I've created a journaling page. It includes a space to draw and a few lines to write. After chatting with my step-mother (a 2nd grade school teacher), she emphasized the importance of journaling even if it's as simple as writing about something they did that day. To sort of reinforce her claim, I found an article written by Tonya Wright where she discusses the value of journal writing. The article can be found on the Literacy Connections website.

Below is an excerpt from the article, but it's worth checking out the original article if you have time.

Journal writing with young children serves five major purposes:
1. It teaches children that their thoughts, feelings, and words can be transferred from their minds onto paper for others to see and read.
2. Children learn to value writing, and to respect the writing of others.
3. Journal writing gives children REAL and RELEVANT opportunities to learn the conventions of print such as:
     a) Print goes from left to right;     b) There is a difference between pictures and text;     c) Print goes from the top to the bottom of a page;     d) Letters make up words, and other rules of the written language.
4. Young children need to experiment with letters, letter sounds, and inventive spelling in a non-threatening way.
5. Writing gives children time to practice the fine motor control that will help them become better writers.

Journaling Page

Vocabulary & Writing Practice

I found two great resources for help in learning new vocabulary and practice writing.

1. Vocabulary word lists from EnchantedLearning.com for K-2nd grade

2. Handwriting Worksheet Creator from Lakeshore Learning

I figure I can use the vocabulary list to create the worksheets. We learn some new words while also practicing our handwriting. How great!!

Cause & Effect Analogies

In creating these analogy worksheets, I started to think that maybe breaking these down into simpler ideas would work better when trying to teach the idea of analogy to Little Man. So, what I have done is broken the worksheets into simpler ones where all the analogies are specific to the type of analogy.

The first worksheet gives Little Man the chance to come up with his analogous words. There is no wrong answer. Then the second worksheet is more specific. The analogies are still cause & effect, but the relationships between the two sets of analogies are also similar. For example "Heat is to Cooked as Cold is to Frozen".

You can find these worksheets here:
Cause & Effect Analogies

Keep an eye out for worksheets of the other types soon.

Multiplication Tables

I've started on a collection of multiplication tables. I started KB working on the table through 5, but that's a little too much for now so I created another one through 3. Our goal is to learn these, adding one number at a time, using beans and blocks until we can get up to 12. I never learned my times table past 12, and I turned out pretty alright, so I think that's far enough for now. Perhaps someone else has another opinion on how far to go?

Blank Multiplication Tables

Another resource that I find quite helpful can be found at SuperKids.com. They have a worksheet generator tool which churns out a pretty good looking math worksheet.

Also, it may have been nearly 25 years ago, but I can still remember playing "Around the World" with math flash cards. I may have a competitive side to me, and so Around the World was perfect for getting me motivated to learn my times tables. Perhaps if you're working with just one kid, you could create flashcards and run a timer to see how quick they can get through the pile? Again, this is speaking to the child with the competitive streak in them which my son and I both have. I think having to race against a timer might stress any other child out . . . and correlating math with anxiety is not what we want!!

Analogies

The following is a link to the Analogies folder that contain the worksheets I have created for analogy practice. The level of these may vary significantly, but I have tried to keep it at the level I think Little Man could handle with only minimal help from me. Each worksheet has a corresponding "answer" version.

Analogy Worksheets

Book Reports

Book reports seem to serve multiple purposes for us and is a great tool for not only reading and writing, but also for comprehension and communication. Linked below here is the folder where I have saved the book report worksheets.

The "General" book report seems to work best for us at the moment, but there are other formats. As I find need for the other formats I will create them and add them to this folder.

Book Report Worksheets

Here I am!

Summer is here, and the school year is nearly over. And, if you're a hyper-over-achieving Mommio like me then you're probably on the hunt for activities for the kiddos! Maybe, perhaps, some of those activities are summer bridge related activities? I know that's definitely one of the items on my summer bucket list.

I've already picked up a couple awesome workbooks (mostly subject-specific), but to save me some money (and because I love creating things) I have been making some of my own worksheets. And, so, with all these worksheets only being used once, why not share!

The worksheet topics will be all over the place and influenced mostly by what I'm interested in teaching at the moment, but hopefully the tags I add to the posts will help you find a worksheet worth using.

These worksheets are geared towards my 6 year old boy who is entering 1st grade next year, but he has been identified as a TAG student so the level of the subjects will range from kindergarten level to fourth grade level. So hopefully you can find something useful if you have a kid in that age group!!