red-roko: April 2010

Monday, April 12, 2010

Quick Share : Traveling with Kids

image via here

We're now officially planning a summer vacation. While I do consider our family to be seasoned travelers--two cross-country roadtrips, several 8-10 hour trips, and a couple flights with teeny ones--it is always good to review some info and tips for traveling with children.

I really like the ideas from Simply Modern Mom.

I want to hear your favorite travel tips--for car or airplane or any other vehicle. I could always use a new website for printing off travel games.

Friday, April 9, 2010

15 Minutes : Play It : Handwriting Activities

image via here

My son and I have been focusing on improving his handwriting. For the sake of review, I print out a basic tracing worksheet of a certain letter. Somedays we choose a worksheet that has a picture; others he wants a word search. When he's finished with that, we turn the paper over and he lists and draws other pictures that begin with the same letter. Since he's often a reluctant writer, I've been trying to discover ways to encourage him. Today this worked: He loves filling papers with "roads"--continuous lines that swerve, curve, and veer. So, I tried describing the letter he was writing as a road for his car. "First the road is straight, then, oh no, the road suddenly turns the other way! And then it's going back this way again." He loved it.

I find our basic tracer page (with picture) at First-School.ws. The site is kind of painful to navigate, so here is letter A for you; you can then find the rest of the alphabet from that page.

(On the chart, I choose from the Handwriting column, SB--meaning standard block style, and then ask my son which picture he likes.)

Here is our tracer page that comes with a word search. Same site, same messy story.

What handwriting sites do you like? How do you make this kind of practice more interesting?

Thursday, April 1, 2010

15 Minutes : Make It : Easter Printables

A few free printables I found for Easter:

A paper basket from Freshly Picked. I know I've said it before, but my daughter loves paper crafts and teeny things of all sorts. This will be tomorrow's afterschool activity.