A great place for real life estimating is the store. Take her with you shopping (for groceries, for something fun, really anything)...and tell her your budget for that shopping trip. To stay in budget, you don't need to keep exact tabs on the price of things to the last penny. Rounding up the prices to the nearest dollar and keeping an estimation in your head of about how much the things you've gathered cost together. (You can discuss whether it would make more sense to round up or round down the original price of each item.) You can start with a smaller shopping trip (where you get less things), and work up to a larger trip. You can also estimate by size whether a certain size will be enough to feed everyone. Cooking is also good for estimation. Estimate how many cookies can be made with a certain size lump of cookie dough. And you can do estimation when reading. How many words do you think is on this page? Well, how many words are in the first line? How many lines are there?

Does anyone know of any other good easy reader books with speech bubbles, like Piggie and Elephant? Could be comic books...could be books that had a script with two parts (like a play). The main thing is that the child I'm working with really likes the back and forth where I read some and she reads some. I'd LOVE to find leveled readers like this too!

ProgressivePhonics.com is FREE and you can either print it (in one big binder) or just access the readers with an Ipad or phone or other device. I have not tried this but I think you could save the readers to an ipad. I really like the program. Depending on how far along she is though she may be past it.

Print Path Raise The Roof is good. It's meant really for kids working on moving from 3-lined to 2-lined paper, BUT really that's only a small part of the program, which you can skip. That package of printables also includes stuff that they have in there to correct letter placement and letter formation problems that may have cropped up, and to improve speed, and thats what would be helpful. I used it with my 7th grader during the summer and it did improve his handwriting some (there were some letter formations he was fighting me on...but it really helped for getting things to sit on the line and so forth). With a more willing participant I think it would help a lot. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Handwriting-Practice-3rd-4th-grade-Handwriting-Without-Tears-STYLE-FONT-1423658

My kid sometimes does it with spelling words (makes pictures out of the letters and such). I just let him because, even though it takes forever, I think it helps...it's massive amount of brain attention on the letters and something he can remember.

For your Kindergartener I know of a resource that combines practicing handwriting skills and learning about Dinosaurs. It's something I kinda wished I had when we were studying dinosaurs around that age so I thought I'd pass it on: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dinosaur-Handwriting-Instruction-or-Practice-Lowercase-at-Last-HWT-Style-Font-4040695

The Joy of Signing is the book we used in our sign language class in college and it's excellent...though there are sign languages dictionaries online now which are better (or at least better for the words they cover).

If Level 1 is making her groan though, I've also heard advice to start at Level II for older kids starting out, and I think that makes sense. The first chapter reviews most of the more challenging things in Level 1, and so if you find they need more work on any of the things covered, you can always go back to level 1 and do more work on it, but otherwise you could skip a lot and just move forward. If you decide to start in level 1 you could also do the 5 word test method once you get past the first few chapters on letter sounds and such and into actually spelling words. You just test your child on 5 of the spelling words (random...not the first five since some of the last words are harder). If they get all 5 right, skip that section. If they don't, go through the section.

I taught my son handwriting and he has excellent, readable handwriting...but worrying about whether things were written correctly was slowing down his writing too much. I would like to help my son write faster and more easily without worrying about being perfect. He's 11. I'm also now tutoring another child in, among other things, handwriting. Her handwriting needs serious work, but she enjoys writing and writes quickly. I would like to help her writing become more legible, but without squelching her enthusiasm or causing her to focus so strongly on handwriting that it slows her regular writing down too much. (She's a very gifted 5 year old who has already been through kindergarten and entering 1st grade. I'd say not to worry about handwriting at all at this young age...but I also know that writing habits learned early tend to stick and are hard to break later). Any suggestions? Methods? Things to say? Ways I can handle practice that might help keep more of a balance between neatness and speed?

Not crazy. It's a program that I think will not come off as babyish, and I'm learning how to spell better while using it to teach my son (and I was an English major in college...not that that means anything when it comes to spelling). So I think it would be one that would work well with older kids.

All About Spelling Story of the World Other than that I've changed everything at least once.

Yeah, it's a different public school environment than most kids get, and so transitioning to that would be a lot different than transitioning to a regular classroom (though it was supposed to be twenty kids with the same amount of teachers...and for some reason their class was just really small last year). But I also wanted to mention it because sometimes schools have really good programs that your child might be eligible for through an IEP, so it's worth looking into if you're considering it anyways.

I love art...I love making art and viewing art and learning about art. But when I was homeschooling I had trouble teaching art on a regular and consistent basis because my child wasn't very interested and I really struggled about MAKING my child do something which in my oppinion should be fun. That doesn't mean I think it has to be fun to be useful. I absolutely think its a useful skill that someone could utilize whether they "loved" it or not. BUT, it's not an essential skill in the way that reading or writing or doing math is, so while I'll push my child to learn that I didn't feel the same way about pushing him to learn about art. It just somehow felt wrong to MAKE someone do art. My oldest however loves art and right now is learning 3D animation and spending hours on it in his free time. Makes me happy!

My son was also 10 when we put him back in after 4 years of homeschooling. He did the IEP and it showed ADD and some other things (though they told me they can't diagnose, but it was enough to get him services). I was terrified to put him back in school. I cried a lot the week before he went back. But thankfully it went so much better than I feared it might. I told them that we had repeated kindergarten at home (which was pretty true...he didn't get very far his year in PS KG, so we did repeat most of the material)... and that was enough to get him classified as 4th grade, not 5th. Though, it's worth knowing that the amount of services they get is dependent on the somewhat on the difference between his grade level and skill level...so the greater the difference between grade level and skill level the greater the services he may get. My child got plenty even going in at 4th grade not 5th. We were thinking of putting him in a charter homeschool (homeschooling part time) but they suggested a reduced size mixed grades class for kids with learning difficulties/dissabilities and we took them up on it. It was 10 kids with a teacher and two aids, so the individualization they did in the class was excellent. The teacher was wonderful. I have two older boys in public school (they didn't have the same challenges my youngest did), and I've never been in a class where they focused on the WHOLE child (not just their academics, but how they were doing socially and emotionally) than that class and that teacher did. She GOT how emotional stuff could totally derail learning and made making the class a safe and supportive environment a priority. And it really showed. His confidence, which had grown a lot while homeschooling, skyrocketed. Some of it actually was about being around other kids who struggled too...I don't think it would have gone as well if he had started in a regular classroom. Sadly, he wont have the same teacher next year so I will see if that was just that teacher or general practice for those types of classes. I know we got a better than average teacher based on what the other parents said.

I loved the way the "Journey Through History" series by Maria Ruis Gloria and Oriol Verges presents whole eras of history very simply for smaller children, but I was noticing that all the people, even in places like Mesopotamia are portrayed as light skinned. Any other suggestions for a replacement story that doesn't portray all of history as white?

So, I've got a job as a nanny/tutor for a little girl during the summer. Her mom wanted me to do some geography with her, so I decided to combine that with a little history and world culture. I'm doing one ancient civilization, then learning a little about the modern country/countries where that civilization used to be. So, her family is from India. I imagine they have taught her quite a bit already. I would love some suggestions of really good books to use...ones that would be simple and fun for a small child. If you are of Indian heritage I'd especially love your advice.

I'm looking for short picture books related to ancient civilizations (Egypt, Greece, Rome) that are appropriate for a Kindergardener (I'll be reading them to her...so doesn't have to be at KG reading level, but at KG listening level).

LOL. Thats what I'm using for my main program. 🙂 But I feel like he needs extra practice on this.

Do you all know any story books that have a lot of words that use both sounds of C or both sounds of G. We need a little more practice with that than the readers we have. I'll be looking for stuff at the library. The other words don't have to be decodable (I'll just help him with non decodable).

If you would like something like Handwriting Without Tears but cheeper, I have a few suggestions (further down). I personally like the letter style of HWT because all the lowercase letters can be done without taking your hand off the page, and it doesn't contain ball and stick style a, b, d, g, p, and q letters (the ball and stick style of those letters slows down writing later if your child continues to use them, are less useful for preventing letter reversals*, and doesn't convert as well to cursive if you plan to teach that. (The most common letter reversal, b and d, are formed differently from each other in HWT style, and are less hard to confuse.) None of these things seemed like a huge thing until I started working with my son, who had done a year of manuscript printing in KG, and realized how much it was messing him up. But, HWT style lettering printables are hard to find. All those cute dollar store books with traceable letters, most teacher pay teacher products with traceable letters (all subjects, from science to social studies, not just lanugae arts), and most of those dry erase traceable books you find will be in manuscript. It was frustrating seeing all these otherwise great resources that I either couldn't use or had to tweak because going back and forth from manuscript to HWT style tripped up my son. So, on to the cheaper/similar stuff. There are other programs using HWT style lettering (they don't use the same line style, but I never used HWT for that). Even if you do use HWT, its good to know about these if you need supplemental stuff. Logic of English has letters like HWT only italicized. ProgressivePhonics handwriting program doesn't have some of the early manipulatives and such, but it has a similar letter style and I like how they presents the letters. And it's FREE. I would have used it if I had found it first. PrintPath is also excellent, and very similar to HWT in letter formation/instruction (except it uses tradiation KG 3 lines). The main program is Capitals First, Numbers Next, and Lowercase at Last. The 2nd/3rd printable books with those titles are only necessary if it seems like your child needs more help, so unless you need supplementary/extra material it will cost you $15 plus the printer ink to print it. What's more is that PrintPath has a lot of extras you can get if you need them. It has a resource combining letter practice with learning about dinosaurs, traceable calendars, traceable language arts and phonics worksheets, and more. So even if you go with HWT you may want to use some of these to supplement. It also has a great program (Raising the Roof) for helping kids go from the traditional KG three lined paper to single lined paper. She's a occupational therapist who works with kids with handwriting problems (in addition to making materials to teach handwriting to everyone), so if you later find out your child does has disgraphia or some other problem that makes handwriting harder, she has a lot of resources for helping with that. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Print-Path-Ot New South Wales font is very similar to the HWT font as well, and you can find a lot of stuff on Teachers Pay Teachers by Australian and New Zealand teachers using it, since it's the dominant teaching font there. If you do go with HWT or another program, I made a pinterest board for anything I found that used a similar font to HWT/PrintPath, especially in other subjects like social studies and science. https://www.pinterest.com/galel/hs-where-to-find-hwt-printing-resources/

Just for a "for now" tactic while you're researching other things that may be behind his reluctance, I find comic book style writing where you read one character's part and your child read's another character (and you help him with any hard words on his part) help motivation. Here are some good "speech bubble" texts for that age.... Piggie and Elephant (pretty easy to read though your son will need help with some words... The following arenot as easy to read, but good for age level and "fun level" Lego Magazine How to Train Your Dragon Comic Books Phineus and Ferb Comic Books You can also read the funny papers together. Books like Click Clack Moo have little signs and words in bold, and sometimes I would just have my son read those words, not the rest. For readers, Progressive Phonics have readers where you read some words and the child reads others (color coded), which my son also was more willing to do when I was teaching him. I also drew out an alien on a dry erase board and told him the alien could only talk with him through writing, since he didn't talk, and I would write out conversations (my son would ask the Alien questions, and I would write out the answer). It was helpful when nothing would get him to try to read.

If you're interested in actual games from history (that people in history played), here's some... EGYPT Senet (how to play) - https://www.onlypassionatecuriosity.com/learn-to-play-ancient-egyptian-senet/ Printable Senet Boards - http://thiefontheflats.blogspot.com/2012/01/printable-senet-boards.html Mehen (Snake Game) - https://www.tinasdynamichomeschoolplus.com/egypt-mehen-printable-board-game/ ROMAN EMPIRE http://www.stormthecastle.com/how-to-make-a/ludus-latrunculorum.htm https://hobbylark.com/board-games/rota-roman-game OTHER https://imgur.com/t/informative/GyueZ

Zeus on the Loose is one I can think of. There is a timeline game that I saw and almost got but ended up making our own in stead. What I did is that I cut out timeline figures I found free online, wrote the dates for them on the back, cut strips of paper to represent years each, and layed them out across our living room floor (we didn't go back all the way to the beginning of the book...). I shuffled them and put them face up. I put a few cards where they would go on the timeline for reference. If it was your turn, without looking at the back of the card, you had to make a guess to where it went. You got points for getting it between the correct two cards to right or left, even if you were off on where it went (game got harder as we got more cards). It was fun. We stopped when the timeline got too crowded.

I was wondering if I could share your comment on by blog where I offer guidance to people using the Holy Land Adventure series by Group (not the series that includes Roar, but another one they do where different Bible stories are presented in a living history style format). I also moderate two Facebook groups related to this (one that someone else started and I later became a moderator for, and another that I started after group started repeating Holy Land Adventure programs in stead of making new ones, for churches working to make their own similar style programs), and would share that post there. The issues with Roar has come up (some people are using the Holy Land Adventure as a back-up program because of the problem with Roar, and others are confused as to what the issue was about.). I thought this (what you said) was something that people needed to hear. I would let them know it came from a comment on a discussion of this on another forum I'm in. I would use your name or handle only if you wanted me to.

I was wondering if I could share your comment on by blog where I offer guidance to people using the Holy Land Adventure series by Group (not the series that includes Roar, but another one they do where different Bible stories are presented in a living history style format). I also moderate two Facebook groups related to this (one that someone else started and I later became a moderator for, and another that I started after group started repeating Holy Land Adventure programs in stead of making new ones, for churches working to make their own similar style programs), and would share that post there. The issues with Roar has come up (some people are using the Holy Land Adventure as a back-up program because of the problem with Roar, and others are confused as to what the issue was about.). I thought this was such a good explanation. I would let them know it came from a comment on a discussion of this on another forum I'm in. I would use your name or handle only if you wanted me to.