AnchorEDU.org

Baby Shark Wash your hands…kids will love it!

Hope and Home Schooling:

Home schooling Is what I hear many parents calling this time in our lives. I would say that homeschooling does not even begin to describe what we are doing. We are balancing the safety, physical, emotional, educational, financial and recreational aspect of our entire family while feeling alone, uncertain and scared. We are social creatures that seek the love and attention of those around us and hope for a better tomorrow. When the ways in which we get our needs met suddenly changes it is like a huge explosion and we try to find new ways to get the things we want and need. As a special education educator we always know that when we try to change someones behavior, that behavior increases before it changes. To me this is what this quarantine is like a behavioral change, and a life changing event. It is not an easy road to travel and the one thing that makes it all bearable is when we have a team of individuals listening to us, supporting us, giving us a shoulder to cry on and a friend to celebrate with. We are in the process of changing all of our behaviors at once in order to meet our communities needs which is scary! Please know that at this time I am here to brainstorm with you, cry with you and celebrate with you if you need help with your child. You are not alone give us a call if you just need someone to talk to. I know we will come out better and stronger for this journey we are on.

Check out my online Storytime in honor of past students❤️

Scanner:

If you are in need of a scanner you have one right in front of you ❤️Check this out!

Hand Writing:

I understand your frustrations: writing is one of the toughest skills you will ever work on with your child. You cannot expect a child to ride a bike when they have not learned to walk, well writing is the same way! Writing skills are based on fine motor muscle strength, hand dominance, pencil grip, motor memory, letter recognition and then onto creative writing to make your thoughts known.A program that I often used to teach letter formation was called “Handwriting without Tears”. This program was a beginning and a frame work for me but not the end all be all. Hope you enjoy looking over the order letters are taught, free printable paper, and free resources.

Handwriting Without Tears

Math:

Skip counting is a key foundation for math fluency, addition, subtraction and multiplication. As an educator I began to teach skip counting as early as Kindergarten if not preschool by playing games and giving a visual cue for each pattern. Some great videos for Skip counting that really worked for my students were by Jack Hartman and Scratch Garden. Have fun let you child verbally count out loud by 2,5, 10, 3’s etc. Have the child get up and move with the videos! I strongly encourage parents to use “YouTubeKids” App with parental controls in the App Store it is free. I searched Skip counting and many great videos appeared to help teach skip counting. Also remember to help transfer the skill by counting money, or utilizing it in a variety of real life opportunities. I posted a few I used.

Sight Word Resources: if you are looking for a reliable list of sight words based on your child’s grade level with activities then this website is for you! Your child is never to young or to old for sight word recognition! Fluency and comprehension is built on sight word recognition in my opinon. I recommend you ask the child a familiar phrase like “ what word” and if they do not know tell them and come back to it later. Sight words cannot be sounded out just learned by repetition. Have fun play games with words…make reading a fun adventure.

Fry Word List - 1,000 High Frequency Words

As we start off our second week of this adventure I wanted to share a great Science website that has free resources right now. Hope you enjoy them and let us know if you need help! I love all the visuals the program uses!

Open-and-go lessons that inspire kids to love science.

Are we really still home schooling? How much longer until our children get back to school? Those are the questions that worry us as parents. I have heard from many of you that your students just don’t understand why the bus does not come and why they are not at school with their teachers and friends. Many of the teachers are using Google Meet to have class face to face video time which is awesome! I have had computer issues preventing me from doing some things I wanted to but we are back up and working today!!! I wanted to share an idea to keep your kids busy: 1. Arts and crafts are a great way get those hands busy using simple household stuff (Noodles, boxes, tape, glue, markers, salt, chalk…anything you can spare)! Sand art is amazing for students..start with writing child’s name on paper, pouring glue on the name then sprinkle sand over the glue. I color my sand by sprinkled it in a cardboard box and taking a piece of chalk and rubbing back and forth until you get the desired color usually pastels, or you can use good coloring but will need to let the sand dry. Have fun and look for more projects coming your way!

I was at home today helping my son with his itslearning activities during this K-12 quarantine anx saw his frustration. My mind began to race at how hard it must be for our Special Needs Children to understand what is going on. I discovered a free social story available for download to help explain to your child what is going on. I would reccomend reading it to them several times a day. Please let me know if it helps your child. http://ow.ly/rPVb50yLbzH