Education resources for parents and teachers
Looking for a simple activity to help your students learn the sounds of consonant digraphs? Try this one! My Four knows his letter sounds very well, thanks to many months of hands-on alphabet activities. While he's not quite ready to sound out words, there's a lot of learning we can do in the meantime. Up next: hearing and identifying consonant digraphs! For this activity we focused on the common ... Read More
Grab a book of funny poems and try this simple activity to improve reading fluency! (This post contains affiliate links.) A number of years ago, when I was much younger (and thinner), I had the privilege of tutoring a struggling reader as part of my work for a graduate course. At over six feet tall, Mike towered over my 5'2" self. (Size was apparently in the family, as his older brother played ... Read More
Did you know that one of the best ways to get your child ready for kindergarten is to talk about books as you read? We call these interactive read alouds. (This book contains affiliate links.) This Reading Mama and I are kicking off a ten-week series to help you get your child ready for kindergarten! To begin, we're starting with the most important thing you can do to prepare your child for the academic ... Read More
If you're searching for the best audio books for families, you're in the right place! This post is sponsored by Audible. Do you listen to audio books with your kids? We've found that they're one of the best ways to pass the time on long road trips. Since our closest grandparents are eight hours away, audio books have become a regular part of our summertime travel. I'm excited to partner with Audible ... Read More
Are you teaching letter sounds? Try this spring beginning sounds activity! This activity is a quick, low-prep way to give kids practice with beginning sounds. Simply print the "sticky sounds" page of your choice. Then write the featured letters on round office stickers. Have your child say the name of each picture and find the corresponding sticker with the beginning letter. He should place the ... Read More
Liven up your spring with these beautiful books about flowers! Enjoy these lovely books any time of the year! Flowers Are Calling, by Rita Gray We really enjoyed this rhyming book about flowers and the animals who pollinate them. On each page the flowers are calling... but for whom? "Flowers are calling a little black bear. No, not a bear! He doesn't care. They're calling a butterfly to dip from the air." We ... Read More
Let's practice reading ay and ai words! Did you see our War card game for ai and ay words? Today I'm sharing a simple follow the path game that teaches the same phonics patterns. The first two games in the pack review the ay pattern (as in hay) and the ai pattern (as in rain). Each board game features just one of the patterns. When your child is ready, pull out Game 3. It includes both the ai and ay ... Read More
Today I'm offering a quick Spring freebie! Today I'm sharing a simple counting mat. Print the mat and provide your child with objects he can stack up to ten. I'll admit that my Four wasn't at all interested in doing a learning activity with me today, but when I told him we could use coins, he was game. Simply count the correct number of coins and stack them on the corresponding numbers. Getting all ... Read More
Print this free card game for practice with ai and ay words! My Five and I have been playing a lot of games to help him learn the common phonics patterns. So far we've played games for short vowels, bossy r, silent e, oo, and ee words. Today we're starting games that teach ai and ay. I decided to keep ai and ay together because they both make the long a sound; the only difference is where they appear in the word. ... Read More
These books about seeds are wonderful to read alongside your plants unit! Here are our top recommendations for books about seeds and plants! The Carrot Seed, byRuth Krauss This is an extremely simple story that has been popular for generations. A little boy plants a carrot seed, but everyone else is quite sure a plant won’t come up. They get quite a surprise at the end of the story! From Seed to Plant, by Allan ... Read More
