I found this blog post at Tina Gray {dot} me awhile back and I really loved the idea of a homework box.

My children in the past have tried to put of the inevitable homework with cries of “I can’t find a pencil”, “I cannot find an eraser”, or “there isn’t a ruler anywhere!”

Now there is no more of this as the homework box has it all. We keep ours in a corner of our lounge room, never moving and always full of the necessary items.

I have stocked it full of lead pencils, erasers, rulers, coloured pencils and glue sticks. We even have a dictionary, thesaurus and atlas.

It would also be the perfect place to put any of your Kids Learning is Fun support products.

I have a copy of Spelling Rules, The Grammar Guide, Sight words for my middle child and Times table charts for my eldest.

The great thing about it is that you don’t need to have a table set up or tie up space in your house because the box is portable and can go where homework is completed, everything is then returned and ready for the next time.

 

Tags: Untagged Read More

 

We are excited to bring to you the launch of our new Kids

Learning is Fun Resource Centre.

Join us at our 3 day launch party and win some great

prizes! Follow us on Facebook for all the great party activity.

You may ask – why would I want a membership to Kids

Learning is Fun Resource Centre? Do you sometimes ask

these questions?

Do you feel unprepared, inadequate or unable to support your kid’s learning at home?

Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with your kid’s homework?

Do you struggle to get your kids interested in learning?

Have you forgotten or are unsure of how things are learned at school?

Then the Kids Learning is Fun Resource Centre is

created for YOU!

Have access to 100s of literacy and numeracy activities

Have a variety of learning tools at your fingertips.

Have resources to explain to you how children learn and the way they learn

Give your children fun activities to make learning fun!

Join Now and Get some great Surprises

The first 10 people to members to join during our launch

will receive a sample bag valued over $50 including great

products and discounts from our wonderful sponsors.

· Pack of 3 Weepal Stickers ($12)

· Calendar from Global Kids Oz

· Drawstring Toy Bag from Strawberry Jam Designs ($5.95)

· Toy Bug – 10% off voucher

· One month 'inspire' memberships to 'Born Smart' opening in February from Smart Woman ($9.95)

· Tea Light Candle from Serenity Candles by Nene

· $5.00 voucher from Star Concepts

· Pack of 5 ‘I Lost a Tooth Certificates’ from Kids Learning is Fun ($5.00)

Wait there’s More ….

Over the 3 days there will be 3 Random member draws for

some fantastic prizes:

· Weepal Stickers from Weepals NZ

· 2 Global Kids Oz prize packs - including,  a doll from Ecuador, a bilingual wall frieze and ABC books from Canada

· 2 Moon Charts from Mad About Science

· A Striped Floor Cushion Cover ($64.95) by Strawberry Jam Designs

· A $60 Voucher from The Toy Bug

· 'Amazing Mumpreneurs' Book from Connect 2 Mums

· $50 voucher to go towards a personalised artwork from Star Concepts

But wait there is One more Surprise …

We will be giving away one Learning Plus Membership

($69) to a random Facebook visitor who pops in and writes

on our wall which product is their favourite from the Kids

Learning is Fun range. (The Learning Plus membership will

be drawn on Saturday afternoon at 5pm)

Don’t waste any more time - click on the membership box

on the top left hand side on our website and JOIN NOW –

support your children in their learning and show them that

learning is FUN!!!!!

 

 

 

Tags: Untagged Read More

What is our Kids Learning is Fun Resource Centre? How can you join? Find out here all about the membership levels.

Tags: Untagged Read More

 

Watch this Space!

Kids Learning is Fun Exciting New Product Launch!

 

Tags: Untagged Read More

I need to organise my children this year, giving them more responsibility around the home, making life less stressful. Check out the new charts I have created after a great chat with my aunt.

Tags: Untagged Read More

Spelling doesn't have to be a chore.

Tags: Untagged Read More

For a child telling the time can be a difficult concept to grasp. With young children we often use the terms soon, in 5 mins, tomorrow, or in the afternoon – these terms are abstract and not easily measurable in the eyes of a child. You only have to think about your own child – in a minute, soon, later this morning, after lunch – these answers are difficult to measure and are hard for children to comprehend the period of time you mean.

Tags: Untagged Read More

It is nearly Christmas time again – how quickly did this year go?

Tags: Untagged Read More

Graphic organisers are a great tool to help children understand the information they are reading about a topic. It is a tool that can help the different learning styles – for visual learners it gives a great representation that they may understand; for kinaesthetic learners you could create a large scale graphic organiser on the ground and they need to physically put the information in the right area; and for the auditory learners you could talk it through with them as well as creating the diagram.

Helping our children use and understand these graphic organisers can help with homework issues and are great for projects or assignments.

The most important point about using graphic organisers with projects/assignments is make sure the children read the question and understand what they need to do. Many of the graphic organisers will help with specific types of questions – so they need to know what they are doing to choose the right one.

Today’s graphic organiser is the Venn Diagram. The Venn Diagram helps to answer questions where you are asked to compare or to look at the similarities and differences of 2 or more people, animals, places, characters, books etc.

The Venn Diagram is made up of 2 or 3 overlapping circles – It allows you to write the differences of each item and then the similarities in the overlapping section as with our example of Cats and Dogs.

This is simple enough to use for younger children.

Once they have created the diagram they then have all the information they need to write or produce their project or assignment. Each point can create a sentence or a paragraph depending on the expectations.

Tags: Untagged Read More

 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

The Very Hungry Caterpillar has become a family favourite in our house at the moment.

The boys are happy to read it over and over again.

I want to share with you a delightful You tube version of this story.

We also have a wonderful giveaway today from the beautiful Glitterful Felt Stories, who we stock in our store.

They produce a gorgeous version of 'The Hungry Caterpillar'

We have one copy to give to a reader who tells us what their family favourite story is at the moment. The winner will be notified on Thursday the 26th May.

 

Tags: Untagged Read More

 

Our outdoor play area

My children love playing outside. Over 18 months ago my children never played in the front yard, due to neighbours with teenage boys with cars and their friends with cars. When they moved out and our new neighbours, 3 children of similar ages to my boys, moved in they spend most of their time in the front yard and our cul-de-sac.

With very little time spent in the backyard, I have been trying to work out how to bring the sandpit and other play items into the front yard.

After reading a number of people's blogs over the last few weeks, I decided to create a play area in one of our overgrown front gardens. I should have taken a before shot, but I spent all day yesterday, weeding, pulling out plants, digging out roots and getting this garden ready.

This is the barren space now - there are just a few aloe vera plants to transplant, but the transformation is about to take place.

This in my head will become a great outdoor environment for the kids. I will place the sandpit here, as well as some small hills and gullies for the cars, I will move all of the rocks and create a little rock stream and will place a small water feature (that they can fill when they use it) and probably more when I think of it.

The tree at the moment has become a climbing tree for the kids and yesterday I had 6 monkeys in it so that will feature well for the play area.

This is a work in progress and I will keep you posted on the blog how it is coming along.

Do you have a special place in your garden your children love to play? Tell us about it, or include a photo on our Kids Learning is Fun Facebook page.

 

Tags: Untagged Read More

NAPLAN Testing in Schools this Week

- tips to help prepare your children

This week in all Australian schools, Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 students will be sitting the NAPLAN tests. NAPLAN stands for the National Assessment program in Literacy and Numeracy.

Not all students cope well with tests and I thought it would be good to give you some tips for helping your children cope on Tuesday through to Thursday.

My eldest is in Year 5 this year and after bombing his Year 3 test due to nerves and anxiety I really think as parents we can help our children get prepared.

Make sure they get a great night's sleep. If they tend to be a thinker, possibly make the lead up to bed a happy, enjoyable time.

Make sure you give your children a good breakfast before school.

Reassure your child that all they need to do is their best. Do not put any additional pressure on them.

Remind your children that the best thing to do is read the questions and choose the best answer, if they are not sure choose the answer they think is the best and move on to the next question. Don't get stuck on one question. Even a guess is better than nothing.

Allow your children to share their worries with you and reassure them that it is okay and all they need to do is their best.

Only talk about it if your children bring it up, don't create unnecessary stress.

My son is a stressor and gets very anxious about anything to do with school. He has had learning difficulties from an early age and tests create that highly anxious state. When he was in grade 3, he froze over spelling. He knew the words weren't right when he wrote them and spent the whole time trying to fix them. In doing this he missed the whole grammar section where he could have got some correct answers.

I have spent more time this year preparing him with respect to how he will approach the test, not at all with the content. I am a teacher and a mother and have seen my own child and many others suffer under test anxiety. I am not a fan of NAPLAN or standardised testing and have told my son that it really isn't all that important and he just needs to do his best. Read the question, if you are not sure of an answer just mark the one you think is right and move on.

These tests don't rely on what children know but what they want them to know and often teachers have to change their whole plans just to teach children certain test content. This isn't right and can really affect children's learning development of certain concepts.

So bottom line is don't let your children stress, it isn't the end of the world if they don't get it all right. All that is important is that they have done their best and remained calm.

 

Tags: Untagged Read More

What a crazy week I have had, lots of fun but so busy.

Yesterday was filming day in my household. I was filming short video clips to add to my presentation for the Parent Maths Webinars. My 10 year old was quite excited to help me when I asked him a few weeks ago. He has been talking it up and telling everyone he was going to be a movie star. However when the filming eventuated he quickly made his mind up that it wasn’t for him. The actual having to run through things a couple of times due to camera angles etc had him realizing it wasn’t going to be easy like he thought. Luckily he stuck to it (with a little bribe ;)) and we managed to get through the day.

I am really excited to bring you my Parent Webinars. I loved doing Workshops, getting out their and meeting and talking with parents, however I do understand how hard it is when you are working, or cannot get a babysitter, or have a sport or other commitment on, so I decided I might do webinars online. Often you have a chance to sit down at the computer when the kids have gone to bed or if you cannot make it then the webinar is recorded and those who are registered can get a copy.

My aim for the webinars is to give you the understanding and knowledge of how your children learn number, place value and the 4 operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). I will also give you lots of tips, strategies and games that you can use with your children to help reinforce different concepts.

I know with my eldest son, school has been a struggle and in particular maths. Knowing certain strategies and little games has helped add another dimension to his math learning.

Would you like to win a place in the KidsLearningisfun Parent Math Webinar (valued at $75)?

Tell me in 25 words or less – What is it about homework you struggle with?

Competition will be drawn on Friday the 11th.

Tags: Untagged Read More

I have talked in the past about how important your role as a parent is in your child’s learning however today I would like to touch on the role of siblings in learning.

I have 3 boys – one in year 5, one year 1 and a 3 year old. Ever since my eldest was in school, my 5 year old has been so keen to learn everything his big brother was. Whenever my eldest brought home homework, we would have to create some for Mr 5.

My eldest has had learning difficulties throughout his schooling experience so to have a child so keen to learn and pick up on concepts was great. There is no pushing with Mr 5 as he wants to learn and do as much as he can. He has picked up many of the concepts his elder brother took longer to achieve.

I am now seeing the same thirst for learning in my 3 year old. He loves to be able to do the things his big brothers do. He loves it when either of his brothers read to him - asking them what is this word, or what is this letter and he copies many of the things Mr 5 does, repeating letters, pointing out letters, counting etc.

The most obvious activity he wants to accomplish to be like his brothers is to write his name. He watches Mr 5 often write his name and everyone else’s and really tries hard to write his own. Here is one of his recent attempts at his name – Oliver. He knows it starts with a big O, has an L and a V. We are still working on the other letters.

At the shop the other day, we were sitting having a special morning tea while the boys were at school, and he proceeded to find all the O’s on the signs around us, then the B’s for his big brother and then the N’s for Mr 5.

He watches, listens and follows them very closely – soaking up all their knowledge.

Do you have younger ones who love to learn from their siblings? What do they learn the most?

Tags: Untagged Read More

Well a new school year has begun here in Australia. Today my children started school, one in Year 1 and Year 5. My eldest was anxious (not a great fan of school) but Mr 5 was excited and up early today getting himself ready.

Mr 5 waltzed into his classroom, found a desk, packed his things into his tidy tray and started colouring - oblivious to me. So settled it was easy to leave him. My eldest was a different story - his dad took him to his classroom. He was uneasy and nervous.

We will see how it all went this afternoon, when we pick them up.

 

I found this little poem about the first day at school:

 

Welcome

submitted by Amy Tevelthuis

Welcome children, I'm glad you're here.

We're all going to have a wonderful year!

We'll draw and we'll write,

We'll sing and we'll play,

We'll paint and we'll build,

And learn new things each day!

Hope your children have a wonderful first day back at school.

Tags: Untagged Read More

For children to concentrate well at school it is so important to give them good, healthy food to feed their brains and give them energy.

Children need a really good breakfast before they leave for school – something substantial and filling. It is quite a break from when school starts (include the time they have breakfast and get to school) to their morning tea break – they may go 3 hours without food, for kids that is a long time.

Lunch boxes need to be filled with good, healthy goods which will give long lasting energy. When kids get hungry they start to lose concentration and not focus on their schoolwork, this will often happen before morning tea and especially if they didn’t have breakfast.

When doing my grocery shop recently in Woolworths, I found a number of recipe cards of great lunch box ideas. The recipes can be found on the Fresh Food Kids page.

These are set out in a great format for kids who might be cooking. They also have a great Lunchbox Planner which is interactive and includes recipes for many great foods. You can plan the week and then print it out to put on your fridge – I thought that was great.

My favourite recipe from this site was the Museli Bars in the kids section under snacks. These sounded quick, easy and much better than bought ones.

What are your kids favourite lunch box foods? I would love you to share your favourite lunch box recipes with us. I would love more kid friendly ideas.

Tags: Untagged Read More

I am sorry that this post is out today. I had a virus on my computer and have been offline since Saturday evening – I have been suffering a little online withdrawal. But back again now and keeping the kids away from my laptop.

Today is the countdown, one week before children go back to school – well in Queensland anyway.

I am excited! With so much rainy weather this holiday the kids have been a little like caged animals and I think they are looking forward to getting back to school to mix with their friends again.

How prepared are you in getting your children ready for back to school? Here is a checklist of things for getting ready.

Have you got all their books? – are they covered and labeled?

Have you checked their uniforms? – do they still fit; are they named clearly; do they need any buttons or hems fixed?

Have you checked their shoes, to see if they fit?

Do they have enough socks – they haven’t all disappeared or were taken by the sock monster, who’s been visiting my house?

Do they have a school bag? If new, is it named, or if it is from last year, is it clean?

Are their lunch boxes and drink bottles good to go? I find most insulated bags don’t last too long.

Start to get your child/children back into a school routine:

Getting up around the time you need to during school term

Eating morning tea and lunch around school times

Going to bed at a reasonable hour (my children have tended to stay up a little later during the holidays – so early to bed this week.)

Start planning lunches with your children. Talk about what foods they would like and maybe go shopping or do some baking with them.

I have started to attack this ‘to do list’. I have the books, the shoes, the uniforms (although there are a few hems to fix up), the bags, the lunch boxes, drink bottles and we had haircuts yesterday - so nearly there, just to pack all their things in their bag for Monday.

What do you still have to do?

Tags: Untagged Read More

 

I would like to thank many of you who recently filled in our survey about ‘What you need to support your children’s learning’ (if not you can still do so here). You gave me lots of great feedback which I will now act on.

One area where many wanted more information was in Reading Comprehension – how can we get our children to understand more of what they read?

Comprehension is not only important when it comes to reading lessons but it carries into all areas of schooling and life. Children need to be able to comprehend questions in maths, science, research materials, magazines, internet sites, etc.

Children may have the mechanics of reading but it is the making sense of the text which will help them in life. Being able to comprehend what they read makes purposeful, active readers who can find the meaning they need from the books they read.

As a teacher I often saw children who could basically answer the literal questions (the answers that are found in the book) but when you asked them more in depth questions (the think and search or evaluate) they couldn’t give you an answer and often would have trouble retelling the story. It is often up to us, the parents, and their teachers to help model the process of reading and understanding what we are reading.

The following is a strategy that children can use in all aspects of learning but it also provides a framework that you can use to help your children comprehend more of what they are reading.

The PQ4R strategy is an acronym for Preview, Question, Read, Reflect, Recite and Review. These 6 steps can help children make meaning and remember various details of what they have read.

1. Preview – For younger children - Look at the cover, look at the title, look at the pictures in the book. For older children - look at the table of contents, read the introduction or the book blurb, look at pictures, graphs, diagrams => basically looking for the main idea
2. Question – Think about the information you learned in the preview. Ask questions about it – what do I know about this topic? What do I think will happen in this story? What do I think I will learn from this book?
3. Read – Read the book.
4. Reflect – Reflect on what you have read. What happened? Did you think that would happen? What new information did you learn? Did the story/ending surprise you?
5. Recite – Think about the story. Retell it to someone. Explain all the important main points.
6. Review – Did you enjoy the book? Yes or No – why? Was the author’s point clear? What could have happened? How could you change the book/ending?

These steps can easily be incorporated into your reading time with your children. It doesn’t need to take up lots of time, but just get them to think about the book – a few questions by you will tell you if they have understood what was read.

More information about Reading comprehension can be found on our web page Reading with Comprehension

 

Tags: Untagged Read More

The last few days, I have felt very distracted and lacked concentration with respect for business. The city I love and have lived in all my life has been hit by a sheer volume of water and it seems so surreal.

I was only 1 when the 1974 floods hit Brisbane and I remember the stories my grandparents and parents told me about the flood and the photos in my grandparent's photo album. They lived in Corinda, close to Oxley Creek, not far from the Rocklea markets and their album contained so many photos of houses under water. Their house luckily, only had the water lapping at their floorboards. But I think of those photos and of today's devastation to those whose homes are under water and have a feeling of helplessness.

We are so lucky this time around as the rain has cleared. In the 1974 floods the house we are now living in, had water lapping at the back door due to the large amount of rain. So I am so thankful that we have had clear skies. For us the clear skies spared us but for many others this was not the case.

Today I had to take a trip to see for myself, what nature can do to a city. Just looking at the Brisbane river from close to the city - the magnitude was unbelievable. I did not venture near any of the flooded suburbs but have sat and watched on TV the devastation others are experiencing. I find the TV coverage disturbing and upsetting but for some reason I am drawn to it.

As a teacher, seeing the schools under water was upsetting (I know for the older kids, it probably won't be upsetting, extra holidays for them - lol). All the resources, teachers belongings, library books etc all destroyed in a matter of hours. They have so much work ahead of them. So much goes into a school and planning for a class, that I feel for them in the cleanup of the weeks and months to come. All the young children so excited to start school will now have to wait and will eventually start school but amid changes that the flood has brought.

My heart goes out to all of those families who have been touched by the floodwaters. As the water recedes there will be so much devastation and so much work to be done. All we can do it put our hands up to help and support our neighbours in need.

Sorry for the off topic blog but I think I needed to get it out.

Take care Brisbane, Ipswich, Toowoomba, and the Lockyer Valley.

Tags: Untagged Read More

I want to continue my exploration of the National Curriculum with you. As a parent and a teacher I find that when parents understand what is happening in schools and education, there are more positive outcomes for the child.

Curriculum documents can be very boring, but while you don’t need to have a great understanding of it, it is good to have a basic understanding of what it is that your children will be doing.

The new Australian National Curriculum has been written with a number of elements in mind. These include:

The content descriptions

The Achievement standards

General capabilities

Cross-curriculum priorities

The content descriptions are basically the statements that indicate what it is that the teachers are expected to teach. These can be seen by clicking on the Australian Curriculum home page and clicking on the Tab curriculum and opening to whichever subject you want to look at. Each has a list of the content descriptions that will be taught at that level.

The achievement standards basically describe what is expected of the students. By the end of a particular year level they explain what it is expected that children will know, will understand and be able to do. The aim of the curriculum is to get all students above the expected levels. Meeting the basic expectation/achievement standard gives the child a C on the grade scale.

The general capabilities are the skills and behaviours that apply across all subjects. There are seven general capabilities and they include:

Literacy

Numeracy

ICT – information and communication technology

Critical and creative thinking

Ethical behaviour

Personal and social competence

Intercultural understanding

These 7 areas underpin all the learning areas. For example, regardless of the subject, whether it is maths or science, there is a great degree of literacy that is needed by a child to understand the subject. All of the above are incorporated into the subjects where it is possible – some more than others.

Lastly, the cross-curriculum priorities refer to the issues that will have an effect on the children as they live in the 21st century. These cross-curriculum priorities include:

Aboriginal and Torres strait Islander histories and culture

Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia

Sustainability

These priorities will only be included where it is relevant to the learning area. For example we may find Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island histories and culture in history and the Arts, and we may find sustainability in Science and Geography.

TIP: You can actually filter the curriculum to show you which general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities are included within a subject area. When you click onto a subject curriculum there is a pale box with the heading Filters – choose your topics in the 4 boxes and apply your filters, it will show you how much of each is to be included.

Please share your thoughts or questions about the National Curriculum below in the comments section, as I would love to hear your thoughts.

Tags: Untagged Read More