Resource Material
PLAY FOR LITERACY
Today is Family Literacy Day in Canada. This year the focus is on learning through play….right up our alley don’t you think! Here’s an article Joan and I wrote for Babyvibe.
Thursday, Jan. 27, is family literacy day in Canada. According to ABC Life Literacy Canada, this year’s focus is on learning through play.
There are two reasons that play is such a powerful learning tool. Children are meant to learn through play. Think about all the important life lessons that your children have learned through play. In addition, play is a great way to take the pressure off and make something dry (or boring) entertaining, if you don’t believe me – put on some great tunes and dance your way through doing the dishes tonight, we suspect you’ll notice quite a difference.
Here are 10 really simple and fun reading and writing games to play at home with your children:
- For children who are learning the alphabet, making letters out of play dough is a fun and tactile way to experience the alphabet.
- In the car, simple games like “I-Spy” are great for practicing letter sounds and entertaining young minds while you are navigating rush hour.
- Create a family play night. Have your children write a short play, give everyone a part, have fun dressing up and put on a performance in your own home.
- Setting up a treasure hunt is a game that you can adjust to work with almost any age. Set it up yourself to practice reading or have your child set it up for you to have them practice writing the clues. At the simplest level, use one word like “oven” on the clues.
- Children love to put on a performance, so next time, have them create an entire show to present to you. Writing out programs and creating tickets are just some of the sneaky ways that writing works itself into this idea.
- When reading stories to young pre-readers, have them guess what they think will happen next before turning the page. This simple game engages children in the story and helps build their imagination and curiosity, which are vital in building the desire to learn to read in children.
- Involve your child in the weekly grocery shop. Make a list for you and give your child items for him to write on his list too. When you are at the store let him be in charge of finding the items on his list.
- Another fun letter game to entertain children in the car is to make funny phrases out of the letters on car license plates that you pass. For example “ALA 168” could be “Angry Little Aardvarks.”
- A really fun writing activity (which can also tie into the next activity) is to have your children run a restaurant for the night or for lunch. They are the servers and they set and write the menus. They can help prepare the food and even provide entertainment. This is a really great rainy day activity.
- Without a doubt, our favourite reading activity is cooking. Find simple recipes for early readers to follow. Casseroles with lots of ingredients are great for more advanced readers. Cooking also sneaks in some math skills and at the end of the day you have a child who can cook for you! For young ones, putting raisins on gingerbread men help with fine motor movement and finger dexterity.
YOUR KID’S FINANCIAL LITERACY
I’m starting a thread here in the blog on other businesses that we at Notch Hill endorse because they have great philosophies, have amazing products or are just in general super cool people.
So it is appropriate that the first company seems to fit into all these categories.
Four Quarters Finance seem to come from similar roots to us here at Notch Hill. They believe in the concept of play being a powerful way to teach kids. Like us they are also passionate about literacy, but in their case they are passionate about financial literacy. They have 3 financial literacy packs designed for different age groups. I love the idea of teaching kids from an early age that it is important to save a portion of their money for themselves and a portion of their money to give away.
Check out their website at www.fourquartersfinance.com you will also find them at the BC Home School Conference in early June.
FAMILY LITERACY DAY
Happy Family Literacy Day every one!
Here’s a fun idea to celebrate – find a well loved book that has the same number of characters as there are in your family and have a family play. It doesn’t matter if you have an audience or not, as I guarantee that most of the fun will be in the preparations. Costumes are a must, the best ones are scavenged from around the house.
I remember doing this as a kid. My much older brother landed the part of a bee (I seem to remember that it was the main protagonist). As his only line was to say “Buzz” he made a comic strip type bubble out of card and wrote “Buzz” in it. I thought that it was wonderful!
THE ART OF STORY TELLING
One great way of introducing a new skill, routine or activity with your child is to make a photo story book about it. I just made a “Day-In-The-Life-Of” story book as a bit of fun for my son. It was really easy, over several days (it would have taken a day, but I kept forgetting) I took photos of him doing the things he does during the day. For example: Waking up, eating, playing, bath time etc then I printed them and put them in a dollar store photo album. As he is the main character in the book he absolutely loves “reading” it.
This type of story book can be really great if you are trying to work on a routine. For example, if you are trying to instigate a bedtime routine to help your child go to bed more easily/quickly, take pictures of your child going through the parts of the routine. Enlisting your child to help put the photos in the right order helps embed the process as well as “reading” the story regularly. Just beware, once you do this, you won’t get away with making any variances from the routine!
Another fun thing to do with these picture stories is practice sequencing – a good thing to practice before your child starts kindergarten. Going through first, then, next and last with your child both using pictures and physically around the house will help your child understand typical instructions she will get from her Kindergarten teacher. For example: First hang up your coat, then wash your hands, and lastly sit at the table.
Photo books have a huge range of applications and are great because they are easy to make and kids love having a book written all about them. If you have any other uses for them feel free to add a comment.
THE LETTER SOUNDS IN THE PHONICS ALPHABET
The phonics alphabet is just a posh way of saying. “This is the sound that the letter makes rather than the name of the letter” We teach kids the letters phonetically first because it is easier to remember “The letter a” rather than “Ay says a”…. yes it’s challenging to write this stuff down!
Here is a flawless example of the phonetics alphabet pronounciation by www.helpingtogrow.com
Here is a high energy example – but beware, some of the letters are prounced as bu, du, pu, cu etc. The correct way to pronounce them is softer and more breathy (as in the first video). This video courtesy of www.genkienglish.net