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| Math goes cyber!--No excuses! |
Math
Pinellas County Schools adopted a new math curriculum this year. Harcourt Publishers has some exciting resources that accompany the main curriculum. One exciting feature is an intervention skills books that provides alternative strategies to support concepts that are difficult for some students. Another great feature is that everything is on the web. If you have access to a computer and internet, there will be no more excuses of having left the book at school. You can simply set up an account on their website and log in. The entire textbook is available online. What a great idea. In addition, the parent can also see the supporting lesson in case the child has difficulty. Click below to go to Harcourt Math website. |
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| Get them writing! |
Writing
Early writings by young children often looks like squiggles to us, but when you ask your child what it says, they go into great detail. Our job is to keep that enthusiasm for writing. One way that has proven successful at Teachers College is to have the children start the writing process by drawing a picture and labeling the objects in the picture first. Then by having conversation with them about their picture, they can begin to formulate what their story will be about. If the child gives a quick, two or three-line story, you can prompt them by pointing to something in their drawing and ask some probing questions. This can elicit more writing ideas. Children frequently ask how to spell a word. Spelling at this juncture is not essential, but the child should be encouraged to sound out the word and write what they hear. Oftentimes, when they are reading the story back to you, they will realize that they can't read the word and work on sounding it better, often resulting in correct spelling. Encourage free writing, not critizing what they have produced. Writing is a long, slow process--they have years to perfect it. |
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