Playful Learning: Letter Writing with Younger Children
I think letter writing is one of the best ways to encourage kids to write. They can choose to write a full-blown letter or a simple postcard.
Either way, Mariah at Playful Learning (www.playfullearning.net) has some terrific tips for doing this type of activity. She also has ready-made paper that you can print right from her [...]
Click to read entire post.
i knOw A LoT of Adults wHo gEt confUsed as to wHat To capitAlize. Here aRe the basics to help explain it your kid:
1. Someone’s name or their title, when used before their name:
Otis
President Obama
Doctor Herdez
2. The name of a group of organization:
San Francisco Giants
The New York Times
The United Way
Stanford University
United States Congress
3. At the [...]
Click to read entire post.
How Do I Help My Kid With Their Writing? Grades K/1
Something I absolutely love about teaching the lower grades in elementary schools is being witness to the process of kids learning that they can write down their own ideas. I would watch a kid struggle making the circles and lines that form our alphabet, then to copy simple, dictated sentences and then something would [...]
Click to read entire post.
A Very Cool Home-Made Holiday Gift
Finding cool Holiday gifts that kid’s can make is challenging.
I read a great idea on the Eensies blog on how to solve this problem. Jennifer at The Write Start, posted an activity that she did with her son. Trained as an Occupational Therapist, Jennifer always considers fine motor skill development in her posts. This time [...]
Click to read entire post.
Cranky Kid? Four Ideas to Change A Funky Mood
Everybody gets cranky. It’s just a part of life but when your kid is grumpy and you have things to do, it can seem like a monumental problem. Here are a few ideas to try out that I use in the classroom to put the skids on crankiness.
Don’t Yell. Tell Them How You Feel.
I try [...]
Click to read entire post.
I like to encourage children to write poetry about their dreams and aspirations. A poetry activity that I do in my class near the end of the year is about hopes and dreams for the coming new year. This is how I structure it:
First we do a brainstorm of all of the positive feeling words [...]
Click to read entire post.
A Great Conversation Starter: “Change The World For Ten Bucks”
My friend Sarah sent me the book, Change The World For Ten Bucks, to see what my students would think about it. They loved it.
This book is filled with a variety of activities for to do with your kids to help make the world a better place. Everything from a postcard to write a friend, [...]
Click to read entire post.
A Great Tool For Writing Persuasive Essays
It’s tough writing essays. Whether you’re an adult or a kid. Organizing your thoughts. Outlining ideas and examples. And even then, essays need editing and rewriting, and most kids don’t understand that.
A tool that I use in classroom to help my students write persuasive essays is a graphic organizer. It works well because it provides [...]
Click to read entire post.
It’s very difficult to find good science books to read to my students, whether they’re in 1st grade or 5th. But a series I think belongs in every home library is called Let’s Read And Find Out Science Books.
These books are well illustrated, and cover topics ranging from volcanoes, earthquakes and plate tectonics to rare [...]
Click to read entire post.
I love word sorts. They’re easy and fun to do with kids. They improve reading skills and build confidence at any grade level. Here’s what you do:
Choose a list of words. They can be a list of 100 high frequency words (words that kids see and use a lot), words based upon a certain subject [...]
Click to read entire post.
Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean that you put math in mothballs. Here are some ideas you might want to use to sneak some math problems in during summer:
Money
Put your kid(s) in-charge of money for an outing. When I was ten-years old, I joined my Mom for a two-week work trip. She put me [...]
Jason, Ithaca, New York
Click here to read more about The K5, who we are and Founder of The K5, Otis Kriegel. Do you want to put some of our videos on your blog? Go to our Blip.tv, Vimeo or You Tube sites and embed away.
And click below to see what other parents are saying. Are youon Facebook? So is The K5. Click here to become a Facebook "fan".
