A World of Learning

 Well, hello again on this rainy day! It's supposed to be APRIL showers bring MAY flowers. It's May. In fact, it's almost June. I guess that's enough complaining.  In addition to teaching reading and writing, I also teach (easy) math. One of my students is struggling in subtraction, so I'm always trying to find interesting and fun ways to teach him, since he gets bored easily and loses interest. I also teach him in reading, which he finds much more interesting.  I went to Google and found some word problem pages for his age! I think they are great! In case you ever need anything like this, the website is https://www.math-salamanders.com/subtraction-games.html  He also loves the Roll-A-Dice game, which I turned into a subtraction game by making the dice numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5. These are the possible answers when you roll two dice and subtract the smaller number from the larger number. He likes to see which number he should "vote" for based on which number seem

 Anyone who knows me knows that I love to read, and even write, books! I just love the variety of stories out there, some of which become my favorites. There are a lot of great books out there for kids too! I always try to find a book that will be interesting to each child I tutor, and one at or slightly above their reading level. Right now I have a nine year old, a six year old, a seven year old, and a three year old. The nine year old is advanced in reading and doesn't usually like to read fiction (though he does like the Percy Jackson series). So I try to find informational books about interesting topics. We usually only come up with two words to his word list. There are a different number of words required to learn for each list. When they memorize the list and can say all the words without any help, they earn a $5 gift card to Walgreens. This is good incentive to learn the words. The six year old just earned her gift card for learning "it, his, sit, mat and hat." I&#

 This is actually a little bit of an old picture, but I was helping a 13-year-old with her reading skills. We were taking turns reading chapters of a book called "Mine." It is a haunted house story for young adults, written by Delilah S. Dawson. I found the book in one of those "little libraries" and knew she would like it. So when I first brought it to her house, I showed her the cover with the title on it in large letters, MINE. I teased her and said, this is mine. It really is mine. Then she said, "No, it's Mine." We would go back and forth saying "it's mine" every time we went to read it. Then, when we were near the end of the book, they were going on a trip for summer vacation and I gave the book to her to finish on her own. She said, "now it really is mine!" So she finished the book on her own, and when I saw her again I asked her how it ended. She wouldn't tell me. I suggested she let me borrow the book so I could fin

 I enjoy giving birthday gifts to the kids I tutor! This boy is now nine years old! I keep forgetting how young he is because he's so advanced in reading. He's learning some words like carpenter, foliage, calcium, perpetual, and continent.  We always go over the correct pronunciations and make sure he knows what each word means. He's doing great! He doesn't usually like to read fiction, so I get him kids' books that are informational. It's hard finding kids' books that aren't too easy for him! Right now he's reading about ecosystems.  Anyway, I got him a remote control car that has extra wheels on it so it can do a 360 up and around itself. He really liked it. 

 Well, I was surprised this week when I was given this little plastic Pokemon character. You see, it was mine. I have a bag of them that I use for playing learning board games like "Say and Spell" or Bingo. Apparently this one had been left behind, unnoticed by me. So when I came to tutor the boy again, his mom showed it to me and told me how serious her son was about making sure I got it back. He called it "Miss Tia's figure." It just really touched my heart that he would care so much about such a little thing. 

 Hello again! I have been recently teaching how to identify the letters of the alphabet to a three-year-old. But all 26 of them seemed like it might be too much all at once. So, I'm starting with the first five letters, and when he learns those, I'll add a few more. I'll do that each time he learns those letters until he recognizes all the letters of the alphabet! He already knows "E" because that is what his name starts with. I was only going to start with A, B, C, D, but since he already knows "E", I decided to include that letter as well. So in addition to the first five letters of the alphabet, I'm also teaching him how to spell his name. I have pre-K writing paper, so I write out his name in dashed lines a few times on a page and have him write over the letters. He's already getting better at following the lines and I've only done it three times with him! He'll be a quick learner of the alphabet, I'm sure. 

 What do you do when the seven-year-old boy you're tutoring in math keeps saying "I'm too tired!" and laying his head down, or saying "This is boring!" and flopping onto the seat next to him at the table. ?? That's the dilemma I was in the other day. Granted, it was a Saturday, and the kid had been to a birthday party where he'd been running around at the park for two hours.  First, I started with "skip counting". He was doing fine at this point. I had him write on a white board - by 2s, then 4s, which we had been doing the weeks before. He did those fine. Then I wanted to introduce him to counting by 3s (not knowing if his school teacher had already done this or not). He did fine, much to my surprise! But by this time he was starting to get bored and was writing with his left hand. The numbers were hard to read, so I had him say them out loud as he wrote them.  Then we used dice to add to written out partial equations that either added up

 Hello again! I hope all is well in your world, as it is in mine. I made use of my Bingo boards again yesterday. The boy I'm working with in this picture is learning to identify new words, mainly laugh, cough, rough, and tough. Words where gh makes the "f" sound. He's catching on really quickly. The next step is to have him remember how to spell them. The kids all enjoy playing Bingo to learn their words or letters. 

 I love Pinterest! I have found many unique ideas to make learning more fun on that website! This one is simply a tissue box covered and decorated with construction paper. What I did today was pour in all the letters of the alphabet (plastic) and the little boy I'm teaching letters to pulled them out and matched them to the written letters. It's more fun when you reach in and don't know what you'll get than just having all the letters dumped out on the table. 

 These little books are great for teaching reading skills! I have a set of them that I put in order by letter of difficulty and I numbered them in order as the reading grew more complicated. This little girl that I have been tutoring for almost a year has enjoyed learning to read with them. They have a lot of repetition in each book, so the child can become familiar with the word being repeated. A year ago she couldn't read at all, and today she read from one of the Bob Books, "And my home is a home for me!"  Her mom was so proud of her. 

 I am always trying to come up with fun ways for the kids to learn the letters or words they're working on. I think I found this idea on Google, I can't take credit for it myself. But I did make it all by hand using flat pieces of cardboard, a sharpie, and a ruler. Then I tape on whatever words need to be on the board. I have some little collectible toys that I use as game pieces. It's a great success! I can even use it for math where I put addition or subtraction problems on the board and numerical answers on the cards that are drawn.  I made two of the boards so I could play with the kids and make it more of a challenge to win!