I was just wandering around reading a couple of blogs and saw a post on one (Confessions of a Homeschooler) about mini-books for pre-schoolers. I left info in the comments section and thought I would share today, since I haven't posted in weeks, the site that helped us when we suddenly became homeschoolers.
Before our son started kindergarten I had found online DLTK, a wonderful resource site for all things that I needed before he started school and then big time when we pulled him out of kindergarten. I used just about everything on the site and the sister sites, Kidzone ws , Coloring ws and the other sites related to DLTK (all of the links are on their site).
The Red Ranger(TRR) practiced writing his letters, numbers, shapes, etc. Once you expore the sites you'll see why I can't name everything but if you have preschoolers and/or kindergarten children you'll see lots to use.
Since the other blog (one of my go-to blogs by the way!) posted about the mini-books I thought I would share what we did when we used the mini-books off of DLTK'S site.
We started off with the AlphaBuddies books for each letter of the alphabet and The Red Ranger(TRR) loved them.
When you print the books you can either print in color or b&w, we always choose b&w so TRR could also practice his coloring skills. At first he cut the pages and we stapled them together, but we didn't like the unfinished look they had so TRR folded the pages in half, once they were printed out, put all the pages in order, stapled them down the middle and then we made the last page a pocket to hold another mini-mini-book (we'll get to that in a bit). We used each book every month as we did a letter a day with our other resources, each time doing something different and adding other activities as we progressed through phonics. Once he had mastered the reading portion and had finished the coloring we started doing sounds with the books. When we did the letter "A" one time he cut out pictures, used stamps or drew pictures of the beginning sound, which we then pasted (another skill!) into the inside front cover of his "A" book. Next time around it was ending sounds again pasting the pictures or stamping on the inside back cover. For middle sounds we used a separate piece of paper which then fit inside that back pocket we had made.
The back pocket also stored our brainstorming lists of other words around the house that began with the same letter, we would just walk around and he had to find other items to add to his list, many a day he had a list ready in head anyway even though he never knew which letter we would be working on ahead of time. Part of what we did first thing was pick out of a pile a letter and number for each day and then we built the day's learning around each one.
We also included in the pocket the mini-mini-book for all of the consonants which were called Itsy Bitsy Books , these I printed on blue paper (The Alphabuddies books were all on white paper for coloring) just to identify them in a pile of schoolwork to be done.
As for the other mini-books we used just about all of them - holidays and seasons came in very handy. Bible stories and riddles were popular as were the general ones. There is also a very cool option to make your own custom books with your child's name and other information printed out. This way they can have their very own book about themselves. You can even use some of the books for 1st and 2nd graders.
Every now and then when TRR gets a chance he pulls out some of the books just to read through again, he must have enjoyed them because he always tells me about the work 'we' put into them!!
I guess working on the books with mommy was a cherished time......one of the perks of homeschooling!
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