During the school year, reading is a part of our every night routine. We generally end the night with night time routine (jammies, teeth brushing, etc.) and then the kids pick out a book or two that they want to read and jump in our bed. Our daughter reads her books to us and then she either reads her brother's book(s) to us or my husband and I read to both of them. We don’t have as much time and flexibility to visit the library but do read the books they bring home from the library.
The other fun thing that we do a lot right now is play hangman. This is a fun way for the kids to be creative and focus on spelling...they love it though!
What I do to get him to like reading is have him read to his little brother out loud. They both enjoy the time together and reading.
He helps me write my grocery list, reads jokes or memes from FB to me, and he sees me reading my Bible, and checking emails on my phone, and also making notes.
He loves going to the library. He also likes reading when we travel.
I always talk to the kids about the importance of reading, we go to the library together and share books we get there and from other places too. For example the kids love going to the library at Church. The boys share the books they get from the libraries at school or from teachers. By the time a book is returned it has been passed around the family. Its a lot of fun to see the different views on books when we are all discussing them.
We have independent reading time at home and always a book we are reading aloud as a family. We read together several times a week. We love reading!!!
Getting a new book is considered a reward for the boys. They get really excited when they know we are going to the bookstore or the library.
Our girls LOVE going to any of the public libraries, and going to the bookstore is definitely a special (and often requested!) treat. We usually will go to the library on early pickup days.
She really enjoys reading books at night to her middle sister (with lots of flare and drama!), and especially because now she is teaching her sister to read herself! These two also have "homework" time that they created themselves, during which they crawl into bed together at the very end of the day and write or draw in their little journals with their flashlights. They also know mommy and daddy allow them to stay up a little later when they are doing this activity.
I have also noticed she is really using writing to understand her e
xperiences and feelings-for example, she will journal frequently about our dog, Sonny, who passed away this summer. She tells everyone that writing is her favorite part of school.
I purchased this book for her the summer before she entered kindergarten, and it was a tremendous aid in helping her learn sight words in a "fun" way. We made a word wall in her bedroom to assist her with words from the book that were challenging.
Last fall I took a phenomenal class taught by Dr. Marsha Moseley (How the Brain Learns to Read)! This class helped me as a parent in working with children and also as a teacher. I have a PE library in my gym where my students can read about the history of sports or read about ELA terminology from a PE standpoint.
So many great things happening in our kids' homes! Thank you so much for taking a moment or two to send these in. What you do at home is incredibly important to your children's literacy development. One of the hardest problems that some parents face is how to help their children read each night without making it a chore or an assignment. We want them to not only value literacy but to enjoy it as well. You all shared many wonderful strategies for taking on this work. Most, if not all, the strategies we use at home as parents are ones my wife and I have learned over the years from the families in our classrooms. It really does take a village!
Here are some pics from our week so far. It's been an adjustment as we try to figure out how to navigate these late start days yet still accomplish all we would like to. Like every learning experience in life, it's a process!
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| We've been exploring linear measurement in math. The past few days the kids have been measuring a variety of classroom objects and then placing their results on a graph. Tricky part: How do we graph measurements that are not whole numbers (buy include a half-inch). |
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| Some of the kids are at their tables working on these measurements. |
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| Before the flood, the kids created their own six-inch rulers. In second grade we largely focus on measuring to the nearest half-inch. We've recently moved up to standard 12-inch rulers. These are a bit harder to read because there are so many lines between each inch and finding the half-inch mark can be a challenge. |
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| After the kids measured each of the items with their homemade rulers they went back and double checked their work using the standard rulers. As you can see in this photo, they wrote their revised measurements off to the side of their bar graphs. |
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| Because we are also exploring data and graphs, we recently challenged ourselves with a new graph for our One Minute Addition Quizzes. This graph counts by fours up the side. This means scores such as 16, 28, and 31 need to be carefully graphed since those numbers are not written along the y-axis. We just started this but the kids are dong a wonderful job of figuring out how to graph such numbers. |
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| Here's an example from one of the kids. This practice helps us work on our graphing skills as well as track our progress with computation. They have grown SO MUCH since the beginning of the year. Lots of reasons to feel good about ourselves. |
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| I also recently introduced an hydroponic plant system. This is the process of growing plants in water as opposed to soil. |
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| We saw a larger-scale hydroponic system during our field study to City Roots farm. We are going to use ours to grow micro greens. The kids were awfully excited to see the water flowing down through the trays. |
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| Here's a closer look. We should begin to see some sprouts in a day or two. |
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