Bribery!

Bribery!  Yes Bribery!  A little bribery can go a long way.  I know there are a lot of parents out there that frown upon this but sometimes as a parent you have to play a little dirty.  Sometimes you have to break the rules and just do whatever works for that moment.  So after several weeks of fighting Sunny with her reading section of her curriculum, that has now gotten harder and longer as she has progressed, for the sake of my sanity I had to come up with a different plan.  

I started a surprise bribe box a couple of months ago for both of them.  They would earn a star after each lesson that was done with a good attitude.  They didn't have to pass but they had to try hard and be respectful to their teacher (me) since she was contemplating resigning during every lesson.  So once they earned 10 stars they could go into the bribe box.  It contains unhealthy candy that they don't normally get, awful little toys that I hate to pick up so I never buy, and lots of art supplies that Sunny loves.  

Sunny has always been a "worker" and loves to earn money and stuff so this has worked great for her.  Logo likes the box but it doesn't really motivate him to do his lessons.  However, I did find out what does work for him.  Minecraft!  So our "bribery arrangement" is if he tries hard and has a good attitude then I will sit with him and play Minecraft on the XBox when he is done.  That has worked!  Then every time the game autosaves, we quickly review what the lesson was about or go through his flashcards.

So at this point I felt a little like "SuperMom" now that I finally figured out what motivated my kids.  Then the curriculum had Sara reading a different book a day and they were getting longer, with smaller fonts, and more words.  It got to the point where it took 2 hours of fighting, crying, mean words to each other and thinking that maybe homeschooling wasn't going to work for us just to get through one book.  These are wonderful books from Reading Horizons Discovery Program (see link below), that are designed to only use words that she can decode or sight words that she has been taught.  So she had the "tools" to read them but she had herself so convinced that she couldn't because it was so hard and it looked scary that she wouldn't try.  She is very stubborn.

So yesterday I said, if you read the book on your own out loud with a good attitude you can go straight to the bribe box.  Normally it takes 10 books to get there.  It worked!  She read the book, slow but with a great attitude.  She was so proud of herself.  Since she is dyslexic, reading is so hard and I try to understand it.  But...since she is very bullheaded, it makes it so much worse!  So today she read a new book in 9 minutes instead of 2 hours.  I explained that in the long run her success in reading is more important then anything I can fit into that bribe box.  Now she knows that she can do it and with a positive attitude, anything is possible.  I am SO PROUD OF HER!

I have to say that the Reading Horizon's Discovery Program has really helped them both.  I will be doing a review on their program next week.  I definitely recommend it to anyone that is learning to read or a struggling reader.
<A HREF="http://athome.readinghorizons.com/cmd.asp?Clk=4983088" > new Discovery At-Home program</A>

Our First Field Trip With A Homeschool Group

Now that Logo is in between surgeries, I will explain that in a different post, we finally could go on some homeschool group field trips.  We had a great time.  It is amazing all of the cool things that the kids were able to learn about and experience in 5 hours.  It was also so nice going on a field trip with them without a hundred screaming kids.  There were only 4 kids in our group so they were able to really learn and enjoy all of the different aspects of the tour.  Now I need to plan our next one.

We had no idea how cool it would be!

The kids could create tornados by spinning their hands very fast.

They could create a rainbow going from one hand to the other if they held their hands up.

They could also shoot lightening at each other.

This was an interactive stop-motion experience that took collaborative animation to a gigantic scale!

They created their own short film.

This was a Potato Piano!

Learning about virtual circuits.

A virtual circuit robotic arm.

A 3-D printer!  Our kids will be able to print toys at home for our grandkids!

In the scene!

Exhausted!

Flashcard Fun - Memorizing Most Common Words

The phrase "Here today and gone tomorrow" pretty much describes a dyslexic child's memory in a nut shell.  Well, actually mine also so I guess these nuts didn't fall very far from this tree.  Oh and if you didn't read in my previous posts, I also have two reluctant learners.  So we play a lot of games.  I try to sneak "educational" stuff in them as much as possible.  Kind of like moms that sneak vegetables in cookies.  So here are a few games we have been playing.

Flashcards-
We use A LOT of flashcards.   I print 2 copies of the sight words or most common words on card stock, laminate them, and then cut them up.  I actually just buy a roll of vinyl self adhesive sheet protector at the dollar store and use that.  I like the protector on the flashcards because they can trace them with dry erase markers.  This works especially well for my 5 year old son who HATES to write his letters and is overly critical to himself on his ability to write.  So I let him watch his videos and he traces the letters.  This helps him not focus so much on how he is writing them but is helping his motor skills for writing.  It is also drilling in the spelling of these wonderful words that don't follow all of the phonetic rules.

The reason I print two copies of the words are for the games.  We play Go Fish, Memory, Name That Word, Bingo, and Slap That Word.  I also have some blank cards with smiley faces that I use as "wild" cards.

Go Fish-
Each player has to read the card that they want to ask for and spell it out.  If you have younger players this will help them if they can't read them and it also helps all players to remember how to spell them.  We use the wild cards to pair up at them end of the game with the left over cards.  The kids like to do this.

Memory-
Flip 6 pairs down first and as they progress you can increase the amount of cards as you go.  Memory games are very good for dyslexic kids.  I wish we had play more of them when they were younger.  If they get a wild card they can get extra turns or whatever rule they want to make up.  The important part though is that they read the words each time they flip the cards over.

Name That Word-
Give the child a stack of cards to use as a reference.  Then they tell you, "The word begins with W and ends with T."  You can ask for hints like how many letters, is it a verb, does it have any blends, etc.  When you finally guess it then you say, is it "What" W-H-A-T?  My daughter loves this and it is great on road trips or while I am cooking dinner.  Make sure you spell it back though because they may not be reading it correctly.  So we take turns doing this back and forth.  It helps with reading and spelling them.

Bingo-
Divide the pairs into two piles.  Make a grid of 16 cards for each player with one of the piles.  Then use the other pile of duplicate words and read them out.  If a player has a matching card then put it facedown on the card.  The first player to get a line wins.

Slap That Word-
We put the words on the floor or table and at first I only use a few words.  Then as they get faster I add more words.  I give them a clean fly swat and as I call out the words they swat them as fast as they can. Since I have a younger child that likes to play with his big sister, I say it starts with "W" and ends with "T".  This also helps them both learn to scan words quickly.  Fly swats are great for all kinds of lessons.

So these are a few games that we play.  Please feel free to leave a comment about games that you use or  if you have any questions.  Oh and please ignore my grammar errors.  I get interrupted too many times to get my thoughts out much less grammatically correct.  I am sure most of you know how that is.