit back and admire the "tall towers". Then have the children return the words to their proper places on the word wall.
Word Wall, Beach Ball - Stand or sit in a circle. Teacher holds a beach ball (or any ball, or bean bag...). The teacher tosses the ball to a child and asks the child to tell the color of the word "_____" (name a word off the wall at random). The child must find the word on the wall and name the color. Then the child throws the ball to another child and asks that child to tell the color of a new word. And so on...
Word Wall Hot Potato - Play hot potato with a bean bag or small ball. When the music stops, ask the child to tell you a _____ word (choose a color from the word wall). The child reads a word with that color background and then play continues.
Word Wall Bingo - Give each child a blank Bingo card with 6 spaces (laminated so they can reuse it) and a dry erase marker and have them write a word wall word in each space. When they are done, have them gather those words from the word wall. Shuffle the cards. As you read each word the child looks to see if they have that word on their card and if they do they can mark it out with their marker. The first child to mark out all their words wins. Then the children can return the cards to their proper spaces on the word wall.
Word Wall Tic Tac Toe - Make and laminate blank tic-tac-toe grids large enough for your kids to write word wall words in the spaces. At the beginning of the game have them write word wall words of their choice in each space. When they are done, have them gather those words from the word wall. Shuffle the cards. As you read each word tell them if it is an 0 or an X word. If they have the word they put an O or X over the word with their dry erase marker. The first person to get a tic-tac-toe wins. Then the children can return the cards to their proper spaces on the word wall.
Word Wall Order Up - Each child chooses 4-7 words from the word wall and returns to their desk. They put the words in alphabetical order. Once checked by the teacher, they return the words to their proper places on the wall.
Word Wall Mystery Word - Each child chooses 1-4 words from the word wall (depending on the total number of children you have and how many words you want in the guessing pool). Have them bring those words to you. These words will make up the guessing pool. Choose a word from the pool and give the students hints (The mystery word is one syllable, the mystery word has four letters, the mystery word rhymes with pan, the mystery words ends with an "e", the mystery word has two letters that are the same...). Take your time and let the children physically remove letters that do not meet the clue's criteria from the pool if necessary until only one remains. Then they've found the mystery word. At the end of the activity have the children return the cards to the wall.
Word Wall Rhymes - You say a word that rhymes with one or more words on the wall and the children find the words that rhyme.
Word Wall Fill in the Blank - Have the children choose 1-3 words from the word wall to form a guessing pool. Bring the words back to the table. You make up a sentence with one of the words from the guessing pool and say it out loud omitting the target word. The children must figure out which of the word wall words makes sense in your sentence. At the end of the activity have the children return the cards to the wall.
Word Wall Build a Sentence - Pre-choose several word wall words that can be combined in several ways to make grammatical sentences anywhere from 2-6 words in length. You say a sentence and the children work to build your sentence using the word wall cards. At the end of the activity have the children return the cards to the wall.
Word Wall Sorts - Have each child choose 5-10 words from the wall. You give them a criteria and have them sort their words by that criteria (words that rhyme, words that begin with the same letter, words that end with the same letter, words that have the same number of syllables, words that share a vowel, etc.). When finished, they return their words to the wall.
Guess which word is hiding? - Build a sentence out of word wall cards and then hide a key word with a sticky note. Invite the children to guess the missing word and write their guesses down. Then remove the sticky note and see if anyone guessed correctly. Repeat with a new sentence.
Build, Mix, Fix - For this activity you will need a set of letter tiles (or just letters printed on cardstock and cut out) for each child. The child sits at their desk with the letter tiles and you call out a word wall word. They build the letters with the tiles and you check for accuracy. Then they mix up the letters. Next they fix the mixed up letters. Repeat for a new word.
Word Wall Word Search - Create and print a simple blank word search form with a grid at the top and a blank box at the bottom. Have the children write 5 word wall words of their choice in the box at the bottom and then transfer them into the grid at the top. Next they fill in the remaining spaces with random letters. Then trade papers and do the word search.

I printed out this list to hang on the wall near my word wall so that it would be easy to remember a wide variety of activities and to choose a new one each day. This is three weeks worth of daily word wall activities without repeats. You're welcome to use the list as well. Simply click on the image to open to full size and then right click to save. Open the saved image on your computer and print.

4 Outstanding Picture Book Variations on the Classic Gingerbread Man Tale

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I always found the classic fairy tale of the gingerbread man to be a little boring growing up. It felt like just another story with a moral. Then I discovered a captivating version of the classic tale with adorable illustrations and the story written in verse. The tale became a fun one to tell and I even turned the "catch me if you can" verse repeated throughout the story into a little song. The children and I loved it and we read it weekly for several months and continue to read it at least once every couple of months two years later. I began looking for other well done variations on the tale. Not all of them were great, but I highly recommend these four. We have been reading and re-reading these four in our household for several years. The children liked them as toddlers and still love them as preschoolers.

These are listed in no particular order of preference. They are all short, simple, and sweet.

1. The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth. It's all in the telling. This is the classic story of the gingerbread man, but the rhyme and rhythm make it a pleasure to read and so much more engaging for the little ones. You'll want a great telling of the classic story for several reasons. First, you need something to compare the others to if you're doing a unit on how fairy tales are often retold in different variations. Also, the Gingerbread Girl stories I'll be talking about shortly set themselves up as direct sequels to the Gingerbread Man story often referring to what happened to the original Gingerbread Boy.

2. The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School by Laura Murray. This variation of the gingerbread man takes place in a school. He is baked by a class of children who leave for recess while they wait for him to cool. He thinks he's been abandoned and searches the school to find his class only to discover at the end that they've been searching for him as well. The illustrations are done in a comic panel format which usually irritates me, but it isn't overdone in this book. In fact there is a lot of detail and humor to be found in the illustrations and it really does add layers to the story to take the time to fully examine the illustrations. Some of the common core standards involve using illustrations to add information so this is an added bonus in the book. Like all the other gingerbread man tales I'm featuring, this one is written in rhyme and is a pleasure to read. My kids love this one too.

3. The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst. This book is so much fun. One year later, the little old man and little old woman decide to try again but this time they bake a gingerbread girl. As she bakes she overhears the old man and woman discussing what happened to her brother and she decided that she will not meet the same fate. Later in the story she ends up face to face with that fox and I still clearly remember the anticipation the children felt when they didn't know if the fox would get her. It is fun to read and sing (if you like, just make up a tune) and is a delightful twist on the gingerbread man tale. (One small caveot. The fox uses the words "airhead" and "dumber" in reference to the gingerbread girl. You could either read as is and take the opportunity to discuss why using those words is unkind, or you can simply substitute something less offensive like "silly" while reading.)

4. The Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers is a sequel to The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst. This sequel is at least as awesome as the original, possibly better although you wouldn't enjoy it as much if you hadn't read the first one. This time the gingerbread girl has been with the little old man and little old woman for a year and they give her a present - a box of animal crackers. She loves it because she's always wanted friends like her, but then the noisy mob of animal crackers runs away. The overall story structure is familiar, but the individual pages are so well done. Each page features a different animal cracker rhyme. "My legs move so fast, I'm practically flyin'. You can't catch me, I'm the wild cracker lion!" You can pause before the last word and treat it like a riddle and ask the children if they know which animal cracker the verse is about. There's an excellent balance of tension in the scene with the fox and a great resolution at the end. Outstanding book.

If you liked these children's book suggestions, I have several others ranging from board books through early chapter books. Check them out. As soon as I get a chance, I'll share 4 fun books for halloween.

Homeschool and Teacher Resource: Classroom Alphabet Resource Kit

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Wed, 14 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Alphabet Kit $6.95

Instant PDF Download!
Unlimited Printing. Print and use again and again.

Looking for coordinated alphabet decorations for your classroom?

Testy Homeschool & Teacher Resources:
Classroom Alphabet Resource Kit

This Classroom Alphabet Resource kit has been designed to provide coordinated classroom decorations and materials to be used in the teaching of the alphabet, phonics, and handwriting. The alphabet border uses Steck-Vaughn style printing which is similar to the Zaner-Bloser ball and stick, but slanted like D'Nealian (although less ornamental). The letters of the alphabet are printed in both uppercase and lowercase on each card on a 3-line rule. Each of the three lines are slightly different to aid in visual discrimination. The bottom half of the 3-line rule is highlighted also to aid in visual discrimination of the letter parts.

There are 1-4 pictures associated with each letter to aid in the teaching of phonics. Some of the letters in the English language are used to produce more than one sound. For example, the letter "C" can be read with an /k/ sound in "cat" or an /s/ sound in "circus". The pictures on the alphabet chart and the flashcards are chosen to reinforce these phonics details. There is an optional additional page for the alphabet border which features 6 common digraphs (ch, sh, th, ph, kn, wh). All together, the alphabet border is almost 13 feet long and consists of 14 color pages to be printed on any color printer. You can laminate the individual pages for durability before hanging them if you wish.

There are mini versions of all of the alphabet border cards to be used as either alphabet or phonics flashcards for drill or use in small groups, centers, or individual games. In this set each diagraph has its own card.

The resource kit also includes the 3-rule uppercase and lowercase letters on individual cards that can be used as headers for a word wall. I've included the digraphs here as well if you choose to separate out words that begin with digraphs into their own section (put "chick" under "ch" instead of under "c").

There is a handwriting mini-poster that illustrates how some lowercase letters are small (use only the bottom half of the 3-line rule), some are tall (use the entire 3-line rule) and some fall (fall below the 3-line rule). This can be a great visual aid when teaching formation of the lowercase letters.

Finally the set includes desk strips that can be attached to each child's desk or table or placed in a folder for their reference. There is a 3-line rule spot to write the child's name to be used as a spelling and handwriting reference. The entire uppercase and lowercase alphabet on the desk strip along with the six common digraphs, the numerals 1 through 9, and a tiny version of the mini-handwriting poster.

Printable Alphabet Resources Included:

13 foot, full color Alphabet border
32 letter and digraph flashcards
Handwriting Mini-Poster
32 Word Wall Headers
Desk Strips

This resource is intended to be purchased and used by a single educator in his or her classroom/s. Please do not share these materials with other educators. Refer them to my website instead. Thanks!

Alphabet Kit $6.95

Instant PDF Download!
Unlimited Printing. Print and use again and again.

Scholastic Book Clubs for Homeschool Too

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I remember getting Scholastic Book club flyers as a child and poring over them for hours choosing exactly what to spend my allowance on. I remember turning in the paper form and the money to my teacher and I remember the joy of getting my little pile of books each month when they came in. It made me sad to think that my children wouldn't have that fun because our family is choosing to homeschool.

As it turns out, you can participate in Scholastic Book Clubs (now called Scholastic Reading Club) as a homeschool. You simply go to the Club Sign In Page and click on the "Don't have an account? Register now" button. Choose to register as an educator and then on the next popup page after entering your basic contact information you choose "Homeschool". You'll pick the grades you're teaching (you can choose more than one) and they'll send you paper flyers, but you can also do everything online.

Right now, if you make a $25 order, they'll send you a 10 pack of books with a teacher's guide for free (the book pack will correspond to the highest grade level you picked in your profile - if you want to receive a pack for a lower grade, simply temporarily remove the higher grades from your profile and add them back in later).

They have another amazing deal going on right now too. Teachers (including homeschool teachers) can purchase packs of 24 birthday coupons for $25. The coupons can be redeemed for books from any of the flyers for books up to a $5 value. So your $25 now can be redeemed for up to $120 in books during the rest of the school year.

I just made an order where I'll be getting 104 books for about 77 cents each (yes, I went a little crazy, but the deals are often best in the first flyer of the school year. The bonus points you are earning with the current order can actually be spent on the current order if you go into checkout and then back out again to make more changes. I used the points I earned on this order to "buy" additional books which is how I got the books down to 77 cents each. Well, that and I got a lot of multi-packs that were a good bargain.

I highly recommend the book clubs. It is difficult to find books elsewhere that match Scholastic's prices and they often have exclusive softcover versions of books that are only available in hardcover everywhere else. If you avoid the few ridiculously high prices items thrown into each flyer you can easily get 7-15 books a month for about $1-$1.50 each. You can also skip a month whenever you like.

If you happen to be in a homeschool organization one person can sign up as an educator and then distribute flyers to everyone else. The other parents can sign up for parent (rather than educator) accounts and use a code given to them by the coordinator to place their orders and pay for them online.

Enjoy!

Free Simple Articulation Screening Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

For those of you who are new, I'm a Speech-Language Pathologist. I also have a daughter with Childhood Apraxia of Speech who wasn't talking at the age of two. Look back in the archives for the full journey, but to simplify things a lot, she made a great deal of progress once we began intensive therapy. Several months later she had enough speech to attempt an articulation test. Hahahaha. I'm sure some of you have tried a GFTA with an apraxic two year old so you know where I'm coming from here. It took us three sessions. And it was a mess. Think about the stimuli on a GFTA. There are so many of them. They are multisyllablic. The problems with the instrument in the context of severe apraxia with a young child are purely practical.

I just needed a quick, simple, way to gather data about the phonemic inventory of a young child with a severe speech delay while maximizing their chances of success. That meant I needed simple stimuli (CVC words) and a short test (appropriate for short attention spans). So I made my own. And I used it and found it useful. Then it sat in a folder on my computer for two years.

Recently I decided I wanted to re-screen Ava's speech. Now, of course, she could participate in a standardized articulation assessment without a problem, but I don't own one, so I dug out the screening I made two years ago to use again. All of the reasons it worked then make it an extremely easy instrument to readminister now. I thought I would share the instrument with all of you.

If you like this free articulation screener, you might want to check out the premium speech therapy kits now available in the Testy Shop. Kits include expanded speech sound card sets, illustrated minimal pairs, homework sheets and more in a single download.

Simple Articulation Screening

Description

This is a tool designed to screen the phonetic inventory and articulation errors of young children with severe speech delays. The screening is comprised of picture stimuli of 22 CVC words. Prompts are provided on the back of each stimulus card. Results can be analyzed for individual articulation errors and for patterns of phonological processing errors.

Permissions

I give permission to copy, print, or distribute this articulation screening provided that:

Each copy makes clear that I am the document's author.
No copies are altered without my express consent.
No one makes a profit from these copies.
Electronic copies contain a live link back to my original and print copies not for merely personal use contain the URL of my original.

To download click on each image to open it full size. Then right click on the image, choose "save as" and save the page to your computer.

I recommend you print on cardstock or laminate for durability.

Looking for Feedback

I would love to hear back from anyone who uses this card set. Let me know if you find errors or there is anything you would change. Comment on this page, or send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com.

Where can I find more?

Speech therapy picture card sets are on my Download/Print Free Speech Articulation Materials page. Other card sets include /p, b, t, d, m, n, h, f, v, k, g, w, j, s, z, l, r, th, ch, sh, ʤ, s-blends, and l-blends/. More sets are being added regularly.

4 Simple and Sweet Picture Books about Kittens to Read To Your Toddler

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Do you have a child who loves cats or kittens in your house? These books are perfect for babies and toddlers because they are simple and sweet. However, as I was cleaning the bookshelves of my 4 and five year old children I found I wasn't quite ready to put them away yet. Sometimes you just want to read a short and sweet familiar favorite even if they've moved beyond the reading level of that particular book. These books have been favorites of my son and daughter for years.

These are listed in no particular order of preference. They are all short, simple, and sweet.

1. Hello Calico! by Karma Wilson (of Bear Wants More fame). This book is in rhyme. I always enjoy picture books written in rhyme and this one is no exception. It introduces a curious kitten and the mama who loves her and follows the kitten as she explores during the day. The illustrations are vibrant and beautiful and always catch the attention of my little ones.

2. Uh-oh, Calico! by Karma Wilson. This is a sequel to Hello Calico! This time, the kitten suffers several mishaps (spilling cream, trampling flowers, etc) and finds that her mama loves her even when she makes mistakes. The children love chiming in with "Uh-oh, Calico! and predicting how her behavior will lead to the subsequent mishap on the next page.

3. Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat, Are You Waking Up? by Bill Martin Jr (known best for Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom). This is a gentle, sweet story of a kitten who needs to get out of bed and ready for school and yet needs gentle reminders from his mama to stay on task. Each page follows a predictable format with the mama asking a question and receiving a reply from the kitten. There's a mouse hiding in each picture and my children always adore finding the mouse and discussing what he's up to in each new situation until finally the mouse and kitten meet.

4. Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat, Are You Going to Sleep? is a sequel to Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat Are You Waking Up? by Bill Martin. This sequel is at least as sweet as the original. This time the kitten is getting ready for bed and it is his teddy bear who is tagging along through bath time, getting dressed for bed, brushing teeth, and story time. The two Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat books are some of my daughter's favorites.

If you liked these children's book suggestions, I have several others ranging from board books through early chapter books. Check them out. As soon as I get a chance, I'll share 4 truly good variations on the gingerbread boy story and 4 fun books for halloween.

Planning to Open a New Shop - Homeschool & Teacher Resources (and a Testy Shop Coupon)

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I've been creating materials like crazy around here. I made an alphabet border that features handwriting and phonics references as well as digraphs. I created a writing/handwriting journal that could easily be used with preschoolers through first or second graders. I created a homeschool plan book to use when planning lessons and to keep track of logged hours.

It occurred to me that if I put some time into taking out things like my kids' names and cleaning and organizing the resources that I could make them available to all of you as well. I've got a Classroom Alphabet Resource Kit (alphabet border, alphabet/phonics flashcards, handwriting mini-poster, word wall headers, and desk strips) almost ready to go. Look for it next week.

I'm thinking of doing either the writing journal or the homeschool plan book next. If you have a strong opinion on which you'd rather see first, let me know in the comments. Otherwise, I'll just choose one at random and get to work on it.

The shop will be opening with a single product: the Classroom Alphabet Resource Kit, and so the volume discounts I have built into my shops won't help anyone out until I get a second and third product up in running. I'll have a coupon available for August and September that offers 30% off any purchase (including purchases of a single product). It'll work in either shop. Let's call it a Back to School coupon code. BacktoSchool2013 It is valid starting now if you want to use it in the Testy Speech Resources Shop.

Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

We found some old home videos tucked away in a folder we had lost track of. Ava was about 4-5 months old when the videos were taken. What struck me as I watched was how smiley she was. I remember very few smiles, and yet while watching these videos, she responded with a huge toothless grin every time I smiled at her. Her eyes would light up and there was this huge smile. And yet she was wrapped in a huge bubble of silence.

I listen to babies coo and babble all the time. I play with those sounds in waiting rooms, babbling back and forth with any infant who will play the game with me. Ava was silent. It's a little creepy - all the talking around her and this completely silent little baby. She didn't seem unhappy, she was just silent. She was silent in the bouncer, on the playmat, and in the arms of loved ones. We have some videos of me trying to make her laugh - tossing her gently in the air or creeping tickle fingers up her leg towards her neck. The vast majority of the time I was unsuccessful. The once or twice she managed to giggle, it looked and sounded effortful. And yet, somehow, even as a speech pathologist I managed to miss how exactly abnormal it all was. I was a sleep-deprived mother of a 4 and 19 month old. My professional experience was with preschoolers and school-aged children. At the time, I wasn't getting out much and didn't realize how much noise babies should be making.

There was a video where... well, I have no idea exactly what I was trying to capture in the video, but Ava was laying on her back on the floor. She couldn't roll over yet and looked a lot like a turtle stuck on her back. She was obviously frustrated. She was lifting her head and shoulders and waving her arms and staring straight at me. And there were no sounds. None at all. No grunting, no fussing, no crying even. Just silence in the presence of frustration and physical effort. And why exactly did it take me 18 more months to start assessment?

Has anyone had similar experiences with their apraxic children? If you go back and watch videos when they were babies are they silent? I know that "abnormal history of babbling" is a red flag for apraxia, but this complete silence... Anyone?

Curriculum Review: All About Reading - Pre Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

All About Reading: Pre-Reading - A Review

So you know where I'm coming from, let me give you a little bit of background about myself. I have an undergraduate degree in psychology, a master's degree in Elementary and Early Childhood Education, a second master's degree in Speech-Language Pathology, and was just shy of getting a doctorate in Communication Disorders with a focus on Reading when life took a detour into motherhood a little earlier than I had planned. Priorities shifted, and lots happened in between, but now I'm homeschooling my preschooler and kindergartner. Because I have such a strong background in education I really enjoyed searching for just the right reading curriculum for my little ones and when I found All About Reading I fell in love. I've been using their curriculum materials for over a year now and I have personally purchased and used the Pre-Reading program, Level 1 program and the Level 2 program with my children.

Program Overview - All About Reading: Pre-Reading Program

The program takes your child through the alphabet twice. First you do uppercase letter activities and then lowercase letter activities. You are working on letter recognition, letter sound correspondances, pre-reading skills (such as finding specific letters on a page, parsing print on a page into words, reading from left to right, etc.), and critical phonological awareness skills such as rhyme, syllable awareness, and isolating initial, final, and vowel sounds in words. All of these skills are critical pre-reading skills. I really wish the All About Learning Press would publish a stand alone phonological awareness program for children who are fine with the visual aspects of pre-reading, but seem to really struggle with the phonological awareness part of things. Speech-pathologists that work with young children would LOVE it. But I digress.

Each lesson teaches one letter. You show the letter, read one to three short stories or poems featuring that letter, do a simple craft-based activity page with that letter, and do a phonological awareness activity. The lessons are pretty short. If your child isn't craft oriented or you choose to omit the craft the lesson may only take 5-10 minutes. If your child really lingers over the craft it may take as much as 20 minutes. If you supplement the program (more on that later), you might spend 30 minutes on the lesson.

Organizing the Materials and Using the Program

I'm using the program with my four year old daughter. With my son I skipped the Pre-Reading Level and started with Level 1, but Ava has a history of a speech disorder called apraxia. Children with apraxia often have co-existing problems with phonological awareness and struggle with reading as they progress through school so I particularly wanted Ava to have a good grounding in phonological awareness skills. I specifically chose to start her with the pre-reading level because of the phonological awareness component. Also, Michael was starting homeschooling in earnest and Ava was feeling left out. She wasn't ready for Level One, but she was tired of watching her brother get to do reading every day without being able to do reading herself. And so we invested in the AAR: Pre-Reading Program.

We keep all of our materials for a specific lesson (Ava's reading, Michael's reading, Math, Handwriting, etc.) in a bin on a shelf in our schoolroom. Here's Ava's reading bin.

Inside I have a binder (where I put the teacher's manual pages, activity pages, and keep the progress chart), the two hardback books that come with the program, and the card box with dividers and phonological awareness cards). You'll also find our ziggy puppet in there.

The teacher's manual is well written. It tells you exactly what to do in each lesson and educates you, where necessary, about how to do things or why you need to do things in a certain way. Ava began the program very excited about the simple activity pages, but eventually we abandoned them because she lost interest. They are a simple coloring sheet for each uppercase and lowercase letter of the alphabet combined with a fun craft you can do with things you find around the house. (Crumple tinfoil to make stars and glue on, glue on construction paper to make water, etc.) The phonological awareness activities strongly lean on a character you introduce named Ziggy the Zebra. I underestimated Ziggy. I chose not to purchase the optional $18 hand puppet and then found myself making a sock puppet version of Ziggy because Ava LOVED Ziggy and using the hand puppet adds so much to the phonological awareness activity. He isn't used in every single lesson and Ava often begins the lesson by asking me if it will be a "Ziggy Day".

Almost all of the preparation is when you first receive the materials in the mail. It takes time to review the materials, separate all the perforated cards, and if you wish - transfer the teacher's manual and activity pages to a three-ring binder. After that, the program requires very little day to day preparation. If your child is doing the craft, you need to gather a few simple materials. Otherwise once you're into the program, you can pretty much sit down with your bin and go.

A Typical Lesson

Grab bin.
Introduce letter of the day.
Read selection(s) from hardback book.
Do phonological awareness activity.
Do craft (optional).

Download Free Samples

You can download free samples of the key program components (scroll down a bit). I recommend it. It gives you a good look at the teacher's manual, activity book, and the two hardback books that are integral to the program. (I love the hardback books in the AAR programs. I particularly like the poetry in Lizard Lou.)

Which of the products I actually bought.

I bought the basic package and added on the activity box and animal stickers. Essentially I skipped the reading tote bag and the ziggy puppet. In retrospect, since I ended up making my own ziggy sock puppet I think some kind of zebra is a nice addition to the program. Buy their puppet, make one from a sock, find an inexpensive stuffed zebra, or just print a picture of a zebra, but I do recommend some kind of zebra visual aid for the phonological processing activities. Want to see our Ziggy sock puppet? Promise not to laugh? Squint your eyes and use your imagination and maybe, just maybe, this looks like a zebra...

Great Supplemental Materials for the Pre-Reading Program

I found that Ava wanted to do a little more so I found some materials to supplement the AAR: Pre-Reading Program.

Usborne Farmyard Tales - Alphabet Book: This book is a perfect complement to the program. It has a sentence on each page with the targeted letter in red so it stands out. There are many items included in each picture that begin with the targeted letter. There is a little duck hiding in each picture and Ava loved to search for the duck. We would read the page in this book for the letter that matched the letter in the AAR lesson of the day. Unfortunately the book seems to be out of print, but there are many used copies available here.

ABC Sing-Along Flip Chart & CD: This product is amazing. There is a song for each letter of the alphabet - one per page. Each page has a full color illustration. The songs are sung to familiar tunes. The songs are really, really well done. Ava and Michael can sing every one from memory (up to V - that's as far as we've gotten). We often sing these in the car or while I'm fixing Ava's hair to pass time. We use dry erase marker to circle all the targeted letters in the poem as we sing the song on the first day. (You could also listen to them on the CD - the production value on the songs is really nice.) We actually sing through all the songs we know, looking at the page and reviewing the highlighted letters at the beginning of each lesson. The songs are short, so it only takes 5 minutes or so to do the entire set and Ava loves it!

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you click on one of those links and make a purchase a portion of your purchase will go towards offsetting the costs of running this blog. I purchased all of the products I reviewed in this post on my own, long before I started using affiliate links and the opinions expressed are completely my own.

5 Board Books to Enjoy Singing to Your Baby (or Toddler, or Preschooler)

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Fri, 02 Aug 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I needed to clean out the children's bookshelves again. We had gotten to the point where they were so overstuffed that we had taken to stuffing books across the tops of the other books, piling them up on the floor, and so on. Some books I donate. I find I don't like them as much as I thought I would when I bought them. Other books the children are too old for, but I'm attached to them, so I ferret them away in a storage box to read to my grandchildren some day. All the rest, we keep. As I was doing my recent cleaning, reducing, and organizing of the children's bookshelves I found several board books that still play well around here. I love to sing, and the children love to listen so it all works out. Here are five of our favorite board books that are songs. The children loved them as babies and toddlers and they still love them today at the ages of 4 and 5.

These are listed in no particular order of preference. They are all wonderful.

1. Snuggle Puppy! by Sandra Boynton. I'll be honest. I didn't like this book at all when I first bought it. I got it because I love Sandra Boynton as an author of baby board books. I got it home and didn't like reading it at all. And then I realized it was adaptation of a song from her Philadelphia Chickens album. I own both the board book and the album and they are great. As soon as I heard the song I fell in love and the children adore it too. If you just want to learn the tune to go to the song in the book, check out this YouTube video. The story/song is about a mama dog telling her puppy how she loves him.

2. Your Personal Penguin by Sandra Boynton. This is another sweet book adapted from a Sandra Boynton song. It is about a penguin who wants to be friends with a hippo and tells the hippo all the wonderful things they can do together as friends. If you scroll about halfway down this page, you can listen to the song sung by Davy Jones of The Monkees. My children love this one too. Careful, it'll get stuck in your head.

3. The Itsy Bitsy Spider written and illustrated by Iza Trapani. You'll know this tune. It is the Itsy Bitsy Spider. What I like so much about this one is that although it begins with the traditional lyrics, there are five more as well, all beautifully illustrated. It tells the story of persistence. The spider continues to try to find a place to spin her web until finally, at the end of the book, she succeeds. You can have fun finding the spider on each page and cheering her on. I have read this story and sung this song hundreds of times at this point and I still actually enjoy it.

4. Baa Baa Black Sheep written and illustrated by Iza Trapani. (The link leads to the paperback version.) This is another expanded nursery rhyme by Isa Trapani. It begins with the traditional Baa Baa Black Sheep song and is expanded another nine stanzas. The story is about a cast of animal characters asking the sheep for various items she does not have. The animals wonder why she won't share only to find she's been knitting them gifts all along. The moral of the tale is that each person shares what they have to give. The illustrations are particularly rich and add much to the tale. Once you know to look, you can see the sheep working on her gifts all throughout the story.

5. How Much Is That Doggie in the Window? written and illustrated by Iza Trapani. (The link leads to the paperback version.) This may be my favorite of the Iza Trapani expanded nursery rhymes. It is expanded by an additional 12 stanzas. It tells the story of a boy who wants to buy a doggie from the pet store, but doesn't have enough money in his piggy bank. He works all week to earn money, but during the week he also spends money while being generous to his family members. At the end of the week he realizes he doesn't have enough money for the doggie and goes to the store just to say hi to the doggie. He discovers that the doggie has been sold. When he arrives at his house after sadly walking home he finds his parents have bought him the doggie to reward his generous spirit.

I found several other groups of books I want to share (cute, kitty-themed early picture books, halloween books, and gingerbread boy variations), but this is probably enough for a first installment. Have I mentioned that I LOVE children's books?

Homeschool Circle Time

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 10:00:00 +0000

Creating a Homeschool Circle Time Board (with links to free or inexpensive resources)

We begin our homeschooling day with circle time. To be honest, initially I planned a circle time just because it seemed "everyone does it". I thought it would be a light way to come together and transition from informal being at home to the structured schooling part of our day. I have completely upgraded my opinion of circle time. We cover a LOT of territory during circle time and I log the time as half math and half language arts. We spend 20-30 minutes in our circle.

Our circle time area is in a corner of our school room right next to a window. We sit on a small, soft, purple rug I grabbed at Wal-mart a while back. We got a 4'x3' magnetic dry erase board for a steal at a local office depot. I honestly think it was a price mistake, since it was over half off the price I'd seen for similar boards everywhere else, but they insisted it was priced correctly. My husband hung it and then I got started. I found the lovely borders and the slightly less lovely, but functional calendar at the Teacher Storehouse. Their shipping was super quick and everything was packaged well and arrived in great shape.

I wanted to be able to pin up several pages at once, so I found some great neodymium pushpin magnets on Amazon. They are tiny, yet powerful and so they work perfectly. They are also bright and cheerful and I couldn't be happier with them for this purpose. Of course, as with any powerful magnets, make sure they aren't around kids still putting things in their mouths.

Homeschool Circle Time Routine

Introduction ( <1 min )

We begin with a welcome song that I made up ages ago. If you promise not to laugh or snicker I will share the lyrics with you:

We are here together
for a day of work and play.
We smile and show respect
as we share our day today.
Let's try something new,
and grow a little stronger.
Let's stretch our mind,
and be kind,
here with family.

1. Calendar (approx. 5 minutes)

This calendar is a hybrid of a typical teacher's blank calendar that I bought and some numbers/holiday cards that I printed myself, laminated, and stuck magnets on the back. We do a lot during calendar time:

Sing the days of the week song. (Scroll down for lots of days of the week song choices and choose the one you like best.) When we sing our song, we're holding jingle sticks. The children must listen for the day of the week that is the current day, and they can only shake the jingle stick when we sing that day. This encourages active listening and practices self control.
Sing the months of the year song. Again, we hold the jingle sticks. This time each person shakes their stick when we sing the month of their birthday. We all shake our sticks on the current month. This continues to encourage active listening and self control, but also teaches them their birth month.
Next we put away our jingle sticks and update the calendar. We add in the new day and practice saying yesterday's date, today's date, and tomorrow's date. We briefly discuss any upcoming holidays or other special days.
On the first school day of each month we break down the old calendar and begin a new one changing the season card if necessary.

2. Weather Graph (approx. 3 minutes)

We fill in our weather graph. We've agreed that we're charting weather during circle time. We don't go back and change the chart's data if the weather changes later in the day. We look out the window and make a judgement about the weather. If it's sunny I fill in a rectangle in the sunny column with a yellow highlighter. If it's partly cloudy we go with blue highlighter. Cloudy is a grey colored pencil, rainy is purple highlighter, and thunderstorm gets black highlighter with a highlighter yellow bolt of lightening (my son's suggested embellishment). We jot down the temperature by looking at the outdoor thermometer and move on. At the end of the month, we do some extended work here filling in the mean, median, and mode temperature and writing a summary description of the weather for that month.

I've seen similar graphs everywhere. Teacher Storehouse had one. Confessions of a Homeschooler has a free printable one. I wanted to add in a little more math to mine, so I made one where there's a spot for putting in the temperature and we figure out the mean, median, and mode temperature at the end of the month. There's also a space at the top to add in an overall description of that month's weather. Here's a copy if you've been looking for a more complex version of the weather graph (I did leave out a windy column. I needed the space.)

3. Poem, Nursery Rhyme, Fingerplay, or Short Story (approx. 5-10 minutes)

Next we do a poem, nursery rhyme, short story, fingerplay, etc. I print a bunch of these at once double sided and pin up as many as will stick with my heavy duty magnets. That way, I can get through a week or more before I need to take the time to put up a new set. First I used the sight word poems from the ebook version of this Sight Word Poems Flip Chart. Right now it is $29.99, but I grabbed it in one of the Scholastic Teacher Express dollar sales for $1. Wait for the next sale and cross your fingers that it'll be offered again. It is pretty great. Ava was working on the sight words and Michael could read the poems. We'd go back through the ones we already know and eventually they had all of them memorized.

Once we finished all the poems in the flip chart (at a rate of one new one per school day, I went looking for something a little more complex. I found a great free children's anthology originally published in 1912. Click on the link and choose your format of choice (html, epub, kindle...). I printed a bunch of the fingerplays. I thought the children would enjoy them, it would let them practice the art of performance and connecting motions with words, and it would help their fine motor skills in their hands. They are loving the fingerplays. After the fingerplays, the book has familiar and unfamiliar nursery rhymes, short stories for young children, and more. And all for free! Once we work our way through the things I like best in that book I'm moving to a another book of poems I grabbed in a Scholastic Teacher Express sale.

4. Independent Early Reading Practice (approx. 3 minutes)

When I was looking for a new source of daily poems I stumbled across some free, printable, one page early reader stories on clarkness.com. A former special education teacher wrote an entire series of short, one-page early reader texts in gradually increasing difficulty. They're all available to download, print, and use for free. I grabbed the series and started mid-way through. Michael reads one to us each morning during circle time. Again, I print them double sided and pin a week's worth up to the board at a time so that each morning all I have to do is flip a page over to get to the new one. Ava likes listening to her brother read and he's proud to lead a little part of circle.

5. Song of the Day (approx. 5 minutes)

Next we sing our learning song of the day. I printed the songs from 50 Learning Songs Sung to Your Favorite Tunes two per page double sided. This is another resource I grabbed during a Teacher Express Dollar Sale. I pin up a week's worth or more, and we sing a new one each day.

6. Word of the Day (approx. 3 minutes)

Then we learn a word of the day. Another find from a Scholastic Teacher Express Dollar Sale was Daily Vocabulary Boosters. Half the words have illustrations and half do not. I printed the half that had illustrations and have been using them for our word of the day.

7. Telling Time (approx. 5 minutes)

Finally we do our time worksheet. We review some basic time facts. We fill in the current time on an analog clock and write the time. Then we practice three more times of the day. I laminated the worksheet using this inexpensive and tiny home laminator, and we fill it out each day with a dry erase marker. Again, I was inspired by the "What Time Is It?" printable from Confessions of a Homeschooler, but made an expanded version for myself. Here is the expanded version if you would like to use it:

And that is probably way more detail than you ever wanted to know about how we do circle time around here. I hope you find at least some of the resources useful and many of these resources would also be useful in a traditional school classroom, or a speech room as well.

It's the small things...

noreply@blogger.com (Dala) — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 10:00:00 +0000

I'm beginning, bit by bit, to get the schoolroom decorated. As I mentioned, we're working on handwriting and after researching I chose the Steck-Vaughn style for our print style. I loved the free printable 5x7 alphabet flashcards available on the Confessions of a Homeschooler website that can be printed and used as an alphabet border on a classroom wall. I wanted my own version for several reasons. First, I wanted the handwriting font to match. Second, I wanted the pictures on the cards to represent all of the phonemes that are represented by each letter in English because that is how the letters are being taught in our reading program. (So, for example, "a" needed an axe, acorn, and avocado.) Finally, I wanted the letter rules to have a blue skyline, and a highlighted bottom section because my littles need a little help with visually discriminating the different portion of the rules in order to properly form their letters.

So, in my usual way, I made my own. I carefully designed them so that the pages don't need to be trimmed or anything, I just needed to place the edges of each sheet together and they would look evenly spaced. I was also lucky in that the wall I wanted them on was the perfect lenth for 14 landscape pieces of paper (26 letters on 13 sheets and 6 digraphs on an additional sheet of paper). I recruited my husband to help me hang them. Of course, then we discovered that the wall space was not an evenly spaced. There were curves where there shouldn't have been, and our entire house apparently leans downward to the west. Delightful. We fudged a straight line, used the double sided tape I had bought specifically for the purpose and set to hanging. It looked beautiful. We both stepped away and gazed up in satisfaction. Then we heard the distinctive sound of tape peeling away from the wall. The double sided tape wasn't sticking. My husband crawled back up on the chair and I handed him strips of regular tape while we essentially redid the entire job. However, one week later it is still hanging and I am delighted. They suit our purpose beautifully, they cheer up the room, and Michael has spontaneously referred to the border as a resource multiple times.

Take a look:

Testy yet trying

Apraxia Therapy: Early Apraxia Therapy (Where to Begin) Part 3

Early Apraxia Treatment - Reducing frustration.

Early Apraxia Treatment - Establishing and increasing frequency of volitional utterances.

Early Apraxia Treatment - Increase number of daily speech utterances through structured practice.

Apraxia Therapy: Early Apraxia Therapy (Where to Begin) Part 2

Early Apraxia Treatment - Reducing frustration.

Early Apraxia Treatment - Establishing and increasing frequency of volitional utterances.

Apraxia Therapy: Early Apraxia Therapy (Where to Begin) Part 1

Early Apraxia Treatment - Reducing frustration.

Pros and Cons of a Sick Homeschooling Household

Interactive Word Wall - Refining and Differentiated Instruction

Choosing and Introducing Word Wall Words

Using and Practicing Word Wall Words - Daily

Does it work?

Word Wall=Sight Words - But what about phonics?

Super Reading and The Magic Tree House Books

Vestigial

Scholastic News Classroom Magazine: from a Homeschool Perspective

Dr. John's Candies - A Review

Happiness is...

All About Reading - Level 2: Curriculum Review

All About Reading: Level 2 - A Homeschooling Parent's Review

Background

Program Overview - All About Reading: Level 2

Organizing the Materials and Using the Program

Time Commitment

Download Free Samples

Which of the products I actually bought.

4 Fun Halloween Picture Books

Language Explosion = Speech Intelligibility Issues

Interactive Word Wall - Creating and Daily Use of a Classroom Word Wall

Creation of the Word Wall

Introduction of Word Wall Words

Daily Word Wall Games and Activities

Read More About Word Walls

4 Outstanding Picture Book Variations on the Classic Gingerbread Man Tale

Homeschool and Teacher Resource: Classroom Alphabet Resource Kit

Looking for coordinated alphabet decorations for your classroom?

Testy Homeschool & Teacher Resources: Classroom Alphabet Resource Kit

Printable Alphabet Resources Included:

Scholastic Book Clubs for Homeschool Too

Free Simple Articulation Screening Tool

If you like this free articulation screener, you might want to check out the premium speech therapy kits now available in the Testy Shop. Kits include expanded speech sound card sets, illustrated minimal pairs, homework sheets and more in a single download.

Simple Articulation Screening

Description

Permissions

Looking for Feedback

Where can I find more?

4 Simple and Sweet Picture Books about Kittens to Read To Your Toddler

Planning to Open a New Shop - Homeschool & Teacher Resources (and a Testy Shop Coupon)

Silence

Curriculum Review: All About Reading - Pre Reading

All About Reading: Pre-Reading - A Review

Program Overview - All About Reading: Pre-Reading Program

Organizing the Materials and Using the Program

A Typical Lesson

Download Free Samples

Which of the products I actually bought.

Great Supplemental Materials for the Pre-Reading Program

5 Board Books to Enjoy Singing to Your Baby (or Toddler, or Preschooler)

Homeschool Circle Time

Creating a Homeschool Circle Time Board (with links to free or inexpensive resources)

Homeschool Circle Time Routine

Introduction ( <1 min )

1. Calendar (approx. 5 minutes)

2. Weather Graph (approx. 3 minutes)

3. Poem, Nursery Rhyme, Fingerplay, or Short Story (approx. 5-10 minutes)

4. Independent Early Reading Practice (approx. 3 minutes)

5. Song of the Day (approx. 5 minutes)

6. Word of the Day (approx. 3 minutes)

7. Telling Time (approx. 5 minutes)

It's the small things...

Testy Homeschool & Teacher Resources:
Classroom Alphabet Resource Kit