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.

Amazon: Live Butterfly Garden Only $11.99 Shipped

I just bought this Live Butterfly Garden marked down to ONLY $11.99 (no longer on sale) for my kids! They're 3 (almost) and 4 1/2.  This kit comes with a relatively easy-to-assemble observation chamber; supplies for feeding the butterflies (you provide only sugar and water); an informative booklet of clear instructions and butterfly facts; and a certificate for three to five free painted lady caterpillars! Your kiddos will actually be able to watch the metamorphosis from larva to butterfly which takes about three weeks. They can then release the butterflies after a few days of observation!  Perfect time for Spring.  Easy science activity! It currently has 297 reviews with 217 of them 5 *'s.

St Patrick's Day!

We did some pre St. Patrick's Day activities today since I don't know if I'll have time to do them tomorrow.

My 4.5 year old did this cute leprechaun hat worksheet.
She traced the hat, colored, cut out the shapes and pasted them onto the hat.  To make it a little more interesting I wrote surprise messages or designs in each shape using white crayon. When she colored the shapes the surprise "magically" appeared.

Leprechauns are little Irish fairies. A leprechaun looks like a small old man about 2 feet tall. He dresses like a shoemaker, wears a hat and an apron.
Leprechauns are believed to be aloof and unfriendly. They live alone, making shoes for other fairies. According to legend, the leprechaun posses a hidden pot of gold. You can track down a leprechaun by the sound of his shoemaker's hammer. If you can catch him, you can force him to tell the whereabouts of his pot of gold. However, you must be careful. You must keep your eye on him every second. If not, the leprechaun will trick you and disappear. Your hopes of find his pot of gold vanishes with him.
Have you ever wondered what is at the end of a rainbow ? Well, legend has it that the leprechaun's pot of gold is hidden at the end of the rainbow !!



My daughter also colored and cut out a blank Ireland flag.  From left to right the colors are Green, White and Orange. She then cut the flag out and we taped it to a stick.

Kindergarten Math

Here are a couple great worksheets for teaching kindergarten math.

Which Number is Bigger?
Here is a simple worksheet to practice deciding which is bigger up to the number nine.  Three to four numbers are shown in a box.  The student writes the biggest number in the space provided.


Ducks in the Pond worksheet 2

This is such a cute worksheet. Students complete the number story and practice beginning to add and subtract. At the end they get to cut up 4 ducks and paste them in the pond.  My daughter loves it any time there is cutting and pasting involved.  : )  Learning math should be focused on fun at this age!

Also check out these book ideas for kindergarten math.

Kindergarten Math Curriculum

Here are some of the resources I've been using for teaching kindergarten math:

1) Kumon My book of Numbers 1-30




I really like the Kumon books.  They are reasonable priced and they do a great job scaffolding each skill. We had been using another book and I could barely get her to finish one page at a time. My daughter (age 4) did the first 20 pages in this Kumon book in one sitting.  Then the material started getting a little more difficult and so it has been taking her longer to complete.  The last several pages do get a little monotonous but I solved this problem by buying several prizes for our prize box at the 99 cent store.  I told her that every time she finished a page in this book that she could put 2 marbles in a jar (the jar is about the size of a baby food jar).  When the jar is full she gets to pick a prize.

2) 101 Things Every Kindergartner Should Know About Math


We are also doing this book.  The math concepts and processes taught in 101 Things Every Kindergartner Should Know About Math include:
Basic math skills
Understanding number values
Addition and subtraction
Symmetry
Telling time
Memory builders
Counting money
Estimating

I have been very pleased with this book also.  The book is colorful and fun and provides additional ideas to do with manipulatives to reinforce the learning in the book.  My daughter gets 1 marble to put in the jar for each page in this book since the pages are usually less time consuming than the pages she is working on in the Kumon book.

Update: My 4 year old finished this book today 2/28/11.  I think the reason why she liked it so much is because it is so colorful and fun looking.  Unlike the Kumon book (above) she never got to a point where she was tired of doing it.  She would sit and do 6-8 pages at a time.

Check out what Mommy Maestra is doing to teach number placement with beans.