I'm always trying to think of ways to make learning to read a fun, hands on process. I'm not an unschooler by any means but I believe that the process should be relaxed and not focused on performance based outcomes. The act of reading shouldn't be to impress or check off a required subject from the "to learn" list. Children are naturally excited at learning to do something that labels them "big" and learning to read is most definitely one of those exciting milestones. However based on each child's learning style it could be more difficult for one to read while the other picks it up with ease. Brody was beginning to struggle with learning to read so I came up with the idea of using felt food to assist in learning word families and the result has been amazing! I have a sister in law who is exceptionally crafty and makes the most creative things from felt. I am not as patient and skilled as she is so instead of taking the time to make my own felt food I bought a Melissa and Doug Felt Pizza as my base for this project. I took time to print several lists of word family words. (-it: sit, fit, split, -eep: sleep, peep, beep, etc) Emma, being a girl and a year older, is able to do harder words while Brody still needs to stick with the simple basic words for now. The neat thing about this project is that I can use it for both of them with whatever weekly word families or sight words they have (additionally I plan to use the felt food for synonyms and antonyms). I laminated the lists and cut them out, then sorted them in baggies as to not get them mixed up. I also bought Velcro dots to use to attach the words to the food. I spent time putting one side of the Velcro dot to each piece of the pizza and then attached the other side of Velcro to the individual words. Putting it into application is so much fun and can be done without my help. They take out the bag of words that they are working on for the week (This week Emma is learning -old and -ow words and Brody is learning -it and -ot words). The word family goes on the pizza crust and all words that go with that word family are placed on the toppings. When they have the pizza assembled they read all the words to me. An alternate way we play is for me to tell them what word to put on and they have to find it from their pile of words. They also play "pizza shop" taking turns being the chef and customer. The customer tells the chef what kind of crust they want (-it, -ot, -old or -ow) and then what toppings they want on their crust (cold, fold, blow, bit, fit, hot, pot, etc). Does it get any more fun than that?! We even used it to learn about fractions today too! I'm excited about this new way to play with our words which has Brody learning 10 to 20 new words every week. He's learning to read and it's not rigid and forced. Boys are especially prone to developing an aversion towards schoolwork at an early age because what they really want to do is play. By mixing school with play I'm able to show him that learning can be fun. He's excited and eager to practice his new words and listening to him read them and seeing the excitement in his eyes is the confirmation I need to know we are on the right track towards our ultimate goal of inspiring a lifelong love of learning.
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About MeI'm Becca, a former chocolate junkie, herbal enthusiast, curriculum writer, homeschool mom to four active kids, wife to my jack of all trades hubby, blessed child of God. Archives
November 2018
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The Essential Blog
Essential homeschooling is not about trying to mimic a classroom setting at home, expensive curriculum and stressful learning. It's setting our eyes on Christ and offering up our lives for His service. It's finding simplicity in daily living and loving each other, embracing the challenges and cherishing the moment because we know these years won't last and what we instill in our children today will determine who they will be tomorrow.