Education resources for parents and teachers
Want to help your child brush up on number sense? Try this fun activity! What is number sense? In her book, About Teaching Mathematics, Marilyn Burns defines it this way: Number sense. [Children have number sense when they] can think and reason flexibly with numbers, use numbers to solve problems, spot unreasonable answers, understand how numbers can be taken apart and put together in different ways, see ... Read More
It's time for another guest post! I'm thrilled to welcome the talented Jamie of Play to Learn Preschool. When I first visited her site, I was blown away by her amazing home preschool! If you teach preschool or simply want ideas for teaching your little ones at home, her site is a must-see. Here's Jamie... Parents often ask how to begin to teach letters to their preschoolers. My answer is always the same -- always ... Read More
Read on for addition fact strategies and nine no prep addition games! Do you remember how you learned your addition facts? My memory is a little fuzzy when I think back (over thirty years -ago - agh!) to first grade. But I remember flash cards. And as a new teacher, that was all I knew. In fact, our math series came with a giant set of colorful punch-out flash cards - one set for each student. Can you guess where ... Read More
It's time for more free reading games! I've been creating a huge variety of games and activities as I help my Five master common phonics patterns. Today I'm sharing his favorite game - Four in a Row. This time we're working on "ee" words. As far as phonics patterns go, "ee" is one of the easier ones to remember. For the first game board, we took turns reading "ee" words and ... Read More
Welcome the season with these beautiful books about spring! Each of my seasonal theme packs comes with a list of recommended books to read aloud. We love putting together our book lists! I check out stacks of books from the library, and my Four gets a lot of read aloud time. Only our favorites make the final list! ... Read More
These free color books are wonderful for helping toddlers learn their colors. (This post contains affiliate links.) I have an adorable little toddler who loves to look at books with real images. In fact, for her birthday I printed and assembled my letter books with photographs and put them in a little tin lunchbox. She often asks me to read the books from her "oot-case." For quite some time, ... Read More
These sorting mats are wonderful for practice with rhyming words! When I asked my readers what they wanted to see next, a number of them asked for rhyming activities. And one reader in particular asked for a rhyming activity in the same format as my consonant sound sorting mats. Originally I hesitated to share those consonant sound sorting mats because they aren't exactly low-prep. But I've received ... Read More
These free counting mats are perfect for teaching one to one correspondence! Are you teaching your toddler or preschooler to count? You may find that your child can count to 10 by rote without any trouble... but counting objects is another matter. It's normal for two-year-olds to be able to count groups of two. As they get closer to age three, they learn to count larger groups with ... Read More
Try this activity to help your child identify the beginning, middle, and ending sound in a particular word. In January, when I celebrated my blog's 3-year anniversary, I asked my readers what materials they'd like to see next. One repeated request was activities that focus on beginning, middle, and ending sounds within words. We already have quite a few beginning sound activities. We even ... Read More
Have you heard of phonological awareness? Here are 21 games to develop it! Have you seen the blog Growing Book by Book yet? It's a fabulous site for nurturing our youngest readers and writers! I'm so thankful that its author, Jodie, is here to share with us today while we enjoy our new baby. Be sure to visit her site for a wealth of literacy ideas! Here's Jodie... One of the best ways to help our young children ... Read More
