Good evening home edders hope you're having a wonderful weekend as I prepare to head off to bed I'd like to run through some advancements we've been making in the reading and writing part of home schooling. It's been my kryptonite and a challenging one to master.
I've done a bit of digging online and found a few things to use one I really liked was word cards that had corresponding pictures like frog, cat, dog etc and I'll definitely be picking a set up. It makes learning abit more fun and engaging. I think with all things educational it's about ensuring that you have fun while learning and I've decided to make our learning a little more fun at home.
Also, I've done abit of reading and the key is not to get too tied up about how kids actually write the letters. Just provide a guide and go with it. In time they will pick it up. There are also connect the dot activities and I vaguely remember this as a kid myself so I might print some out tomorrow and continue. Although I don't feel it is quite as fun as drawing on a white board.
For tonight's activity we focused on three letter words, words that Lil Miss knew what they looked like. Such as Mum, Dad, Cat, Dog, Car and we did really really well. A few hiccups with trying to replicate letters and lil miss was a little upset but I provided her with encouragement and let her know that in time she will be able to write the letters but it is better to try first. The only way you get better at something is if you keep practising.
Over the past week I also incorporated the computer in learning as its something she has wanted to use. I opened up Microsoft Word, wrote her name and then got her to press the keys that were the letters. We got a little tripped up on the letter A. Mainly because my laptop doesn't have an actual A it has an upside down V kind of shape as an A so it caused confusion.
But this had led to little miss to be able to spell her name with no guidance. It didn't help that the spelling of her name isn't actually the mainstream version of it. It is an Indigenous word but you wouldn't know. Even Adults confuse the spelling.
After our 3 letter words we moved upto some more advanced 3 letter world's like Zoo and Sky now these might not seem advanced but Z and S get confusing as they tend to mimic the numbers 2 and 5. Lil Miss is great with numbers and counting she caught onto them pretty quickly. Mainly because she used to take cookies or chips from the pantry and I'd tell her now. Often I'd say to her OK tell me the number you want and I will give you that amount Oh how this quickly made her realise 1 - 5 aren't that much and the 20s is where she wants to sit. We don't play that game anymore although she will approach me with it regularly. But she out smarted me in time.
You might notice that last word is a biggie, it's Poodle. I allowed her to pick a word to learn to spell and she started laughing and said poodle. I grinned and asked her why and where she learned it. One of her friends from mums group have a dog that she has heard them refer to as a poodle and she finds it the funniest thing because it has the word Poo in it.
No doubt this will be the only word she picks up how to spell fluently and I can probably expect alot more art work now created by her with the word Poodle in it. Ah whatever helps them get there.
As we write I also ask her to tell me the letters and their pronunciation, I hope that this helps her learn how to read but for the mean time I am working on the spelling and learning of letters.
This is actually a really challenging thing to teach and I'm no English teacher I'd probably not make it past the grades for it either. But with Delta Variant now outbreak in our area it's looking like home schooling is a definite next year.
Better get to it now while she's showing an interest!
