Jump to content

Menu

Is an 18"x24" magnetic dry erase big enough for AAS and is $8 a good price?


Recommended Posts

18x24 is too small for the long run....more tiles are added for each level.

We are working through level 4 and are using a board that is roughly 3'x2'. We could not use anything smaller and have room for all the tiles.

 

Mine cost about $15 at Target. Walmart also carries on this size.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What exactly do you do on the board aside from having the tiles there? Do they write their words or sentences?

 

Thanks!

Kim

 

If you only want to store tiles, the 18 X 24 might be fine. If you want room to work in the middle, the 2' X 3' size will be preferable. I find the tiles take up about a foot of width, leaving about 2' for working in the middle. We use the center for demonstrating concepts. My kids use hand-held white-boards to write their words and dictation (and my son uses paper for the writing station that starts in Level 3).

 

2' width for working might sound like a lot, but each letter tile is 1" square. With the smaller size, I think you'd find it feeling cluttered by the time you try to make words in the middle. If you already had the board I'd say try it & see what you think. Hey, you know what you could do--tape off a section on your fridge that size, set up all the tiles and then do some work in the middle. (remember to set up about an inch away from the border all around for the frame around the board--you'd actually have about 16 X 22 to work with). Anyway, see what you think that way before you invest in one or the other.

 

Merry :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dc do their actual writing on paper, but all the pre-writing work (manipulating the tiles) is done in the middle of the magnetic white board.

 

(I do not allow the dc to write on this white board. The black dust would get the tiles and the board looking

nasty.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A few weeks ago when I was wondering the same thing, I wanted to see it "visually". So hopefully this will help someone out.

 

Here's our 24"x36" whiteboard with the full alphabet on (just set up for the beginning lessons though). I will see if I took a picture with all the magnetic tiles, but they definitely filled out the top and sides! Got this board at Lakeshore Learning and it sits propped up on the floor with a built-in stand as well as hangs on the wall.

 

0906-aas-012-399x266.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow, thanks, Angela! That's a ton of empty space left. But, y'all are sure it needs to be that big, right?

 

Kim

 

Well, she doesn't have all the tiles on yet :-). There are 2 sets of the alphabet (across the top), and then vowel and consonant teams on the left, and sounds of Sh, ER, other sounds, and syllable tags on the right. Plus if you keep the suffixes on (which we do)...well, it all takes up space! The tiles as laid out take up another half a foot on either side of the board. I should take a picture of just our board sometime. I have some on my blog but the kids are blocking some of the tiles, LOL!

 

Merry :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, Merry! How do you teach your two each day, together or separately? I was hoping to combine my two as much as possible, but I'm sure my older will move more quickly. Any suggestions on scheduling a day?

 

Thanks!

Kim

 

I started off teaching my kids together, but after about 4 weeks, I realized that my oldest was really ready to go at a faster pace. Since I am doing it remedially, I wanted to let him go as fast as he could. If they were younger & I had more time, I might still have kept them together. They're about half a book apart now.

 

There are lots of ways to do it! Here is a typical day for us:

 

I set the timer--15 minutes for my 10 yo, 17 for my 12 yo (he can last longer than 15, but his eyes glaze over if we go as long as 20, so we settled on 17, LOL!).

 

Daily: We review any cards in the "daily review" section. Both of my kids need additional, continual review, and I have modified the review to suit our needs--so we also review cards a few additional times before they go to mastered. All in all we spend 2-5 minutes on reviewing the cards.

 

Then, we go into the lesson. I just open and go and teach whatever is next. For the 10 main words, you can have them practice each word first with tiles and then writing if you want to. My kids are older and I mainly use the tiles for teaching, so they just write the words on a hand-held white-board. Then we go from that to the dictation. If there are also extra reinforcement words, I do some of those words, then some dictation sentences, then some of the words again, etc... until we are done with the lesson.

 

In book 2, it took my son 2-3 days to get through a lesson, and my daughter 3-5 days.

 

In book 3, it usually takes my son 3-5 days, and my dd 4-7 days, to get through a lesson.

 

The lessons are scripted just enough that it's pretty clear what to do as we go through. We spend more time on harder lessons & less time on the easier ones. HTH! Merry :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...