There is so much inspiration to be found in the blogosphere when it comes to kids literacy and play. My round up post this month focuses on creative ways bloggers are sharing on how to help your kids with literacy and make play an easy part of daily life.
1. Writing practice with Masterchef
The gorgeous Shae from Yay For Home shares a simple idea she set up for her daughter following her love of list writing.
2. Fostering Student Creativity and Responsibility With Blogging
This post on Edutopia caught my eye as it was about blogging and kids (6th graders to be exact). At the authror’s school each student is given his or her own tablet PC and blog. The aim is that they learn to become digitally resilient — able to find solutions to their technology problems and questions without immediately running to a teacher. Love the term digitally resilient!
3. Dirt Kitchen: Then and Now
In this post Squigglemum takes us through the construction of the outside dirt kitchen for her kids. Having spent many hours outside as a kid baking mud pies I would love to build something like that in our backyard too.
4. Top 10 Resources on Early Literacy Development
Linking to another list post, but this one at Reading Rockets is an amazing source of information:
Learn more about how very young children acquire the language and phonemic awareness skills that will help them become strong readers, warning signs of delayed development, and how parents can support their child’s literacy skills through meaningful conversation and read alouds.
5. Activities for Kids – 30 Minute Challenge
This is such a clever idea from Kate at Picklebums. It’s a new game Kate’s invented and it works a treat to break the crazy cycle, at least for 30 minutes!
6.Aussie Book Reviews (Older Readers)
From one of the best children’s literacy blogs you will find, Trevor Cairney has curated an excellent list of books for 10-16 year-olds, broken into two categories Graphic Novels/Picture Books and Novels. It is hard to find lists of quality books for this age group.
7. Graphic Outlines
From a new blog Educating Deborah, Deb shares a tool that will be helpful across many subjects for kids:
Each subject area has its own way of presenting information – reading a science textbook is completely different to reading a novel. Reading in different areas is something that needs to be taught in those areas, not yet another thing the poor English teacher should be picking up. A graphic summary is a great way of introducing a lot of information and showing kids how to pick out the important bits.
8. Getting to Grips with Handwriting
One of the most common problems occupational therapists in the school are consulted about is improper pencil grasp.
Nadene from Practical Pages shares suggestions about handwriting tools and fun ideas for writing practice.
9. Literacy Spot #26: Brainstorming
Christie has a regular literacy spot over at Childhood101. In this post Christie shares a brain storming technique she uses with her young daughter Immy, to determine and explore her knowledge of a particular topic.
10. Book Chook Favourites – Making Posters
The Book Chook is another fantastic kids literacy focused blog. In this post Susan shows some online tools that kids can use to create posters. There are also links to other online tools to encourage kids to get writing.
So much inspiration! Have you seen a good post on literacy or play recently?