NUMBERS: Finally Getting There!

I think today it's clicked with Oliver, that 70-1 or 30-1, would be 69 and 29, respectively, not 9 or 79 or 'nothing'.  For some reason he was struggling to get this concept.  We tried few things which didn't seem to work , and then, today, he just 'got it', no apparent reason for such 'Aha! moment!

Very pleased, and so was O, as once he did get it, the whole of his number work was done in no time at all

READING: New Cards!

Now we started on Phonics Stage 4, I'd put away all the old cards and made some new ones,  with few words overlapping from the old bunch.

I can't say enough how helpful the cards are with reading.  O finds them boring , so we don't spend too much time on them, but little every week day or so, and  they really do make a difference to his reading, which he loves to get right and do quickly ( and , of course , he knows when he'd read really well).  Yes.  The old fashioned cards, are priceless.  We really get on with them.

WRITING: Following on What we are Reading

When we start new book on Monday, I generally ask O to write key words form there for his writing excercise, unless they are too tricky for his level of writing.

I'm hoping that this would give him continuity and allow him to remember some reading rules better as in 'like' 'make'.

WRITING: More fun writing-spelling tricks.

Now he'd revised his alphabet, O has been practicing to write words down, as he hears them.  It's not easy for him, as he struggles with very first sound , generally, though after the first sound in the word it gets easier for him and the last one he almost always gets right the first time. 

Anyway, last time we did a bit of this 'Lego words' activity ( in on of the recent posts) he really enjoyed it, and has been asking about 'fun writing'. So I'd looked up on Pinterest and made some ' Spinning Plate' words.  

Although O is not as taken by this particular activity as I was hoping he would, he does like it, as it's much easier for him than writing by hearing and he likes how quickly he can 'tick the words off' and finish. 

Curiously, he's not been very keen on writing the words that 'are not real' even though I said that it was perfectly fine to write them too, as they count as one of his words on the list.  Perhaps it does make  perfect sense that  he places greater value on 'real' words, whatever I tell him, then again.  

Another benefit of this activity for O, is that he has to figure out,  that though the words like 'Pat' are real, he needs to  remember to use a capital letter, and then remember NOT to use it with the rest of the words! 

He also learned real words like 'VAT' ( boring grown up words) and , importantly, that KAT is not a real word, never mind how it sounds, while CAT is!  

It's easy to change the plates around , and I think this is a great little learning tool! 

READING: starting Stage 4, and adding new cards

Oliver loves starting new books and though I'd expected him to really struggle with this new Stage as he did with couple of new Stages before, he's getting on with his first chosen book in Stage 4 really well.

I think  sound and word CARDS are incredibly important when learning how to read, or it's proven to be so for us.  I found that even if Oliver comes across a word he'd learned from cards, which he then torn up as 'finished with', and can't remember it anymore, it only takes one or two glances at a new card of it and he totally remembers it again.

I'm trying to do cards for all unusual words he encounters while reading that tend to crop up often!

NUMBERS: Figuring out new ways to explain.

We run into a bit of a problem counting down form 60 or 80 etc.  O knows everything that comes before 20 and counting to and from 100 in 10s but the in-between bothers him.

For example, as soon as he reaches 91, he goes back to 99 so with things like '82 - 4' just forget it!  Since we started learning 'add' 'take away' concepts by saying 'going up' ( one , two, three etc steps) or 'going down', now we are going to try some kind of a visual 'up and down steps' ladder from 10 to 100 all inclusive.  Wish us luck! Today's second day doing it!

READING: End of Level Revision.

Oliver doesn't like the end of level revision much, for some reasons, he keep saying he wants to read a new book instead. To be perfectly honest, so do I, there's always this novelty value.

However reading revision, much as any other,  I suppose, is incredibly useful. I reminds O of all kinds of letter combos, word turns and common yet strange words he will see in all general kids books when he gets there.

Also, it's nice to see him still reading all of these books with quite a fluency compared to brand new books, so some things definitely gone in, got learned. Never mind Oliver, it's nice for me to know!

WRITING and READING : Excellent Little Hack!

Excellent little hack to practice both reading and writing in a very FUN way, esp. children who are obsessed with lego, like O and Jo here,  and it gets children to discover new words, too! ( My collage app refused to work properly for some reason, but the words are still there!)

And this is great, too.  Gifted Oliver had no problem laying out his racing car track while we are taking stock what letter of the alphabet he remembers well, and which of them we need to work on some more.  I think doodling actually improves his concentration, something I can definitely relate to! 

ALMOST SCIENCE: First Video

Boys now have their own Youtube Channel Called 'ALMOST SCIENCE

'Almost Science' on YOUTUBE!

Now.  The new thing we have going is activities where we have own take on excellent kids'  experiments run by DadLab and similar or just do something educational that is not core subjects and HAS to be 100% fun.  This element of our HE is boys'  favourite, always involves both of them and they are sure to ask me 'Are we going to do SCIENCE today?' as soon as they wake up which is a fantastic thing.

NUMBERS: Using 'Counting Sticks' Again!

We are working on 22-2 , 26-6, 78-8, 67-7 and so on.

 The easiest way to explain this concept was to stuck up the sticks in 10s and singles, so it's clear that when the singles are subtracted, all that are the extras to the 10s, only 10s are left.  

It seems really confusing to describe in writing, as it was to explain in words, so perhaps the pic will make more sense.  I practice it worked really well.  

Now we just need to go over it here and there, so it settles in O's mind! 

Home - Schooling, Early Years: Russian Lessons

Oliver dear started weekly Russian Lessons in a. nice group of about 7 or 8 children.  I thought he was going to hate it, because unlike all other kids he understands it but can't speak, but he seemed to haver really enjoyed it! Very pleased, as it's to be his weekly thing, not optional.

Home Schooling: Bilingual Russian-British Kids' Seasonal Party

O and Joey  had a fantastic time during this 3 hour indoor party with games, fancy dress, pancakes etc as well as an inflatable castle. Definitely coming to the next one.  Group Russian Language lessons are in pipeline. The same with Chess , except for this one, we'll need for Jo-Jo to get a bit older!

Home Schooling, Early Years: Numbers

Over the last couple of weeks, we started writing down the numbers we were doing in cards.

O deducts and adds up to 5, reasonably easy. Sometimes he agrees to use his fingers but prefers not to.  He loves ticking off his correct answers and bargains for being correct 'on the whole'.  I think he finds the whole thing quite easy , esp if he's in a 'mathy' mood.

The next steps are to explore swapping number around in case of '2+9' and things like 18-8, 30+7, 50+6, 90+7;

Writing: Individual letters & Writing as Hear

We are continuing with our revision of the individual letters.  Oliver mostly relates to sounds so it's easier for him to recognise them, but he gets about 60% of those he gets right by the names of letters, too.

This week we were going over the letters up to 'I' not inclusive, but also including random letters like 'n' and 'm', which he knows very well. He gets confused with 'P' and the difference between 'd' and 'b' still, but seems to be getting his 'inventory' together bit by bit.

His capitals are in a bit of a disarray.  He's not too sure about most of them, but never gets wrong 'X' or 'W', so go figure.

His writing is really smooth and effortless for his age, I find.

On the other hand O really struggles with writing words by sounds.  The first sound is really challenging for him, as is the next , esp. consonant sound.  The vovel that follows is slightly easier and the last consonant is normally quite easy for him to name currently and write down in a straightforward phonetic word.  I'm not entirely sure why it's working out for him this way.  I think he's a bit too young for writing from hearing. So we just gently touching on it, really.

The final thing we started to work on is to persuade O to write with correct line spacing , start at the beginning of the line and have the capitals take the right place within the line space. He's not convinced it's worth the effort, but I keep nagging him about it.

Below is the first effort at this new writing assignment we are exploring