Category: ideas-for-moms

Kid’s Sight Words Games – Go Fish

For Sight Word Go Fish, you will need two copies of each sight word flash card that you want to work on.
I like to use a minimum of 17 pairs (34 cards total) for this one. You can use more.

To play, you deal 5 cards to each player. The rest of the cards go in the middle of the table. On your turn, you ask another player if they have a particular card. (“Mom, do you have to “and” card?”) If the other player has the card, he gives it to the player who asked. If not, then the other player says “Go Fish” The asking player draws a cards from the deck. If the player gets the card he asked for, from the other player or from the deck, he gets another turn.
When you get a match, you lay them down in front of yourself. The player with the most matches wins.
This game can also be used to work on counting and greater than and less than. “Good counting, if you have 9 pair and I have 8 pair, which is greater?”

Smart and Trendy Moms finds products, ideas, projects, recipies, and other information that we have personally found helpful or interesting.  As always, it is up to you to determine what is appropriate for you, your children, and your situation.  See our Disclaimer

7 Keys to Comprehension: How to Help Your Kids Read It and Get It!

Authors: Susan Zimmermann and Chryse Hutchins

Since I’ve been doing some posts on sight word games, I thought it seemed like a good time to do a book review on a book that deals with kids learning to read.

If you have kids or are a teacher, 7 Keys to Comprehension is a great book to help with understanding the reading process. Reading is a very important skill for children to develop because reading skills are used in learning all of their other subjects. My daughter’s teacher recommended this book to all of the parents.

I’ve always loved to read, so to me many of these tips seemed like they were something you would just automatically do, but even if you do them you don’t necessarily understand what you are doing well enough to teach it. And many kids, often the ones who don’t enjoy reading, don’t naturally do these things.

This is a great book that helps you understand what happens when a child is learning to read, and it gives tips and advice on what you can do to help your child understand what they are reading and develop a love of reading. They have looked at what good readers do when they read and found that they are skills that all children can learn.
Being able to “sound it out” is only one part of what goes on to be able to read effectively. Even kids who can read aloud flawlessly sometimes don’t understand what they are reading. And if kids aren’t understanding or aren’t able to picture what they are reading, they aren’t going to enjoy it.

This book has tips for different ages in each chapter for teachers, parents, and working together. I found many of the teacher tips also applied at home so be sure not to skip those sections even if you aren’t a teacher.  From what I can see this book is most helpful for kids from preschool through elementary school, but there does seem to be tips and ideas that apply to all ages.

It also has some tips that you can teach your kids to help them know when they aren’t fully understanding what they are reading. And then some “fix up” tips to help them get back on track.

I try to read with my kids every night, and I’ve been using many of the tips in this book as we read. For example, many kids don’t make predictions about what is going to happen. If you don’t make predictions you aren’t as involved in the story. So as we read, the book suggests that you stop and ask “what do you think is going to happen next?” and then you read to find out.  It seems to be getting my son much more involved in the stories.

This book has been great in helping me understand what is going on as my kids are learning and improving their reading abilities.

Smart and Trendy Moms finds products, ideas, projects, recipies, and other information that we have personally found helpful or interesting.  As always, it is up to you to determine what is appropriate for you, your children, and your situation.  See our Disclaimer

Sight Word Path – Game for Kids to Study Sight Words

This is a twist on the standard flashcard method and worked well for my son to get those first 100 words.  (What are Sight Words?)

Instead of just flipping through the flashcards over and over, he takes the words that he knows and lays them out to make a path down the hall. We go through the couple of new words that we are adding a few times (the regular flashcard way) until he starts to “get” them. Then, we mix them in with the others in the path.

He chooses his favorite toy (usually a car or a little plastic animal) and the toy drives/walks/hops down the path and reads each word as it lands on the card.

We make a big deal over how long the path is getting and, wow, if he keeps practicing it will go all the way down the hall. He loves this. He practices so much longer and with a much better attitude than if it were just flipping through the flashcards the normal way.

The toy also “reads” the words as it picks up the cards when we are finished. (Extra practice and clean up all in one!)

Smart and Trendy Moms finds products, ideas, projects, recipies, and other information that we have personally found helpful or interesting.  As always, it is up to you to determine what is appropriate for you, your children, and your situation.  See our Disclaimer

Pig Pancakes

I’m always looking for ways to make food fun for the kids.  I saw this idea on the Betty Crocker website and had to try it.

You make one large pancake and two smaller pancakes.  The large pancake is the head.  One of the smaller pancakes becomes the nose. You cut the other small one in
  half and tuck the halves under the large one to make the ears.

I used the top of a wooden spoon to poke holes for the nostrils.  The Betty Crocker site suggests blueberries, chocolate chips or raisins for the eyes.  We didn’t have any of those (It was the day before shopping day, what can I say.) So the kids decided to use a few Smarties candies for the eyes.