Our Reading Nook

Have you had a hard time getting your children to read? We decided to arrange our corner into an area where our kids could get away and read. We packed library books into bins and put them next to the couch and purchased some fun chairs to add some excitement. It has also become sort of a 'cool down' space when someone is needing it. Reading has become 'cool' again! 


 

Closed reading nook

   

Open reading nook

Here's what our 10 year old had to say about it: 

Reading in the reading nook

"Having a reading nook is fun. Before we made this reading nook, our family was obsessed with electronics. All day, we would play on Minecraft forever! But, luckily, Mom and Dad intervened. We looked on Pinterest for ideas and we found one:  Reading Nook!!!!!!  "                                                                      

 You could even make your own Reading Nook!

For ALL ages!

**Tips: 

• We used hooks that can stick to the ceiling rather than drilling holes.
•  We used matching top sheets that my kids don't really use.
• We attached the sheet to the hooks with simple clasps,
• I secured the sheets to the middle hook with some quick hand stitches, needle and thread.
• We display children's art in the corner.
• It helps for Mom or Dad to go into the Nook and read too!

Happy Reading!

The Gluten Free Journey So far: A Health Update

Well. If I told you the last 6 weeks have been easy, it would be a lie. 

If I told you I’ve been "so much better" since I’ve been off gluten, that would be an overstatement.

I can tell you; however, that I have seen improvement, that I’ve learned a lot, and that I still have a lot to learn. 

First off: I’ve had less stomach pain, constipation and bloating. TMI, right? Sorry, but that has been my biggest improvement. My hands and arms hurt less and I’m not as tired. I’ve had some downright good days where I think to myself, “Wow, you really were sick. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this good.” And other days I know I feel worse and it must be part of the healing process. The one thing that hasn’t improved is my headaches. My Dr. said it could take 6 months to a year to have those really improve, so I guess I’ll get set for the long haul.

I’ve learned a lot: gluten is found almost everywhere! It’s in chicken broth and chicken bullion. It’s in soy sauce and other marinades you buy ready to use. It’s in canned chili, rice mixes, and lots of other processed foods. Of course we all know processed foods aren’t the best for us, and I was trying to stay away from them. However, on busy days, it was so easy to grab something and have it ready quick. Those days are gone.Or at least until I find some better quick cooking strategies. 

I’ve also learned a new word: glutened. 

It’s not in the dictionary so I’ll define it for you. Glutened: the state of being poisoned by gluten. 

You can’t really feel the effects of being glutened until you have been off gluten for a while. It’s like your body is getting cleared out and then gets hit with a bit of gluten and says, “Whoa, that stuff is awful!” It’s like having been sitting in the hot tub and then jumping in the swimming pool again. You’ve been used to something your whole life and your body just starts to cope, to play survival. Then you begin to clean it out, to help it heal. Since I’ve been off gluten, my body is more sensitive to dairy and sugar. It’s communicating with me more, letting me know what it likes and what it doesn’t. When I have accidentally eaten gluten, my old symptoms that I didn’t even really know where there, flare up almost instantly. 

I’ve also learned that I am very blessed. I’ll not go on and on about my symptoms because frankly, mine just are not as bad as they could be. I have been blessed with essential oils and amazing supplements that have helped my body cope and survive. I think, as I’ve researched and talked with others, that I have been spared from many worse symptoms that are out there. I am also grateful for my Doctor. She didn’t just give me medication and send me on my way. She took the time to educate me and explain why she thought I should go off gluten. She provided me with resources and with hope. I can’t imagine how sick I may have been in 5 years if I had stayed on the road I was.

As I pin recipes on Pinterest and surf blogs on the gluten free life, I see I have much to learn. I am excited to see what my essential oils have to offer in the way of healing my brain and managing my symptoms. Every bend in the road we call life is something we can learn from. I'll share that knowledge and experience as I go with you! 

Our Sensory Table

"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood." - Fred Rogers

In classic 3rd grade classrooms, you probably would not find a sensory table, but for our home school that we share with a toddler and a 4 year old, we have decided it is a necessity!

Sensory activities allow creative and open-ended play. They allow for problem solving, pretend play, investigation, exploration and experiments. It's also great for a break between activities that require more focus, transition times, and times of stress and anger. For more information on sensory processing and aiding kids with anxiety and anger you can click here: Lemon Lime Adventures

A great resource for more activities (and where I found some of these below): FunAtHomeWithKids.com

Making Color Beans and Pasta

Materials:

jar with a lid or seal-able container

food coloring (we used neon)

beans (pinto or white worked best)

Macaroni or other pasta

wax paper

Procedure:

1. Drop the food color into the jar with the pasta. 

(15 drops to 1 cup pasta/beans)

2. Make sure the lid is on tight and SHAKE!!

3. Pour out onto the wax paper and spread out to dry.

Enjoy!

Add Educational Activities:

Sorting and Labeling: add objects related to your activity, or sort and label the different colors, beans and pasta, etc.

Language Arts: vocabulary and spelling practice, letter identification. Adjectives: make a list of words that describe what is in your sensory table.

Math: count the beans and noodles, group and compare, hide flash cards with math operations.

Science: create a habitat or world inside your sensory table. We're going to use the materials below for a pond/swamp world. We will learn about the animal groups that live there. 

Another great sensory table activity: Kinetic Sand.

Also known as "indoor sand," this is sand that holds together more than natural sand. It is very therapeutic. Adults love playing in it just as much as kids. We've already made sand castles and shapes and messes. Luckily, it's a lot easier to clean up than real sand too!

 

Wait! We're not finished! One more! These are water marbles.        

You can purchase them at Time to Play

They start out tiny!

Put them in a bin and pour water over them.

We had fun watching them grow!

Here they are at full size!

This is one of our FAVORITE sensory activities!***

                                            ***just make sure the little ones don't eat them!

Effective Instructional Strategies Explained... These are the Good Ones!

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted the more ineffective strategies... NOW! For the good ones! Again, as I said in my first post, a BALANCE of the different approaches is needed! Here's the link to the strategies to limit (more Ineffective Strategies)

Whole Language approach: Also called, the “Top to bottom approach,” and is contrasted to a phonics or skills based approach to decoding and spelling. The philosophy here is to focus on meaning and strategy instruction, literature-based or integrated instruction. Many of the next strategies are a part of a whole language philosophy. When looking at second language learners, including Deaf children, this philosophy and approach to language is critical! This one will get its own post…for now this link shows a very basic overview.

A Writing Activity

Readers and Writer’s workshop: Writers engage in reading and writing for their own purposes. Led by the teacher through ‘mini lessons’ the students learning reading and writing strategies while choosing their own reading and writing topics. This is a great explanation! 

 You can also see how I did a mini writer's workshop lesson with my son during the writing of our recent vacation blog. In it I note how I picked two grammar principles to teach during that writing session. After we had done the writing together, he felt confident to write on his own.

Cooperative learning: More than just working in groups, cooperative learning gives each student a chance to fulfill a different role in a group: a leader, a secretary, a moderator, etc. while completing the assigned task. More here

Visuals (SMART boards, pictures, tables, graphs): Visuals are so important for deaf children, it is their primary learning style (even if they are using Auditory Listening Devices (ALDs)). Teachers who use visuals will have an easier time of keeping students’ attention while increasing performance.

Bi-lingual/Tri- modal instruction (English/ASL/speech and listening as needed): Using American Sign Language (ASL) to teach English. More than just using sign language as the ‘mode of communication’ in the classroom, these strategies connect and bridge ASL and English while developing both. The goal is for your child to truly become bilingual in ASL and English. This one needs its own post… and you can find basic explanation here for now. This is one article of how a preschool approach might look.

This is our Sensory table - with spelling words!

Balanced Literacy Approach – Children need read in different ways every day. The teacher should be reading aloud to the class daily in ASL following the 15 principles of Read Alouds . Shared reading happens as the same book, or book type, is read repeatedly and the reading shared between student and teacher, with the teacher modeling and supporting the students as they read. Finally, the students read the SAME book on their own, with confidence.

Hands on Activities: Math manipulatives, science projects, field trips, art, constructing reports on research, creating artifacts. As part of integrated units, hands on activities give the students a way to discover new knowledge or to put their learning into action. Our LegoFraction lesson is one example.

Painting a house as part of our Fire unit.

Integrated Thematic Units: Teachers select a theme around which to base all subjects around. In the Fall math, science and language arts can all relate to the Autumn Season. Basic skills instruction is still built into the daily routine, but the main teaching revolves around the theme. Focus is on depth and world knowledge through whole language learning. Check it out more here.

Development of child’s Native Language (ASL): ASL should be focused on and developed. When bilinguals strengthen their native language, the second language is also strengthened (reference here). Easily added to thematic units, ASL can enrich the learning of any subject. We’ll have some fun examples of this!

Always Reading!

Differentiated Assessments: Rubrics, portfolios, testing on content only (using ASL and oral exams), presentations, projects, writing samples, etc. While standard testing is still required, grades can be determined based on a variety of assessments that not only allow the students to shine in different ways, but also develop a variety of different skills. Find a great explanation here.

Structured routines with strong classroom management: All students thrive off of structured routines and strong classroom management. Class meetings and rules can engage the students in the governing of their own class, encouraging more cooperation. Positive reinforcement for following routines and being engaged in learning is a must.

While this list is extensive and feels overwhelming, as you learn more about a Whole Language approach, you will see how so many of these strategies fall into place. It is my goal to provide you with examples of these strategies and how they might look both in the classroom, and at  home.I'll update this post with links to those examples as they come!

Language Experience Books... or Blog!

This is an example of a Language Experience Book. This beginning is more complicated as my son who is 8 was doing the 'writing.' Language Experience books can be just pictures, pictures with one or two words or one sentence for the little ones. You will see this later on in our post. The point is to DO an activity that engages your child, Take pictures, and then write about those pictures. The finished product should be something that your child can look at over and over and 'read.' Even if he or she isn't reading the actual words, it is the act of reading that creates confidence, builds print recognition and expressive language. In the beginning, I am translating what my son tells me in ASL into written English, modeling for him what his ASL looks like in English.

Our Trip!

We went to Portland, Oregon. There's my sisters, and my brother. Mom took this picture of us. Dad was making silly faces behind Mom's back. That's why my baby has a puzzled look on her face, and how I remembered Dad making a silly face.

Do you know why 1/6 of the bridge is raised?

If the bridge didn't raise up, a big tall boat would crash into the bridge and could sink! And it could destroy the bridge too. This means if people were trying to get home and had to cross the bridge, they couldn't go and they might get lost going another way.

Mom took a picture of us for our blog.
We didn't know we would make a blog post until later.

The geese are standing on the grass above the dock. That is why there is a brown pole behind them. My sister wanted to pet the geese, but Mom said, "No! They are wild geese!"

*You'll notice in this next passage, the writing changes. This is my 8 year old writing now. When I correct written English of Deaf children, I do so carefully; a little at a time. I pick one or two concepts to focus on and that's what we correct. Today we focused on some conventions: quotations (that we learned a week ago and that he wanted to attempt in written English on his own), and making sentences out of a really long run on. This helps to build confidence while teaching the grammar.

                                                                 NEXT DAY,
                                                             MORNING

At Multnomah Falls, we walk to bridge. We are decide who go high or down. My two sister are want to down because my Baby are cold and my other sister cold too. So my dad are said, "your two sister come down with me you and your brother go with your mom go to the top."

Later I are scare to go high, on the 6 of 11switch backs. Mom said,"Wait to 7 of 11 then will stop." When we arrived at the 7th, Mom ask me, "Do you want more?"

I said ,"yes i want more until end."

Mom said," Let's go!"

There was a small cave in the side of the mountain!

It was 1/4 mile from the bottom to the bridge. We hiked 1 mile up to the top of the mountain and then 1/4 mile more down hill to the top of the waterfall. Then we came back down, fast. Mom said, "Don't run!"  I asked, "Why?"
Mom said, "There's no railing, if you fall, you could fall all the way down the mountain."

I said, "It's ok. We can run and see what happens."


And I jogged with control, but Mom think I really ran, but I didn't.

Here we are at the top of the fall! 

This is the view looking down!

How many miles did we hike altogether?

on the way up 1 2/4 and 1 2/4 on the way back down...

The answer is...3 miles!                                                       

                                                                                                        

I made it!

This is a view of the falls from the Bridge.

                          

  This is the view from the top. 

                                                          AFTERNOON
                          
                                                               FISH EGG GORGE 

At this point, it was my daughter's turn (she's 4). She wanted to do the typing, so we kept things brief. She is learning a lot about names right now and I made that a focus of her writing. The hope is that as the child re-reads the experience book, words are learned, experiences re-told and world knowledge is reinforced and expounded upon. We are working on expressive language, telling stories and practicing reading!             

 A plant in the pond.                                

big Sturgeon fish

baby Trout fish

Mallard ducks

baby Salmon fish

                                                   

                                                         AFTERNOON       

 BONNEVILLE Lock AND DAM

          We also went to the ocean (2 weeks ago) to see what wild life and plants were there too! 

Here is the diorama I made!

                      

           

We compared the Ocean and Lake Environments using a Venn Diagram and prepared a presentation.

Thanks for reading about our trip! For more information and ideas about Experience Books, click here!

I'll try to do another example soon!