Reading Can Be Fun Too!

My son loves numbers and science, not reading. I am always looking for new fun ways to get him excited about reading. Give him a book, he acts like it is the end of the world (unless a little Bob book).

           Now, give him a Hulk and tell him to smash words....he thinks that is the best thing EVER!

It's very simple... write words on folded papers (Hulk doesn't like the color pink either), and say something like "Hulk smash the word "duck!"

 Hulk is in search...

Hulk SMASH!

Laughter will follow:), especially if you dramatically mourn the loss of the "duck."

This game was a smashing hit for sure! (Yes, pun intended)

Here is another game from our My Father's World curriculum that we played at the end of week 4:

There are 10 sentences on those pre-printed papers with actions for him to perform (but first he has to read the sentence).

For example, he is reading "Get a sock wet."

 

I love this set of pictures as you can see how they think this is such a funny/crazy idea!

Then, they look at me waiting for me to tell them if they REALLY can get a sock WET! LOL!

 There is nothing funnier than a wet sock at home-school. Who would have thought?

Oh, and thanks a lot My Father's World for making one of the sentences "Jump on the bed." He isn't allowed to jump on his bed....usually:). 

Another silly favorite was "Sip milk from a mug." Simple, yet silly, is the key. I'm not going to give away all the MFW sentences, but this game is easy to replicate with your own sentences. Just make sure to stick with the short vowel words, or whatever words your child is able to read. He read 10 complete sentences, and then I made about a dozen more because he didn't want to stop! He read more with that game than he had done all week! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! He will be a reader without even realizing it.

MFW First Grade: Math Can Be FUN!

Yes, math can be fun. Both of my boys can't WAIT until number of the day time! This is what the beginning set up looks like:

I found the printables for the number of the day on the My Father's World 1st Grade facebook group page. If you are using this curriculum, I highly recommend you join this group and download lots of wonderful goodies from the files! We have two cups for counting beans (my little one had to have his own), a cup for the coins we count, and I also added counting beads that they take turns putting on the pipe cleaner. 

 I laminated the printable and gave my boys a washable dry-erase marker:

on day 10 we glued the beans to a popsicle stick to show 10's and 1's. 

Here is day 11's number of the day work:

The My Father's World 1st grade curriculum comes with pattern blocks and an animal pattern book.

Bragging moment: My 6 year old did all three of these without any help from me:

It also comes with unifix cubes. They LOVE making patterns:

We took a break from Math-U-See Alpha (+9 was frustrating him), and we are using this book that comes with the curriculum. Honestly, it is too easy for him, but we are building math confidence back up.

Yesterday was Dozen Day. We celebrated the fact that we reached the 12th day of school! 

We read Madeline, a beloved book that my mom (and probably my dad too) can quote in its entirety. They read it to me and my sister SOOOO many times:).

(there are 12 little girls in case you don't understand the Dozen Day connection)

We counted a dozen eggs in the carton, and then we made a dozen hard-boiled eggs. (Hmmm, I just remembered they made two of them their pets and I should probably go find where they put them outside)

We also did a dozen jumping jacks, (we counted "1,2,3,4...11, a DOZEN!), a dozen squats, a dozen regular jumps, and anything else active they could think of.

I baked a dozen muffins, with a little help, but by that time they were over dozen day and ready for the weekend:). 

And who says math can't be fun? I may have a hard time convincing that math is fun when we get to Algebra, but for now... we shall count eggs and be happy!

MFW First Grade: Making a Scroll

   The first cool, worthy-of- photos project for first grade has definitely been making scrolls. He started by practicing his penmanship, writing his ABC's in the My Father's World workbook. We made little scrolls the first week which made him so much more excited about making a BIG scroll later.

Dora the Explorer would be proud:)

of course little brother needed to have a yellow one:

Then, I pulled out the pages for the scroll and told him to do his best since we were going to make it into a SCROLL! He could even write them with (hold your breathe!......) a PEN! Oh, the excitement!!

Evidently writing with the pen was stressful, and he had to catch a breath between each letter

 (my drama llama):

After days of this grueling work (yes, I'm sarcastic, but he thought it was SOOO hard):

THE SCROLL WAS COMPLETE:

He is very proud of his scroll, and it now lives on his computer desk.

And, of course, we made little brother a yellow scroll:

complete with treasure map:).

School can be so much fun when you let the kiddos use their imaginations. That is, at least, after they have already written all of the ABC's.

Pre-K Color of the Day

We started school! Both my Pre-ker and my first grader have had fun with the color of the day theme that came with the Pre-k curriculum. We are using the Pre-k Sing, Spell, Read, and Write program. The worksheets are high quality, and they are a favorite already.

red day:

yellow day:

blue day at grandma's:

green day:

 eating green eggs and green meatballs (after reading Green Eggs and Ham)

brown and purple day:

orange day:

pink day (not excited about that one around here):

black day:

gray day (he decided that was boring and made the stone wall rainbow instead):

white day:

Plus, we did the idea in the curriculum where we made a chart based on everyone's favorite color. I decided to get a little more data by asking my fb friends to tell me their fave colors too. 135 votes later....

blue won!

This boy LOVED learning about colors