Foreign Language for the littles

I've been wanting to do a foreign language with my K, 2nd and 3rd graders, but when they don't really "get" their own language yet (grammar, etc), what's the point? Also, since my little ones are really kinesthetic, teaching them vocabulary just didn't seem to work.

Enter -- Signing Time. These dvds are fabulous! They're a bit expensive, but our library seems to have all the volumes, so we'll just keep checking them out. We watch one or two each day (they're 30 minutes each) and then at the end of the week, we return them and get a new "batch" out (that I've pre-requested). It's amazing how many signs the kiddoes have learned and remember!

We've already gone through:

• Vol. 1 - My First Signs
• Vol. 2 - Playtime Signs
• Vol. 3 - Everyday Signs
• Vol. 4 - Family, Feelings and Fun Signs
• Vol. 5 - ABC Signs
• Vol. 6 - My Favorite Things
• Vol. 7 - Leah's Farm
• Vol. 8 - The Great Outdoors
• Vol. 9 - The Zoo Train
• Vol. 10 - My Day Signs
• Vol. 11 - My Neighborhood
• Vol. 12 - Time to Eat Signs
• Vol. 13 - Welcome to School

There are a total of 13 volumes, with a Series two coming soon.

ETA (10/3): today we finished the last couple and will start back through the series. We'll just keep rotating the DVDs until the kids know all the signs.

These dvds are wonderful because there is lots of action -- with original songs, playing and lots of kids -- and Rachel (the mom) helps make the signs easy to remember by describing what the sign is. For instance, the sign for slide is two fingers sliding down the other hand's two fingers. Easy, huh?

The whole Signing Time thing is a family affair -- seems when Rachel's daughter was 2 they realized she was deaf. At the same time, her cousin Alex was born. The whole extended family decided to learn ASL and the rest, as they say is history. Rachel and her husband were professional musicians and Alex's mom is a songwriter. If you check out the Signing Time site, there are flashcards, song CD's and other helps for learning ASL. I'm sure we'll eventually get the set of DVDs -- but for now, we can rotate them from our library.

So, come join us for "signing time with Alex and Leah". It's a wonderful language to learn and fairly easy to teach little ones!

Modesty: easy solution

So, what do you do when your 16yod wants to wear a strappy dress to her homecoming dance?

Whip up a knitted shrug in less than 2 days, of course! Not only did I finish it on time, it was judged "cool"!

Ancient Egypt Meets Modern Math Manipulative!

The Sun God, Ra, using Cuisenaire Rods (just after a math lesson using the same rods to understand a concept!) Now that's real learning!

Math: Fun and Games and No Workbooks!

I tried something new this year -- I got Singapore Math for my 2nd and 3rd grade children. Lego Maniac (3rd grader) doesn't mind doing the workbook as I keep the lessons short. String Bean can also handle it for a short-time, but she'll balk at having to do too long a lesson! And then there's Bam-Bam, my almost-5yo kindergartener who just wants to play math.

Yes, the kids need to learn math facts and math concepts. A workbook helps ensure that they are steadily learning. But, I think I made a BIG mistake by ONLY using workbooks (and a mark-n-wipe board for Bam-Bam). I need to bring the FUN back into the fundamentals!

So, enter my September email from a very cool, very free, math site called Mathwire.com. In the September email, dated the 16th, Terry (the math consultant), has ALL KINDS of really cool Fall math games and activities to teach the concepts necessary for K-3 or 4th grades (exactly what my kids are!). These games include bat math, spiders/web math, and many more ideas for "doing math" during Fall. She also has links to picture books! What more could I ask for? Well, she also links to her seasonal math ideas from Fall 2006 and Fall 2005!

Well, just in case I'm really craving more workbook-style math pages, someone posted on 4real about this site from the UK which has free workbook pages for all grade (years) 1-6! Another freebie.

Now, tell me again why I paid for Singapore?????

It's 4real -- A Loving Online Community

About two years ago, I wrote a blog post about the wonderful community I stumbled into when I joined 4real forum back in 2005. My sister had just been in a horrible accident and I went online to ask for prayers -- and, in addition to prayers, I got an outpouring of love, concern and offers of help from folks across the country and across the world. People whom I'd never met in real life ("IRL" as the techies say) were offering to help my mom get down to my sister's hospital bedside, were re-arranging their lives to accommodate mine, and just generally being there for me. It was amazing.

The reason for this post today is that one of the 4realers just posted a thank you to all of us 4realers for our generosity, comraderie, advice and sharing. In other words -- two years later, with phenomenal growth in our ranks, 4real is still FOR REAL -- it's still a wonderful community of like-minded folk who may fuss at each other but who would give each other the shirt off their back.

So, altho I get a bit of a hard time from some of my family members -- I LOVE 4real and the community of which I'm part! And THANK YOU to all my 4real friends .... you really have made me a better person.

Nature Study: Jewells Wetlands & Fairy Houses

Well, yesterday may not have been the nicest day for a nature study field trip ...... but the kids, moms and crawdads didn't seem to mind too awfully much!

And once the rain ceased for a bit in the afternoon, we were able to take a few of the kids over to finish fairy houses. These are fairy houses similar to the ones shown in the book, Fairy Houses ... Everywhere by Barry and Tracey Kane. Another book, Fairy Houses, shows a little girl learning about these houses (and is really a delight to read to the littles!). These folks have also put out a DVD, Kristen's Fairy House, which is also chock-full of great ideas and really cool houses for the kids to make.

A great add-on to a nature study!

Blatant Advertising for Classical Music

See that little button on the side-bar for ArkivMusic?

This is one of the best classical (and other) music sites I've seen. They have wonderful music and the prices are phenomenal.

Unquestionably, one of my favorite classical labels is BIS from Sweden. This week there are some great featured titles I would like to highlight, including some noteworthy new releases:

• Sibelius Edition Vol 1 - Tone Poems -- A quarter-century in the making, this is the most comprehensive edition of any composer in the history of recorded music. Volumes one and two are now available and very specially priced. - 5 discs $44.98
• Tchaikovsky; Medtner: Piano Concertos / Sudbin, Neschling -- Yevgeny Sudbin's performance here fairly explodes with imagination, feeling and desire... he is on a journey, to a marvelous career. - $13.99
• Glazunov: Symphonies, Orchestral Works / Otaka -- The complete cycle, reissued as a "five-for-two" set. - 5 discs $29.98
• Nielsen; Aho: Clarinet Concertos / Fröst, Vänskä, Lahti Symphony -- There isn't a minute in either work where you will find your attention wandering... this is an excellent release. - $13.99
• Beethoven: Symphony No 9 / Vänskä, Minnesota Orchestra -- It's hard not to mention this spectacular release again from a magnificent ongoing cycle. - $13.99

Don't miss the rest of the featured BIS releases or the great deals on all 1,400 titles in the catalog.

So, go right ahead and click that button on the sidebar and order some of this glorious music to bring culture into your home (they're also GREAT for monthly composer studies!).

I'm an ol' cow hand ....

Do you think, just maybe, we've been out West too long?

When things go wrong ...

... it's nice to know companies will "make good". I recently did a large order to Rainbow Resources, a homeschool supplier that carries EVERYTHING (or darn near, anyway!).

One of the items I bought just didn't work but Rainbow, in particular MaryBeth at Rainbow, is doing everything possible because, in her words, "We like to have everything as right as possible."

I'll definitely be doing lots more business with these folks! I invite you to order from these guys, too!

Picture Books: Math Goes Graphic!

There are a growing number of GREAT math books for kids aged pre-K to about 2nd or 3rd grade. These books gently and beautifully teach hard math concepts to young children. Here are some of the best I've found.

There is a series by Peter Patilla (and illustrated by Kirsty Asher or Brigitte McDonald) that are fabulous -- lots of fun mazes, unique games and wonderful puzzles to teach counting, patterns, shapes and magnitude. These are beautiful books! Think a combination of Mary Englebreit mixed with Anno and you'll know what to expect. These seem to be OOP (pooooooh!) but that means you can get used copies CHEAP! Enjoy!

• Fun with Patterns


• Fun with Sizes

• Fun with Shapes


• Fun with Numbers