Learning to Read Craft ~ Letter a Week Crafts

When the children were young we used to focus on a letter each week, complete with a craft, books, and our LeapPad Phonics tool on the fridge: the children loved it, learnt the shape and sounds of letters; and it made me feel I was achieving something pre-schoolish with my two.

I had a folder filled with options for crafts that Daisy would love, colouring or paint, cutting and glueing  - which a kindergarten teacher purchased off me years later in a box of pre-school 'teaching' tools - I guess I could have saved myself the hours of fun compiling those pages if  All About Learning  to Read's ABC craft pages  had been available back then.

Calendar Pages ~ For Youngers

Betsy from Notebooking Nook has created these really nifty calendar pages for the youngers ... and the bonus is Southern Hemi's can use them too .

A perfect way to customise a different variant to create- a- calendar.

Daisy thinks they look like fun, for little children ☺ ; but wonders where is the space to draw a picture?
(Sigh.  No pleasing some folks ☺ )

Sonlight Pinterest

A Sonlighting mom is building a list of go-along links for Sonlights Cores/book titles .. pop over and have a look at what she's pulled together so far - nice job!

Brenda's Pinterest

Alphabet Bingo - Memory Lane with Sonlight

I'm currently having a rather large homeschooling items purge - ouch, who knew selling memories pinches just a little - and as I was typing the pictured item up for sale tonight .. all the fun times the children and I had playing with those very simple looking Sonlight language arts games just brought back a flood of good 'early' home educating memories .... I haven't checked to see if Sonlight still sells these, if they do snaffle a set for the elementary age learners in your home.
They are really fun!
Here are some of the ways we used these sets, all while playing bingo, mind.

Sometimes the games had to go really slowly and be played with just a few letters/blends/words at a time.
As the confidence and 'reading' ability grew the games became a counter-placing-race:
Use the alphabet bingo set to assist little ones to recognise each letter by it’s name.

Then using the same cards, the students recognise the (short) phonetic sound of each letter. (Add long phonetic, or alternate phonetic sounds at a later stage .. you know these cards go so well with All About Spelling and any reading program.)

The letter blends (groups) cards are perfect to use with an emergent readers or to re-enforce letter blends for spelling.

The word cards are excellent for practising common sight reading words.

Can also be used for spelling - the parent or teacher spells the words and the students are to find them ...

Bingo!

(sorry, ☺ just couldn't resist it )

Dragons Kick Start our Week

Bobbi and Daisy were listening, yet again, to The Hobbit and enjoying the part of Smaug and since I was feeling a little lack lustre about being back-to-learning in the midst of Winter we decided to take a detour and declared it Dragons Week...

Bobbi was given the choice which piece he wanted for 'written work' and, going with his choice, we threw together a copywork page using Startwrite which means we're not able to make that available for others to use.

The Reluctant Dragon got listened to also - Dad and the children are Wind in the Willows fans .... 'nough said :)

Some interesting conversations happened with Bobbi while we listened to Kenneth Grahame's work.

I like this fun how- to- draw page which was a weekly freebie and it seems to be a perfect go along for T.R.D.

Daisy re-hooked back into My Father's Dragon as a reader so we threw some language arts pages together for her, a la WWE style - and yes, it includes some of the necessary colour in pages she likes.

We've included some light grammar and a little spelling work, copywork style, in those LA pages.
** Pop over to HSlaunch if you'd like to see our My Father's Dragon Language Arts pages. (We've now fixed the typo's in the copywork).
Here is a cute free audio book of My Father's Dragon we have this audio version and it's been enjoyed extensively since Sonlight introduced us to Elmer and his Dragon in Core K.
For those that like lapbooks, don't forget Amy's My Fathers Dragon lapbook it looks like a fun activity!

For art we pulled out the clay and crafted some Dragon busts. We all enjoyed that. Pictures now added, and we're just got the painting of them to enjoy.
Math for Daisy, we all played though, was Dino Math. I know it's a stretch - Dinosaurs and Dragons - but it works, and it's one of my favourite math games :-)

Milly-Molly-Mandy Lapbook or Lapnotes, Crafts and Games, and, Language Arts and Notebooking Pages.

We've crafted these pages for Daisy while she enjoys reading some of the chapters out of the Milly-Molly-Mandy series of chapter books. I thought others might like to enjoy these Milly-Molly-Mandy activity pages too.
(We have repaired the broken hslaunch links. The new links go to dropbox.)
Milly- Molly- Mandy by Joyce Brisley

To download from dropbox
Option : Follow the link over to dropbox, once there:

If you don't have a dropbox account just click on the "No thanks" option on the sign in pop up box.
Click the darker blue Download button at the top of the screen.
Select  Save As,  to a designated file on your computer,  before opening.
Milly-Molly Mandy - Set 1 - Lapbook or Lapnotes, Crafts and Games Pages

Milly-Molly Mandy - Set 2 - Language Arts and Notebooking Pages
Much to Daisy's delight, we took extra care to ensure that we included are a good variety of Milly-Molly-Mandy Colouring Pages. That child loves to colour in.
For those looking for a Milly-Molly-Mandy unit study, don't forget the one Ruth in Australia created for her children.

Dr Dolittle Lapnote and Narration PagesDr. Dolittle & Chee-Chee the monkey.

We've pulled two pages out of our files and put them over at HS launch so others that don't frequent SL Forums can use them if the wish.

Dr. Dolittle ( Lions -science ) Lapnote Page here

Print out the lapnote page on cardstock, hole punch and then use both sides to complete a single sheet of lapbooking using lapfolds from homeschoolshare or anything else you feel like..... the lions page could be used with the Narnia Study :-)

Dr. Dolittle Narration Page here

Geography ~ Needing some pages for Younger Ones?

These look like fun :-)
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4

Little Bear

by Else Holmelund Minarik.

The Little Bear series of books are favourites in our home, originally as readers for Bobbie & Daisy with Sonlights 'Reader' schedule , and so when we found some pages tucked away in the files I thought we'd share them again.

About the author & 'these' books

Now a few extras we've enjoyed using with the series of Little Bear stories.

Little Bear Copywork or Notebooking Pages even Bobbi asked to do some of these

Little Bear Colour in Sheets

More Colour in Sheets

Mostly Free Homeschooling Extras

Our Current List of Web Links to Go with Sonlight
Be warned it's a little long :-)
Starts with Sonlight Core C (K) links first.. now plus
100 Top Links
dot to dot
Kids Crafty TypeDot to Dot in Search Engine ABC Teach
My Free Colouring Pages
Print Activities scroll down
Connect Dots FunBrain Connect Difficulty
Lizard Point

McGuffey Readers free
Baldwin Project free online books
More Books
Childrens Books on Line Readers mid1800’s US Core 3-4


With Sonlight Core C L/A’s & Reading
Interactive Literacy Alphabet pages scroll down. Use pictures for dictionary pages
Notebooking Dictionary
Lots of classifications here to make finding something easy
Rimes and Rhymes Copywork Mother Goose
Rhymes All The Real Mother Goose rhymes
Phonics Game
PhonicSounds
Starfall free reading site
Headsprout Learning to Read Paid site
Haven’t used this ~ Assess your dc’s reading level.
Alphabet Lotto
UK Cat Phonics
Downunder lit NZ Aust link, some free downloads
Make You Own Word searches/cross word puzzles
Games and Handwriting Sheets make our own
Start of the Year

Free Phonics Plus ‘work’ Books
Book A GradeK-1
Book B Short Vowel Patterns, LongVowelPatterns Book C Grade 2-3

Learning to Read pre- school
Poisson Rouge pre - school

Aesops Online Book

Core 1 Poetry
Teaching Poetry
Kids Poetry
Poet Class
Poetry Power

Science & Nature Studies starting at Sonlight Core C
Junior Science
Science Experiments some plus fact & a few tricks
Mad Scientist experiments
Astronomy Animations
Elemental Science On-line quizzes & some craft info extras
Plants
Zoology Lesson Plans Christian Animals
Chicks and Eggs study
Animal Forms creatures
"Themed" craft cutouts & murals
Astronomy Crafts
Constellation Craft
New Zealand Astronomy
Weather Activities
Weather Stickers For Chart ‘cute’
Scientists notebook page
Science Templates for active NB pages Nature Journals
Using Anna Comstocks Book Nature Study
For Sonlight Science 1
Montessori Science

Creation Science
Creation scrapbooking/NB pages
PlainNotebookingPage to go with Incredible Creatures DvD
Creation Lesson Dinosaur Lessons
Dinosaurs Video
Dino Flip Book
Din0saurs Unit Study

Jonathan Park tie in with Fibonacci numbers TheDaVinciProject
Jonathan Park Learning Zone

Idea Collecting sites for extras
Virtual Lessons
Teachers First Redshift
Donna Young
Easy Fun School lots of hands on ideas
Education World use search engine
Homeschool Share
abcTeach TeachersGazette many extra pdf for subjects
Kids Crafts search engine or scroll scroll down for listings
Mother Goose for copy work & memorisation (lots of links some may prefer just to go straight here Lots of Sites
oh my, see this list LOL
Dori Oakes
Billy Bear For Kids crafts be sure to scroll right down
Wheel Templates section pie wheel
dltk Kids Braine Games great games we use (paid site)
Jan Brett
Kidz Club
"Ancients" Bits n Pieces
Teach Printable scroll down
Apples For the Teacher lots here
Jimmies Lens huge amounts of info here (ancient china & Lapbooking esp)
Guest hollow Printables quite a few down loadable pages
Paper model crafts & scrapbooking extras
Lots of Links
Spelling Wisdom

For Copy Work
Sing the Word (bible) copy work
Kids Poetry
Alphabet Soup
Song Poems
Down Under Lit
What is Copywork AlbrightNews Copy & paste into StartWrite
Copywork 2

Notebooking Pages paid
Queen Home School paid
Currclick

Quick find for Colour In pages
abc Teach Colourin dltk
Jan Brett
Garden & Hearth Printables KizClub
Apples For The Teachers scroll down
Best Kids Books Class Brain mother goose
Karen Whimsy many colour in pages & images not just china
Edupics many & varied pictures
Tls Books some really nice ones
Crayola history leaders
Egyptian
Kings Crown
Queens Crown


Geography & History Staring with Core C, & Core 1 & Core 2 now plus….
Geog
Printable Maps
Simplified Map of Europe
World Maps
Geo Library
Theodora scroll down
Country Colour Sheets
World Atlas for geog notebooking
Belindas Outline maps
Flags for geog notebooking
Sheppard Software Kids of Courage (Core 2 tie-in)
crw Flags
FlagSpot
FunBrain Resources
Stickers Passports
fiar Circle passports
Homeschool Share Geog Lpnote bits
Lapbook (anywhere in the world LB – Live n Learn)
Paper Dolls around the globe
Colour The Head maps
Montessori outline /other bits, Franch Spain
A Childs Geog ideas list
Hist
Bible Lessons to go with Ancients Ancient History ancient maps coloured
Usborne Quick Links Jimmies
Donna Young History matches CHOW & books
Donna Young old hist maps

Homeschool Journey coloured Ancients maps PAID
Currclick Ancient hist B/Line Maps
History Portfolio Junior Sample
Elemental Science SOTW & SL 1 - Paige 3huds schedule
Montessori SL 1 Hist

History pockets & SL 1 –TeachingMoms schedlue
Continents goes so well with Core 1 & SOTW
History For Kids separate listings for some parts of history
Activity Village Jimmies Lapbooks pdf
Highland fits in well with core 1

Ancients (general)
Ancient Wonders of The World BBC
History World
Learning Through History Bibliography historical fict list
Cuneiform Babylonian script :-)

China
Squidoo Ancient China E Museum
Sassafrass Grove Ancient China units

Egypt
Cleveland Art Egypt
Tour Egypt Egypt
3D Papercraft Egyptian pyramid
Egyptian craft sphynx
Library Think Quest extras to make
Teachers Egypt a few ‘to dos’ here
Guardians (KIDS section)
Upen Museum

Craft Ancient ‘Israel”

Greece
Library Think Quest Ancient Greece
Cleveland Art Medusa mask
Patterns paint a shield

Rome
Paper Toys Ancient Rome (Jesus)
Library Think Quest Ancient Roman crafts
UK Kids Ancient Rome dress the soldier

Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation
Castles Middle Ages
Squidoo Medieval Quest
Web Tech History Freebies Middle Ages
Elizabethan Core 2
Brimwood Press idea source
LearningAdventure idea source
Mosiac free lesson plans (thanks Chaik)

Homeschool Share knights lapbook
Boggles World Knights
abc medieval Homeschool Helper on line notebooking
Knight notebooking
clip art http://karenswhimsy.com/knights-armor.shtm
Think Quest not print outs but pics my ds liked
Castle Diary notebooking
Draw to Learn medieval notebooking

Ideas

NotebookingNook
Innovations on-line history activities some links are ‘stale’
A Book in Time with many free downloads/pages
Food when/who invented certain foods
Junior General paper soldiers/ships to craft for lapbooks etc
A Book in Time List of crafts
Paper Dalis

Bible & Character
memory Christian Answers Kids
Calvary Chapel Teacher Help
Sermons 4 Kids
ebible teacher
thercg booklets (colour pages inside)
akids
Garden of Praise HeartofWisdom worksheets Kids Colouring Pages scroll down for list
Resources most stories- listed in order
Mini Books scroll down
Bible Activities paid site
Danielles Place paid site
Character Journal character studies
Downloads character cards 1
Shifting Blame doorpost sample
Doorposts building relationships
Character Cards Biographical Studies list of traits :-)
Patty's Study to go with Book of Virtues
Character List
Character traits scripture & opposites
West Valley Character CBH Gospel type in ‘character’ in subject line first & listen to stories & songs

Squidoo Bible Notebooking
Character Habit Cards CM Cards to go with laying down the rails


Math
Student Calendar to make calender pages Another Calender or this

Early E Manipulatives
SingMath combining both Singapore Math & Miquon

To go with Singapore math or other
Guest Hallow Math Chips & Place Value Charts
Math Wire teaching money

Walking By the Way River Willow choosing a math curric
Apples 4 Teachers Math Time Lizard Point online

3 2 1 Know Algebra

KhanAcademy online tutoring shared by Pam<>< on SL Forums

mathsheet generators for copywork
Superkids
Flash Card Math HSLaunch Math


Art (History & Artists)
Colour Me online Artist study the art of each artist
Fine Art
Inside Art Harmony Fine Arts study guides
Artists notebooking

Paper Dolls below to go with Artists studies
pd6 Monet
pd6b pd6c

pd2a Renoir
pd3a
pd4a pd4b pd5a
pd5b


Art Techniques & Craft
Kinder Art art history link & art/craft listings
The Art Kids art lesson & ideas
Art Games lessons & activities
Artist Workshop
Art Lessons Maccabe how to draw cartoons


Misc
Site Map clip art huge
DK's clip art
Looky Book to see ‘inside’ a book
Google look inside books - Type in title

e how sticker removal
Songs Index songs that teach (free online)
Garden of Praise free grammar songs

Lessons Engineering


** Dedicated to Sonlight
Hope Is My Anchor redshift
Hands on Activities Pre K Theme
Bow of Bronze
SLBooks Arranged By Well Trained Mind Honeypot Hollow Core K Around World
Homeschool Share Sonlight Match
Homeschool Share Fiar & SL Match
Forums & groups
Sonlight Forums (paid)
Sonlight Lapbookers yahoo
Sonlight Pre-School yahoo
Sonlight Core C K Core K
Sonlight Yahoo Group Beyond PreK
Sonlight Charlotte Mason yahoo
Sonlight Unschoolers yahoo
CM and Friends Living Books CM NZ Aust some SL
Sonlight Homeschool SL-ers of any core
Sonlight in New Zealand yahoo List of Yahoo Groups

3 R Homeschooling living literature curric (incs SL)
Support 4 Homeschool living books (incs SL)

Lapbooking, ‘Active Notebooking’, Scrapbooking
Jimmies great lapbooking lens here
MyPage Jimmies page
Yahoo Group Unit Study Christmas
Scrapbooking To Learn (templates from here see below) 1a **
Scrapbook 1
Sugar Plum many completed LB’s & related links
Student Folder HS onA ShoeString Respected US Women
Lapbooks Jamins LB’s
SugarPlum SOTW & Geog related lapbooks
LAPBOOKINGvNOTEBOOKING My Teacher Pages Albright News
A Journey Through Learning a few free inc. Inventors
Free Lapbook Links list

Templates
Homeschoolshare
Mini Books many links here
Think Quest make a mini book
Book Rags mini books etc
HS Helper online
Templates folds

** 1a Scrapbooking to Learn templates
Teaching heart scroll down for templates
Mini Offices
Themes scrapbooking bits to use
HS Launch more than LB bits here as well
Free Lapbooking Elements
Notebooking Cutouts
Read Write Think RWT Flipbook
RWT Stapleless
Make Simple
Squidoo Templates how to create your own


Notebooking & Copy Work
Homeschool Helper online
Squidoo Notebooking Lens Jimmies NotebookingNook
Freebies Shapebook
Shape Book Patterns
Shirt Book Guest Hallow scroll down
Karen Whimsy images to copy & colour
Main Lesson to extract exerpts from for copy work.
Sitemap clip art for copy work & nb
Discovery Education other clip art
Microsoft scroll down 06/08
Web Clip Art clip art 06/08
DK's clip art
Unpainted paper dolls to colour insert in copywork sheets
Montessori Janette Cassey Australia / New Zealand figures disc (paid)


For All Subjects
Shrewsbury great free online games included in here
Tests tests??! Anyone
Lesson Plans ‘teacher’ type lesson plans
Old Fashioned Education full course
Guest Hallow full course
Ohio Treasure Chest all
Grade Level Help many skills help pages
Dori Oakes Dori’s links
Himeschooling For Free LOTS of links
Homeschooling On A Shoe String methods & curric
Brain Pop Emergency Curric PreK-12

Chels From Well Trained Mind Forums extensive list of free curric!


Classic Books Studies
Little House
Little House Books Laura Ingalls Wilder Home
Macomb Easy Fun School The Little House on The Prairie
Schoolroom Little House list of sites


Holidays
Homeschool Share Holidays yearly list
Christmas
Woodlands Junior advent calender
Devotions treasure hunt
Jamin 12 days LB
Thanksgiving
Squidoo Thanksgiving for LB & NB


CM & Classical links
The Phunny Farm both approachs here
CM High School Science Trivium Academy WellTrainedMindCMEducation

Forms & Sheets
Donna Young
Highland Hitcho lots of forms here :0)
Oklahoma Homeschool lots of things here not just ‘forms’
Planning Forms menu sheets
Planning SOTW & etc
Mediafire Heather/siloams forms & notebooking pages

links from http://homeschoolingforfree.blogspot.com/
Or if link folds try http://tinyurl.com/37o6zb

Our current take on the art of Narration.

Our current take on the art of Narration.

Remember, we're not Charlotte Mason ‘purists’ and certainly not seasoned experts so narrating the way we do will irritate some. Yet it works so well here in our home.

For us narration is the pathway to effective writing, remembering that written narration is a taught skill which is so different from spoken narration, and to that end when we first started narration, it seemed so natural to ask our young listeners to narrate in ways other than just oral narration, since narration in any of these forms really does encourage the mind of our two children into thinking, in those early years the narration is given due to their enthusiasm to retell not by our asking them to.

Once they are around age six we ask for them to narrate, advising before hand that I really want them to listen and retell later as I did with Daisy & her "Gooney Bird Green' narration.

And here are a few of the alternate options we've used to date and still will, with Daisy. Jay has moved on to the next level and I'll get to posting about that later.:-)

-Drawing/painting a picture of a select portion of the story
(Jay & Daisy always wanted to explain what the drawing was about).

-Creating a basic diagram for ‘science’ or nature related topics

-Colouring in a blackline copy of a picture out of the book & selecting the colours mentioned in the story.
(My Father's Dragon springs to mind here – Daisy then 4.5 pleaded for a photocopied pict of her own of the dragon to colour just right).

-Their imagination comes to life & they play out the story.
(we often hear, “That’s not what happened next”, or, “XYZ said ….”).

-Put on puppet shows.

As we are growing into deeper levels of narration the skill & depth just seem to be developing naturally.
And I'm sure the more I read and ponder my understanding of how to use this powerful language arts tool the more effectively the children's usage of it will grow.

Last year, 2007, Jay then 7, gave four narrations that I typed up and his language usage certainly had grown as he pulled forward the language he had just heard in the book peppered through his own retelling of the reading.
The rest of the time we planned one narration every 6-8 weeks and used a few different methods, some of which are listed above. This science narration is from 2008's LA's work.
Whether it is correct or not :-) we don’t require our children to narrate word for word, to me that is memorisation and recitation, and is another facet of "narration" altogether.

What we are aiming for is for them to express in their own words, with their own personality fully engaged in what the narration piece is for them.

(As with The Wizard Of Oz, used in SL’s Core K, the same small piece of narration can be ‘soft & sweet’ from one child and ‘adventure and analyse’ from the other. When they narrate it is also teaching me to hear their thoughts and personality’s coming through – not just listen to garner a ‘correct’ narration).
This picture is Jay's drawn narration, done of his own volition, of Scarecrow's encounter with the Hammerheads.

& if you’d like to read another thought about narration here may interest you.
Or maybe pick up Penny Gardner's excellent book, Charlotte Mason Study Guide if you're not ready to jump into Miss Masons Original Home Schooling Series