Word Families

Charlie used Hooked on Phonics workbooks when he learned to read. I got a 3-grade package at Christmas Tree Shop for $9. I haven't been able to find that package again and I don't want the whole HOP set (CDs and all), so I have been looking for something similar for Daniel. I bought a couple apps for the Kindles which were terrible (I actually complained to Amazon because they were misrepresented and they gave me my $0.99 back for each). I have been trolling Pinterest and found a lot of activities with paint sample cards or Easter eggs, but I don't have a stack of paint sample cards and I recycled all our plastic Easter eggs last spring because the just sit in the closet and never get used.  I also didn't want to have a different set for each word family.

This is what I came up with:

Each piece is laminated. You can write on the pink window card with dry erase marker, so you can change the word ending easily.   

For Daniel, I go through and mark the letters he needs to do with what ever ending us on the card.  It seems to work well, although he told me he would rather have a BLUE window card...(insert eye roll here)

PBS Wild Kratts Lesson Plans

Both the boys LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Chris and Martin and the "Wild Kratts" show on PBS.  We don't have cable or satellite, but they can stream it on the PBS Kids app (which you should totally get if you don't have it...iPhone and Kindle apps available, never was able to find it for an Android phone, and not sure about an iPad...).  You can also stream seasons 1-4 on Amazon Prime which is perfect for this because the lessons available are not all for the current season of the show. Or...you could always just buy them on iTunes...I think they are, like, $2 an episode...anyway...back to the POINT of this particular post.

I was trying to plan something fun and interesting for the boys' science work this year. Last year Charlie had a workbook and we did experiments from a little experiment kit (Thames and Kosmos, Little Labs - Stepping into Science). The kit was fun and I liked that it had explanations about the outcome (a lot of those kits don't have any explanation at all), but the workbook was lacking and combining the two seemed disjointed and scattered.

They (Charlie in particular) are always spewing random facts about this mammal or that bird and ALL the facts are coming from "Wild Kratts." It seemed to make sense to take that and run with it.  I went to the PBS website and found several pre-planned activities that are centered around different episodes of the show.  I am hoping the 4 lessons I picked will carry us through the summer.  I am planning on ending with a trip to the BioDome in Montreal (gives us a chance to test out our French, which we are also starting this summer!)

There is a long list of clips from different shows if you follow the link below.  Some have complete PDF lesson plans available with them and some just list suggestions for how they can be fit in to the Common Core.  I picked 4 with complete PDF lessons because, well, let's be honest, it's much easier than building my own lesson plan. Here is the link:
http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/wild-kratts/