Free Passes to Bay Area Museums

If you have an Alameda County Library card you should soon be able to access free passes online to many museums and cultural institutions in the area.  The program is called "Discover and Go."

To learn more about this program go to www.aclibrary.org/discover.










Here is a list of participating destinations:

Aquarium of the Bay

Asian Art Museum

Bay Area Discovery Museum

Bedford Gallery

California Historical Society

Cartoon Art Museum

Charles M. Schultz Museum

Contemporary Jewish Museum

Exploratorium

Lindsay Wildlife Museum

Marine Mammal Center (discount only)

Museum of Children’s Art

Museum of Craft and Folk Art

Oakland Museum

Oakland Zoo

Pacific Pinball Museum

San Jose Museum of Art

Tech Museum of Innovation (discount only)

USS Hornet

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Totally Honest Monday

It is a little after 9:30am.  Katie did her dot to dot, colored it and enjoyed doing it. I gave her and JD (3 year old son) oatmeal.  Then I had Katie do a little work out of her math book.  She had to write 6 numbers in the 40's and that was definitely enough for her. (She'd already been through learning to write her numbers with KUMON math.) She then wrote the names of some characters in her math book to match them with the correct bag but this was like pulling teeth.  She gets angry, frustrated when I correct her in how to properly hold her pencil. So after this I asked her if she wanted some fruit.  She said yes, with yogurt.  So I was cutting up her fruit, JD was asking for help putting crayons away and the baby was crying.  I gave Katie her bowl of fruit and said I wasn't giving her yogurt right now. (I was going to go get the baby.)  She said, then I'm not eating.  I lost a little of my cool and raised my voice to her telling her I didn't like her talking to me like that.  Then she cried.  This is not quite how I hoped today would go and it is not quite 10am. 

Our day turned around after this (thankfully).  We went outside, planted some flowers, watered, played, had lunch, played starfall and then did the scavenger hunt.  The scavenger hunt was definitely a hit and I plan to do this again soon.  It is such a great way to get your young reader to read.  I'm thinking I'll incorporate some of her newer hooked on phonics words the next time.

Yep.  I lose my patience sometimes.  That's why I'm thankful I can rely on God. I need to think on these verses:  

2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”   

James 1:5 "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." 

James 1:20:22 "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry." 

Proverbs 15:1 "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. " 

Learning about coins game

Penny, Nickel, Dime
Kindergarten-Grade 1

This game came from the US department of Education website. 

What You Need

• Die
• Pennies, nickels, dimes

What to Do
This is a good game to play with the family.

• Have each player roll the die and say the number. Then give the player that number of pennies. Explain that each penny is worth one cent.
• When a player gets five pennies, replace the pennies with a nickel. Explain that five pennies have the same value as one nickel—that is, five cents. When she gets five more pennies, replace the pennies and the nickel with a dime. Help her to see that the value of five pennies plus the value of a nickel (five cents) equals 10 cents, which is the value of a dime.
• The first player to reach a set amount—25 or 50 cents, for example—wins.

1st day of "official" Homeschooling

It is crazy but tomorrow is my "official" first day of homeschooling my almost 5 year old daughter.  I've been homeschooling her since she was born. She knows how to read and is in the 2nd grade level of hooked on phonics.  I've teamed up with a charter school to home school for kindergarten in order to get a little help with money for materials and curriculum.  I learned about doing this from a friend.  It is pretty cool.  Basically once you are accepted to the school an educational specialist comes to visit you about once every 20 school days.  They check on your progress and are there to offer support and answer questions.  Plus you get $800 to spend on curriculum and resources including activities such as gymnastics, art, dance, swimming and even horseback riding if you choose to spend your stipend this way.  Anyway tomorrow is my daughter's first "official" day of kindergarten and I am her teacher.  It is funny because I feel some of the same butterflies I felt before the first day of school each year that I taught high school Spanish. So far I have the following planned:

1) ABC Dot to Dot flower
2) Learning About Coins Game
3) Scavenger hunt for snacks.  My daughter will read each clue and at the end find her snack.  Here are the clues if you are interested:

- Go to the place where you take a bath.


- The next clue is in your room under the place you lay your head.


- Good job!  Now go the the room where you eat and find the wall with words.


- Open the door under the t.v. to find your next clue.


- Way to go!  Now go find your snack under the place that you eat.

A couple of the resources I'm considering taking advantage of through the charter school are the five in a row curriculum, (Here's a good resource to go along with FIAR) right start math and swim lessons.

Starfall is great! Now what?

If you don't know about Starfall and you have a pre-reader/ early reader then you really need to check it out.  In fact Homeschool.com recognized Starfall as one of their top five educational websites.We've been using starfall for over a year now and I find it to be an awesome FREE resource for teaching kids to read and reinforcing phonics skills.  I finally bit the bullet and even bought the extension.  I'm glad I did.  It is loaded with all kinds of goodies including math, stories, poems, nursery rhymes and more.  Since I have a new baby this is a great way for me to have my kids (ages 3 and almost 5) do something educational as I care for the baby.

My daughter is in the second grade book of hooked on phonics and I have been wondering about other programs that have reading in them since my daughter is pretty much past the starfall reading.  (It is still great reinforcement for her though and she does it while my 3 year old happily observes.)  Today I found Click N Read Phonics.  The program states that it is "designed for children as young as 4 years old and teaches the complete K-3rd grade phonics curriculum taught at USA public schools."  It is not free like starfall but it looks pretty reasonable and you can test out 4 of the lessons.  (2 of these lessons are for Click N Spell.)  My daughter tested a couple today and she was totally engaged.  For example, in the spelling lesson it said a word, said it in a sentence, showed how it was spelled and then my daughter had to type out the word.  Then it said the word for a second time (without showing the word this time) and my daughter had to type it out again.  Fantastic!

I love that there are no CD ROMS to use and nothing to install.  You can try out the four lessons with the click of a button.

I'm also pleased to see that it has a bunch of awards.  These include the Parenting Media Award and the Practical Homeschooling i-learn awards.



Please share in the comment section what you have used as the next step after starfall or to coincide with it.

Here's what the company has to say...

"ClickN KIDS, Inc, an Agoura Hills, CA based firm that develops online educational software, has introduced ClickN READ Phonics. ClickN READ Phonics contains 100 precisely sequenced, research based lessons designed by nationally recognized research professor Dr. J. Ron Nelson. The result is a beginning reading program that is beyond compare and has redefined computer based instruction. It is the first of it's kind to simulate live instruction. Each lesson is taught by ClickN KID, a goofy and lovable “Dog of the future.” ClickN KID helps children gently through a learning journey of systematic lessons set in colorful, futuristic classrooms. Each lesson contains four engaging learning environments that progressively teach alphabetic understanding, phonemic awareness, decoding, and word recognition."

Core Curriculum Guide

Did you know that you can download a free copy of The Core Knowledge Curriculum by E.D. Hirsch?  These are guides for what children need to know in language arts, history, geography, visual arts, music, math and science from preschool through 8th grade.  This is an excellent resource if you don't have the What your ---- grader needs to know books.  Actually it is a nice reference tool even if you do have the book.



Besides the curriculum guide you can also find several teacher guides to go along with the core classics series of books.  I looked at the Don Quixote guide and it seems to do a fabulous job.  It says it is aimed at fifth-grade students but I'm sure you can adapt it for higher grades as well.  It contains vocabulary lists for each chapter, study questions, suggested activities, vocabulary activities and a summary of each chapter. 



Here are the teacher guides:

Frederick Douglass

Don Quixote

Gulliver's Travels

King Arthur and the Round Table

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Robinson Crusoe

Robin Hood

Sherlock Holmes

Treasure Island 
Purchase Rats, Bull & Flying Machines Guide

Initial Blend Dominoes & Matching Game

I found this Initial Blend Dominoes Matching Game on the A to Z phonics blog.  This is another game that will go along perfectly with my daughter's hooked on phonics.

This game will help in practicing the following initial blends:

bl- br- cl-cr- dr- fl- fr- gl-gr- pl- pr-sc-
sk-sl-sm-sn-sp-squ-st- str-sw-tr-

I can't wait to make this game.  My daughter's biggest motivators are games and competition.

Check out our other hooked on phonics game.

Quote of the Day

"Teaching is the profession that creates all others."

Hooked on Phonics Game

Yesterday I created a new reading game to help my daughter work on her Hooked on Phonics.  First we made these cards. Go here to create your own cards with the same look.  I made about 4 different pages, cut them out and laminated them with our own little laminator.

Next I printed and laminated a game board.  There are tons of them out there.  Here are a few examples:

Car Race Board
Fall Game Board
Bees and honeycomb printable board game

We used a penny and a nickel as our game pieces and stacked the cards face down.

Here is how we played.

- On your turn grab the top card and read it.  Roll a die and move your piece.

Pretty simple right?  But it worked.  My daughter hasn't been very cooperative reading her words out of her workbook lately but since it was part of a reading game she had no problem with it. By the way my daughter is 4.5 and is working out of the first grade hooked on phonics books.  I've been slowing down with her lately because she has shown some resistance and I don't want her to have a negative experience.

Love this poem!

I Took His Hand and Followed
Mrs. Roy L. Peifer

My dishes went unwashed today,

I didn't make the bed,

I took his hand and followed

Where his eager footsteps led.

Oh yes, we went adventuring,

My little son and I...

Exploring all the great outdoors

Beneath the summer sky

We waded in a crystal stream,

We wandered through a wood...

My kitchen wasn't swept today

But life was gay and good.

We found a cool, sun-dappled glade

And now my small son knows

How Mother Bunny hides her nest,

Where jack-in-the-pulpit grows.

We watched a robin feed her young,

We climbed a sunlit hill...

Saw cloud-sheep scamper through the sky,

We plucked a daffodil.

That my house was neglected,

That I didn't brush the stairs,

In twenty years, no one on earth

Will know, or even care.

But that I've helped my little boy

To noble manhood grow,

In twenty years, the whole wide world

May look and see and know.