Homeschool Helper with Charisse Van Horn

I love index cards. They are so easy to use and make great learning tools.  Whether you are using them to create flashcards write words, draw pictures, or glue items you can create a number of different learning tools and games with index cards.  They also come in a wide assortment of colors.  You can select basic white or even flourescent colors.

For this game, all you need is a pack of index cards and a marker.  Write a capital letter on one side of the card and the lower case letter on the other side.  Place the cards on a table, capital side up, and call out a letter.  Have your child find the card.  When your child can identify all of the capital letters, flip the cards and play with the lower case letters.

Here is a phonetic game that you can play with your children.  When your children begin learning short vowel/three letter words like “hat” “cat” “mat” “pot” “tin” etc. make a list of these words that have tangible objects that you can gather together.  Play games that include sounding out each word phonetically, such as have children identify each object and bring them to you after you have slowly sounded out each word phonetically.  For example, you can put the objects on a table and then say to the child, “Please bring me the “puh- oh-tuh”.  This encourages the child to listen to the phonetic sounding of the word and helps them blend the sounds together to identify the meaning of the word.

Learning to read is one of the most fundamental skills that homeschooled children need to develop.  The first three grades place heavy focus or emphasis upon learning to read and a great part of those activities include teaching phonics.  When teaching phonics it is important to understand how phonics works to make certain that the principles are being taught accurately.  There are numerous ways to ensure that students get the phonics reinforcement that they need to advance their reading skills. Using index cards to write words that will be used for drills is a great way to inexpensively create your own phonics tools.  Some of the skills that will need to be taught include phonetic sounds, blending, and ultimately reading.

There is an excellent website called, Free Reading, that provides numerous (and I mean numerous) free resources that will help teach your child how to read. Reading is the most important skill your child will learn in homeschooling, and once your homeschool child is reading independently, the rest of your child’s subjects will follow. Here is a link to the main page: Free Reading

You can use the integrated program to teach phonetic awareness to children in kindergarten as well as in the first grade. It’s a wonderful 40 week program (remember, this is all 100% free) and also contains many links to resources that you can use for the lessons. There are pdf files that you can download to your computer and print out as well. You’ll find that Free Reading.net is an excellent resource that will help ensure your children are reading and are up-to-date with their literacy skills.

My husband works early Saturday monrings, he leaves while we are sleeping and usually comes home with gifts for the children.  This morning, he awoke us all with a new grill, delectable chocolate chip cookies, and the Story Reader for the kids.  The Story Reader is a wonderful learning tool that attaches to your television through an audio jack cable and can play the stories on the television.  I have enclosed a You Tube video that will explain the Story Reader in more depth, but first I have to say that my 2 and 3 year old love it!  However, my two year old son is a little too hyper to be left alone with the Reader, but my three year old can use the product responsibly and easily mastered the controls.

My husband purchased the set at Sam’s Club and it came with the Alphabet Adventure, Dora’s Bouncy Ball Adventure, The Learn with Elmo Cartridge, and the Scooby Doo A-Z Snack Surprise. Also, my husband purchased the Story Reader for only $19.95 as you can see it is nearly twice as much on these HSN videos.

Here is a You Tube Video of the Story Reader from HSN.