Spelling

Arin has long loved her foam letters.  When she was little, we used them in games like this and this (yes, the second link is of Ella, but I did the same game with Arin when she was little).  We actually haven't used the letters in a while, so when I pulled them out this afternoon, Arin was thrilled!  She started sounding out consonant-vowel-consonant (cvc) words a few months ago but has been doing it with more enthusiasm in the past couple of weeks. She's really getting good at it, even taking the initiative to try to sound out longer words on signs and in books.  I wanted to see if she could also do it in reverse, meaning instead of looking at the word and sounding it out to read it, could I tell her a word and her spell it?  Today was her first spelling test and she passed (mostly)!  Some words she sounded out in her head correctly, but put the letters down in reverse order, like this word (jam).  I had to remind her that the next sound came after the letter she just put down.

Otherwise, she seemed to really enjoy this activity.  She still does not love to write, so this was a good way to make sure she was understanding the skills, while still keeping it fun!

Games from Grandma

We've taken the summer off from structured learning activities.  We continue to read everyday and do puzzles, but otherwise, the girls spend their days playing together (they especially love dressing up), watching movies, riding bikes and swimming.  We've taken this break for two reasons.  First, the obvious reason that we recently moved and I am still trying to get us organized.  We've down-sized to a two bedroom townhouse.  The rooms are all decent sized, with the exception of the cozy kitchen, and I believe this place is plenty big enough for the four of us (it's 1100sq ft).  The problem is that there is next to no storage.  Andy and I each have a closet, the girls share a closet, we have a coat closet and a linen closet and that is it for the storage.  Since we moved from a house with a garage and a third bedroom, we are certainly having to adjust now, but we are slowly getting a little closer to being settled everyday.

The second reason that we've taken the summer off is because we are going to start our first year of real homeschool at the end of the month.  I laugh when I call it real homeschool because we have been homeschooling our kids since birth, but in a very relaxed manner and certainly not with keeping records of the year's achievements.  However, in Florida, one of the requirements is to keep a portfolio of the year's work. Arin is not of official school age yet and we will not be reporting her schoolwork to the county yet.  Instead, this year is going to be a practice year to see if we are even cut out to be a homeschool family on the long term.  Andrew and I take education very seriously, so if it is not something that we feel we are doing on a regular, above adequate level, then we will send Arin to school next year, but if it turns out that homeschool really is the right fit for us, then we will continue it and re-evaluate each school year.  So I have been busy, very busy working on lesson plans and pulling ideas from here and there.  How does Arin feel about homeschool?  At first, she kept telling us that she was going to go to regular school.  This is because our girl loves to play with other kids.  Where ever we go, she always refers to the other kids as friends, even if she's never met them before!  However, since we've moved back to Florida and she has so much family attention on a daily basis, she never asks to go to regular school anymore.  She does, however, ask everyday if she's four yet because she wants to start kindergarten.  She tells everyone that she meets that she is going to start homeschool kindergarten very soon.  And yes, she is super excited about this.  Her voice gets high pitched and she smiles from ear to ear whenever she thinks about it.  It's so cute.

And so I wrote all that to say that a few days ago, my parents and my little sister were here visiting, and my girls gobbled up the attention that they gave them.  My mom had bought Arin a stack of board games from her friend's yard sale a few months ago and this past week, they played Scrabble Jr. together for the first time.  They even included Ella in the game.  She played by finding the matching letters (tile to board) and Arin also did that but she spelled the word aloud once it was complete and they helped her sound out the words.  It was so cute to watch the excitement on the girls' faces.  They really love having someone spend time with them and do structured activities with them and since this is an area that has been lacking lately, it was an even more special moment for them!

Words that Begin with the Letter....

Today, we took the lettered die from my Scattergories game and made a new activity with it.  We took turns rolling it.  Whenever Arin or I rolled it, we would call out a word that starts with the letter we rolled. 

Ella, loves to be a part of our games too, so whenever it was her turn, we would help her with the sound of the letter that she rolled.  Prior to this game, she had already memorized the sounds of the letters t, p, m, and f.  I don't think that she memorized any new letters by playing the game because she was only interested in rolling the die and it was VERY hard for her to wait her turn!  Notice the tear on her cheek?  That's because she was trying to take the die, even when it wasn't her turn.

I was actually amazed how much Arin loved this game and I was happily surprised at the types of words that she was coming up with.

Spelling Stones

During our Great Garage Clean-Out, I found a bag of glass stones, which I thought would be great for a spelling game for Arin.  So yesterday, I wrote each of the letters of the -at words on the stones.  Today, I gave Arin the stones and told her the words to spell.  She sounded the words out and spelled them with the stones.  Once she spelled a couple of words, she was able to do them quickly, because she knew the pattern - they all end in -at!  This was an easy, successful game!

Sidewalk Phonics

Arin has known her letter sounds since she was very little (in fact, Ella knows some of her letter sounds as well), and she has been able to memorize some words for a very long time as well, but we are now trying to focus her on actually sounding out words so that she will be able to read on her own.  We have been mainly focusing on the "-at" words.  It seems like as good a place as any to me to start.  We recently found the site Reading Eggs, which Arin has been enjoying (we are using the free subscription right now and it does not start with the -at words, so she has had other exposure).  We also like Progressive Phonics, which is a free site.  Right now, we are practicing only the -at words with their materials and Arin loves that she can read parts of the books.  I read the words in black and she reads the words in red.

To supplement those sites, we have been playing many reading games as well.  Today, I made a 4x4 grid, using sidewalk chalk on our driveway.  Inside each box, I wrote one -at word. 

We played this game two different ways.  Once, Arin stood at the bottom of the grid and jumped from box to box reading the words.  Her goal was to get from one side of the grid to the next.  The other variation was for me to call out a word and she had to find it and jump on it. 

Matching "-at" Words

Today, Arin played a game where she matched words ending in "-at".  I had her sound out each word before finding its mate.  Eventually we will play this as a memory game too, but for now she was happy just to match the words.

Somtimes the words are tricky...

but it's so exciting when you figure them out!

To make this game, I hand wrote words onto little wooden hearts that I had purchased from Hobby Lobby.

Egg Word Families

This activity was inspired by an ABC letter match activity that I found on Eager Little Mind.  She used the activity to match capital and lower case letters.  Arin is beyond that level and ready to start reading.  She has a passion for rhyming words, so I adapted the above mentioned activity for Arin.  On one half of the plastic egg, I wrote the word families ending: -at, -an, -en, -ip, -ad, -ig, -op.  Then, on the other side of the egg, I wrote the first letter of possible three letter words in that family.  Then, Arin, who knows her letter sounds, was able to turn the egg to make new words.  This helped her with sounding out words, seeing how they are spelled, and rhyming. 

She was so excited to read the words to her daddy!

This activity has been a huge hit all weekend!

26 Letters and 26 Objects

Yesterday, I wrote the 26 letters of the alphabet on 26 half sheets of paper. Arin took her Dot Markers and went over the lines that I made. She thought this was great fun.

When she was finished with that, I had collected a basket of objects - one for each letter of the alphabet. Arin had fun putting the things on the correct beginning letter. She did need a little help, but not too much.

Circling and Crossing Out

Arin has been really into circling things and drawing lines through things. We have also been working on a few of her sight words. Tonight, I wrote several of the words she knows on a dry erase board. Then, I'd ask her to find a certain word. If I was asking her to find a name, then I'd have her put a circle around it. If I was asking her to find a different word, I would have her cross it out. She did like this game a lot, although next time I will have to put less words on the board at one time.

Sight Word Fishing

Today, we played sight word fishing. I cut fish shapes out of orange cardstock. Then, I wrote the words I, a, me, we, by, is, it, the, and, at on the fish. I attached a magnet to each fish. Then, Arin used her fishing pole (from her puzzle similiar to this). I would tell her to find a word, such as "Find the word we." and she would try to fish for this word. Today was the first time that she has been introduced to these words, so she needed a little help with some, but she thought it was fun to fish for the words.

Uppercase & Lowercase Matching

Seeing this post of O matching upper and lowercase letters reminded me of a game that I have been wanting to make for Arin. I took water bottle lids (I was 10 short, so I will have to finish this game after we drink more water!) I put upper and lowercase letters on the inside of the cap. Then, I set out all of the uppercase letters in order in a line and gave a pile of the lowercase letters to Arin. She matched the upper and lowercase letters together. It was a little confusing since the b, d, p & q looked so similiar and the u and the n also were hard to tell apart. Otherwise, she did very well. She can now recognize all of her letter whether they are upper or lowercase. We also talked about the letter sounds as she was matching them.

Another Phonics Game

Today, I wrote each of the alphabet letters on an index card (one per card). Then, I laid three cards in front of Arin. I would say the sound of one of the letters. Then, I would have Arin pick which letter makes that sound. If she got it right, that card would disappear and would not reappear. If she got it wrong, then that card would disappear back into the orginal stack and would reappear later in the game. This game was very easy for Arin (although she had a great time with it), so I think our next step will be to start combining letters and see if she can sound them out.

Phonics Game: B or H

For the last couple of weeks, I have been verbally working on phonics with Arin. I'd give her two words and ask her which one started with a certain letter. For example: I'd say, "Which word starts with the letter B: boat or car?" We'd do this with whatever words I could think of for the particular letter. Mostly, we worked on the letters B, D, H, K, L, M, Q, R, S, & T but sometimes I'd throw in a different letter.

This past week, we changed the game up. I'd give her a word and ask her what letter it started with. "What letter does the word boat start with?"

She's done really, really well with both variations of this game. So today, I thought we'd take it from being a verbal game and make it into a visual game. I looked through magazines and found ten pictures. Five of the pictures started with the letter B (boat, bed, bowl, boot, belt) and five started with the letter H (heart, hat, house, horse, hamburger). Then, I wrote the letter B at the top of one paper and the letter H at the top of a second paper. I turned all of the pictures facedown. Arin would take one of the pictures and look at it. Then we'd say what it was (ex: house) and she would tell me if it started with a B or an H. This game seemed a little more confusing to her than when we do it verbally. She did pick the right answer about 75% of the time, but that was usually only after I repeated the word several times and got her to really pay attention to me. So we will play this game again and eventually add more letters and more pictures.