Education resources for parents and teachers
I'm doing Letter of the Week with my little guy who just turned three. Follow along and see what we're learning! My son is really enjoying our letter of the week activities! Each day we sit down for about 10 or 15 minutes and do two or three activities. We read books all throughout the day. Sometimes I sneak in an extra activity before dinner. (Update: I published this post years ago when my children ... Read More
Print this free letter sounds activity to help your child identify beginning sounds in words. We've done a lot of beginning sounds activities around here. If those activities are a little tough for your child, you'll appreciate this activity. It takes a little step back. Do you notice how there aren't any letters on these cards? That's intentional. The point of the activity is not to teach ... Read More
Today I'm sharing a fun round up of sight word activities to try at home! What are sight words? Traditionally, when teachers say “sight words,” they are referring to high frequency words that children should know by sight. We often define sight words as words that kids can’t sound out – words like the, for example. However, reading researchers have a different definition of sight words. A sight word is a word that ... Read More
Take a peek at our letter A activities this week! While Letter of the Week is much too slow for kids in kindergarten, I've enjoyed following this format with my preschoolers at home. Our youngest son just turned three. I've begun a Letter of the Week with him, and each week I'll be sharing our activities. (Update: I published this post years ago when my children were young. Now that I have more time, I've created a ... Read More
Last week, in our reading comprehension series, This Reading Mama wrote about teaching children to use their schema to understand what they read. Everyone brings a different schema to the books they read, because schema is your background knowledge. It's shaped by your experiences, the people you know, and the books you've read. Today we're tackling another reading comprehension strategy: making ... Read More
Need something that will give your child practice sounding out words with short vowels? Some of you have asked about our final set of word slider cards. They're finally ready to share! The concept of word slider cards is super simple. Just write single syllable word on a long strip of paper. Leave spaces between each chunk of the word. Then cut off the end of a sealed ... Read More
Today I'm sharing a big set of fun and free handwriting worksheets! So what do your kids do when it's time to practice their handwriting? I'm guessing they don't jump up and cheer. Sitting down with a number 2 pencil and copying rows of letters and words... yeah, I wouldn't be too crazy about it either. But not to worry - I've created a pack of fun handwriting pages. Do your kids ... Read More
Join me for a look at reading comprehension strategies that will help your child grow as a reader. This Reading Mama and I teamed up to bring you another collaborative series! Together, we shared nine reading comprehension strategies to help your child learn and grow as a reader. In this series you'll find sample lessons, book lists, and other tools to bring these strategies to ... Read More
How to assemble Print the pages front to back, starting on page 2. (Page 1 is my Terms of Use - be sure not to print it or they will all be messed up!) I like to print on light or medium cardstock. Each book will be two full sheets of paper, front to back. Cut on the horizontal center of each book. (I love our paper cutter! I've used it for years. A little pricey on Amazon, but you might be able to get it at ... Read More
It's another set of free phonics books! (This post contains affiliate links.) Can you believe we're on set 22 of our free phonics books collection? Now that we've been working on two-syllable words for a while, today's set features two-syllable words with these endings: -y (as in candy), -ie (as in cookie), and -ey (as in monkey). Let's take a look! Each book starts with the new phonics pattern. On the right, ... Read More
