Reading Jars (a way to re-use all the little toys cluttering your house and motivate reading!)

Here comes summer! I needed a way to motivate my 7 year old girls in their reading. They just were not all that willing to sit and read very often, and needed to practice. I got an idea when looking at all the little random things shoved in the corners of the schoolroom. 

Quickly I grabbed two mason jars from the cupboard, one wide mouth for little hands to reach in and the other regular mouth. Next I took a sharpie and wrote on the regular mouth jar, "Reading Jar!" with stars and happy faces, covering it with random stickers from the sticker drawer. Next, I scoured my house for little bits. You know the bits: games pieces without the game, pretty buttons, little shells, broken hair clips, a domino or two, beads,dice and more. I found enough to almost fill the wide mouth jar by looking in our junk drawer, schoolroom and corners of my kids bedrooms. Next I told them the rules. "Whenever you read a book to someone (even the dog!) or when someone reads to you (Mom, Dad, Grandma, brother etc. . .) you get to reach into the jar and pick out whatever you want to go into the reading jar. When the reading jar is all filled up there is going to be a big surprise!" 

I'm saving the Groupons I got for a local kiddie amusement park for that special day! To my surprise and delight they already filled up half their jar! We have been doing a lot of reading! They have fun reaching in and searching for their little choice for the jar. 

Turn STEM into STEAMM- ART and MUSIC is important to Education

Whenever I see the tag word STEM I have always thought something was missing. Doesn't science, technology, engineering and mathematics walk hand in hand with the creativity and brain development art and music training provides? There is a strong connection between music instruction and math ability that is well known. (google it- there are too many references to post here!) I have seen with my own eyes, as an art teacher, children light up when they are doing art. Often, their confidence and creative skills greatly improve. Also many children find healing from trauma and decrease in stress as a result of doing art.  Isn't that what we need in our society? I hope this generation of children find love in art and music and use these God given gifts to worship Him and serve others. Whether they use it in a traditional sense, or in science and technology, it will be a benefit to many and enhance their lives.
#turnSTEMintoSTEAMM #creativitymatters #bringbackartandmusic

My son writing his own music
#turnSTEMintoSTEAMM

Learning Styles

God made us all SO different didn't He? When my son was younger I started to notice things about him that were a little different then other children his age. Not bad things- just different. He was so compassionate. He cried when he saw a child crying in a baby board book picture. He was sensitive, very competitive, spiritual, adventurous. A quick learner, he hated wasting his time with review. Lets get on to the next thing! I checked out The Way They Learn by Cynthia Tobias from the library and it was such a godsend! That book helped me so much to understand my son. Is there a better gift then that? From reading the book I understood that he was about 50/50 the two learning style that have the hardest time in the traditional classroom environment. Many learning styles do great in the classroom. But for the way my son was created this was one more step in the many that led me to homeschooling (when I would have not considered it before!) Now in my 3rd year homeschooling I am so thankful for this book (even though it is not a book on homeschooling at all) and all the other books and friends and most of all Jesus, that have helped me on the journey. Thank you!!!!