If you've tried the AAR Ziggy game supplement...

[krismoose]

How do you and your dc like it? :)

[mom2fourdaughters]

I used this with my 3yr old who wanted lessons like her big sisters. I thought the whole Ziggy puppet thing was going to be silly, but she loves it. She also loved the coloring sheet activities. Overall good program:)

[Micron4]

I bought it, but I haven't put it together yet. Maybe I will do that tonight. From thumbing through the book, it looks really cute and well-done. I think my 3.5 year old will love it.

 

I suppose that was not too helpful, but just wanted to give you a shout out that I know what you are talking about. I'll update once we try it this week.

[PeterPan]

Ok, have pity on me here. What is the Ziggy puppet? :)

 

Oh for pete sake! I found it. So it's a zebra. And what do you DO with the puppet? See I was looking at the AAR stuff, and it turns out this is a pre-school/pre-reading level. Ok, I looked at the samples and get what the puppet is for. Now I should go look at AAR1. I've never seen it. I'm back! AAR1 is definitely not appropriate for a 4 yo, so I'm looking at the pre-reading level. Any feedback on it? Works? Too fast? Needs more hands-on? Coloring sheets get old? Good, bad?

Edited May 20, 2012 by OhElizabeth

[krismoose]

Ok, have pity on me here. What is the Ziggy puppet? :)

 

Oh for pete sake! I found it. So it's a zebra. And what do you DO with the puppet? See I was looking at the AAR stuff, and it turns out this is a pre-school/pre-reading level. Ok, I looked at the samples and get what the puppet is for. Now I should go look at AAR1. I've never seen it. I'm back! AAR1 is definitely not appropriate for a 4 yo, so I'm looking at the pre-reading level. Any feedback on it? Works? Too fast? Needs more hands-on? Coloring sheets get old? Good, bad?

 

I used AAR pre-level 1 with dd and they were great for phonemic awareness activities, though we stopped the coloring pages mid-way. We've tried the samples of AAR 1 and she loves it, but she's doing ok with the beginning of The Reading Lesson as well (which I have). She's more into crafts than her brother was, so I know she'd enjoy it. She'll be using

[krismoose]

Ok, have pity on me here. What is the Ziggy puppet? :)

 

Oh for pete sake! I found it. So it's a zebra. And what do you DO with the puppet? See I was looking at the AAR stuff, and it turns out this is a pre-school/pre-reading level. Ok, I looked at the samples and get what the puppet is for. Now I should go look at AAR1. I've never seen it. I'm back! AAR1 is definitely not appropriate for a 4 yo, so I'm looking at the pre-reading level. Any feedback on it? Works? Too fast? Needs more hands-on? Coloring sheets get old? Good, bad?

 

I used AAR pre-level 1 with dd and it was great for phonemic awareness activities, though we stopped the coloring pages mid-way. I could have come up with them if I'd spent the time, but I was so pleased with how they progressed in complexity and dd really thought they were funny using the puppet. We've tried the samples of AAR 1 and she loves it, but she's doing ok with the beginning of The Reading Lesson as well (which I have). She's more into crafts than her brother was, so I know she'd enjoy the occasional cutting/pasting in AAR 1. She'll be using Phonics Museum in August with a part-time classical school, so I was wondering if the games to supplement level 1 might tide her over while we go through The Reading Lesson over the summer.

[alisoncooks]

My 5 yr old (nearly 6) really enjoys it. We don't have the puppet Ziggy, but the game comes with a picture of Ziggy that you can glue to the front of a file folder and prop up to "play" games with. I thought DD was "above it" but she begs for them. So far we've done the 1st 2 games and she asks for them all the time.

 

It took me FOREVER to put it all together, though. I wish the game pieces were printed on card stock b/c they're already getting bent (and I refuse to laminate them :p b/c that's just MORE cutting out I have to do).

 

But overall, glad I bought it. The games really are simple and you could find similar ones online for free... But they've made my DD happy (as has AAR1 in general) so I'll not complain (too loudly). :)

 

ETA: We also don't cut/paste/color the things in the activity book. I store each activity page in a page protector. If it's a matching page (that we should paste) we just don't; we cut it out, match it and then store it to review another day. There's one page right near the beginning of a monster that eats bones; my daughters have "played" with that page multiple times already. The fluency pages also go in a page protector to do a few lines at a time. (I'm saving it all for my youngest, who is just a couple years behind in age, but closer in reading level.) So these pages, for us, almost feel game-like.

Edited May 20, 2012 by alisoncooks

[craftyerin]

Ok, have pity on me here. What is the Ziggy puppet? :)

 

Oh for pete sake! I found it. So it's a zebra. And what do you DO with the puppet? See I was looking at the AAR stuff, and it turns out this is a pre-school/pre-reading level. Ok, I looked at the samples and get what the puppet is for. Now I should go look at AAR1. I've never seen it. I'm back! AAR1 is definitely not appropriate for a 4 yo, so I'm looking at the pre-reading level. Any feedback on it? Works? Too fast? Needs more hands-on? Coloring sheets get old? Good, bad?

 

Mine ADORE it. We are mid-way though pre-level 1. IMO, the phonemic awareness activities are first rate. We are clapping syllables and isolating the first sound of words, and rhyming, and all that other good stuff. Ziggy totally makes the program. My kids will do ANYthing for Ziggy, hug and kiss him, say goodbye longingly when we put him away at the end of lessons.:lol: The coloring pages are definitely getting old. My almost-4yo girl does them daily. She loves to color. The boys (almost 5 and almost 4) don't like to color, so I try to change it up a lot for them. Paint, marker, color, glue stuff onto it, or just totally scrap it. They probably make an attempt at half of them. The books are cute. The posters are pretty and not obnoxious colors on the wall of my school room (all things I appreciate). I'm very glad we're using it. I may continue on with AAR 1 for phonics, but may do PP instead. Still deciding, but I'm sure I'll have to find a way to incorporate the puppet as we go on, regardless. They will expect Ziggy to be part of our school experience for the long haul.:D

[mom&nana]

Ok, have pity on me here. What is the Ziggy puppet? :)

 

Oh for pete sake! I found it. So it's a zebra. And what do you DO with the puppet? See I was looking at the AAR stuff, and it turns out this is a pre-school/pre-reading level. Ok, I looked at the samples and get what the puppet is for. Now I should go look at AAR1. I've never seen it. I'm back! AAR1 is definitely not appropriate for a 4 yo, so I'm looking at the pre-reading level. Any feedback on it? Works? Too fast? Needs more hands-on? Coloring sheets get old? Good, bad?

 

My kids loved Ziggy when we did the Pre-1 level last year. One was really too old for it (6 yo at the time), she was way past it but she still wanted to do it. The other child (5 yo) enjoyed it too, but still has trouble learning the names of the letters. The reading books are tons of fun! The activity book did get old, it's a lot of coloring. My kids didn't mind that part, but when we got to Part 3 with all the cutting and pasting they rebelled against it. We did finish it, but it was because I was pushing to get it done.

 

Now I have purchased Level 1 and it looks even better. I have actually turned the whole workbook into re-usable games by coloring and laminating everything. I even took the word flippers and used my proclick to bind them. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. That will also eliminate all the coloring, cutting, and pasting for the child. And it saves me money because I have 3 kids who would have wanted to participate and those workbooks add up fast!

[PeterPan]

Well this is definitely intriguing, thanks for sharing ladies!

 

Now can I ask one more question? Or maybe it's a question more easily asked of the AAS lady herself? How many of the ziggy exercises in the text involve ziggy making speech errors? I don't know how to put it more nicely than that. For instance, in the sample there are exercises where he says "round" instead of "ground" and the dc has to determine the missing letter. Is the parent saying that word correctly after Ziggy says it and then the child just differentiates? That just makes my heart sink for my boy with his speech problems. It's a type of error he'll actually make, leaving off an initial consonant, so to rub it in with "games" like that just makes me cringe. I'm getting agitated even sitting here typing it. I mean that would just so NOT be funny in our house. Does it happen a lot or maybe just one game out of 78 and I could redo the game and work around it? The wagon games, that type of thing are all cool. It's just anything involving someone being corrected for speech is just an awful raw point in our house.

 

I'll write the author on that. Probably no one else has tallied it up to know, lol.

 

There, I wrote her. We'll see what she writes back! I think that's a really good point about changing the way you implement the worksheets. The samples looked adorable with the little crafts to go with them. Do they get old or repetitive after a while? Why are people ditching them?

 

He actually knows all his letters from speech therapy already. I go over sounds with him too, but I've been teaching him ALL the sounds for each letter, hehe, since that's the way you do it with SWR. We just go through them quickly for fun when we're brushing teeth, doing a puzzle, or clipping nails. Doesn't take long.

Edited May 20, 2012 by OhElizabeth

[craftyerin]

I understand your hesitancy with those sorts of games. My kids find them hilarious, but one of mine has done his time in speech therapy and I certainly understand your concern with them, especially as your little guy is still struggling.

 

I just scanned through my book and counted. I only came up with 3 games where he makes mistakes like a wrong rhyming word that needs to be corrected. There were several others right in a row where he leaves off the ending sound of a word, trying to get the kids to hear the last consonant sound. Like, "I cleaned the carpet with the vacuu...." and they have to say "mmmm". I wasn't sure if you'd consider that in the same category of "mistake" games. I wouldn't. They're written in a different tone. Not "point out the error" but "fill in the sound". Hope that helps!

[mom&nana]

 

There, I wrote her. We'll see what she writes back! I think that's a really good point about changing the way you implement the worksheets. The samples looked adorable with the little crafts to go with them. Do they get old or repetitive after a while? Why are people ditching them?

 

 

 

The worksheets are repetitive. Part 1 is all Uppercase letters and the little crafts are really fun on those sheets, but it's mostly coloring. Part 2 is the same thing only it's lowercase letters. They have a few pages that are different like coloring all of one kind of letter to reveal a picture or finding the different ways "a" could be shown in print. Then part 3 is all the same cutting and pasting 3 pictures that have the sound of the letter shown on the page. There is just very little variety in there and I think that's why my kids got so bored with it. The TM has the fun activities with Ziggy and other games and such, like the wagon, memory match, etc.

 

In hindsight, I wondered if it would have been better to use all the worksheets for one letter at a time instead of in 3 different parts. What I mean is...say we are on Letter A... Do the uppercase sheet one day, the lowercase page the next and then the sound page on another day... then move on to B. I wonder if that would have helped variety-wise without disrupting the flow of the program? I don't know, it was just a thought, but one I haven't put into practice.

[KristenR]

I started AAR with my 3.5 year old because she was begging for her own school work like her older sister. You can see my posts on our experience with it here. I realize she is a bit younger than the target age for AAR but since she already knew her letter sounds and both upper and lower case recognition it has been going really well. We have slowed down a bit because the concept of rhyming has her totally lost. So we're just repeating some of the past lessons and adding on some more of our own.

 

She was having a hard time doing the Ziggy game where a letter is omitted or changed. She couldn't grasp rhyming so we ended up pulling out a few of her favorite books that she is VERY familiar with and Ziggy made a few mistakes there and she could easily correct him then.

 

Even so, rhyming hasn't "clicked" yet with her so we're taking our time and trying to have fun with it.

[PeterPan]

I understand your hesitancy with those sorts of games. My kids find them hilarious, but one of mine has done his time in speech therapy and I certainly understand your concern with them, especially as your little guy is still struggling.

 

I just scanned through my book and counted. I only came up with 3 games where he makes mistakes like a wrong rhyming word that needs to be corrected. There were several others right in a row where he leaves off the ending sound of a word, trying to get the kids to hear the last consonant sound. Like, "I cleaned the carpet with the vacuu...." and they have to say "mmmm". I wasn't sure if you'd consider that in the same category of "mistake" games. I wouldn't. They're written in a different tone. Not "point out the error" but "fill in the sound". Hope that helps!

 

Thank you!! That's totally it. And yes, leaving that final /m/ off would just be cute, where that initial consonant, well that's just a real sore point in our house and not funny. If it's only 3, that's no biggee to work around.

 

Mom&nana, I WONDERED about that!! I looked at the samples again, and what you're saying makes sense. What I *want* to do is use the letter of the week structure of the MFW K5 and use the more explicit phonics of AAR. (Or LoE if it's ready in time, or maybe LoE K5 will be a better follow-up to this? I really don't know, it isn't written yet.) If you rearrange the *worksheets* for AAR-pre and do them by each letter, would you still need to do the Ziggy activities in order? The Ziggy activities build conceptually right? Can you rearrange the book ENTIRELY by letter of the week, or will that make it not flow right? It's not so crazy to dissociate the phonemic awareness and the letters and sounds, but it did seem a little nuts, like you were paying and then just making a hassle for yourself.

 

So I guess that's a question. Is it sane to re-organize pre-AAR by letter of the week or nuts?

[krismoose]

Thank you!! That's totally it. And yes, leaving that final /m/ off would just be cute, where that initial consonant, well that's just a real sore point in our house and not funny. If it's only 3, that's no biggee to work around.

 

Mom&nana, I WONDERED about that!! I looked at the samples again, and what you're saying makes sense. What I *want* to do is use the letter of the week structure of the MFW K5 and use the more explicit phonics of AAR. (Or LoE if it's ready in time, or maybe LoE K5 will be a better follow-up to this? I really don't know, it isn't written yet.) If you rearrange the *worksheets* for AAR-pre and do them by each letter, would you still need to do the Ziggy activities in order? The Ziggy activities build conceptually right? Can you rearrange the book ENTIRELY by letter of the week, or will that make it not flow right? It's not so crazy to dissociate the phonemic awareness and the letters and sounds, but it did seem a little nuts, like you were paying and then just making a hassle for yourself.

 

So I guess that's a question. Is it sane to re-organize pre-AAR by letter of the week or nuts?

 

I think it would be fine and simple to reorganize the sheets that way, particularly if dc knows the sounds already. You could repeat or revise the games if desired on the 2nd & 3rd day for each letter. I will probably use the program again with next dd and will probably rearrange the pages.

 

My dd has also had many speech errors with initial sounds as well, and I've not treated the errors as funny, but just as "the old way" of saying X sound, or "a mistake, let's see if we can help him say it better." That way she still enjoys and benefits from the activities.

[mom&nana]

Mom&nana, I WONDERED about that!! I looked at the samples again, and what you're saying makes sense. What I *want* to do is use the letter of the week structure of the MFW K5 and use the more explicit phonics of AAR. (Or LoE if it's ready in time, or maybe LoE K5 will be a better follow-up to this? I really don't know, it isn't written yet.) If you rearrange the *worksheets* for AAR-pre and do them by each letter, would you still need to do the Ziggy activities in order? The Ziggy activities build conceptually right? Can you rearrange the book ENTIRELY by letter of the week, or will that make it not flow right? It's not so crazy to dissociate the phonemic awareness and the letters and sounds, but it did seem a little nuts, like you were paying and then just making a hassle for yourself.

 

So I guess that's a question. Is it sane to re-organize pre-AAR by letter of the week or nuts?

 

Hmmm.. in theory it seems like it should work. I do think the Ziggy activities build upon each other. I think it's possible that you could just do the Ziggy activities in order but it wouldn't necessarily match up if you do all the other worksheets for one letter at a time.

 

In looking through the TM, I didn't see why it wouldn't work to do all the letter A stuff at one time, and so on. But I tried it out on my 3 year old doing everything but the worksheets. She already knows most of her letters and some of their sounds. I chose the Letter F just randomly. The F activity in part one is singing the Alphabet song, pointing out the letter F on the chart, reading the Zigzag Zebra F story, having your child color the Uppercase F sheet, and then the "Get out of the Wagon" game. That is a rhyming game with 2 cards that rhyme and one that does not. My 3 year old did this fine, no problem.

 

So I went on to part 2 lowercase f activities. The lowercase activities include, the alphabet song and finding the lowercase letter f on the chart, reading Lizard Lou f poem and pointing out things that start with the letter f on that page, then the lowercase f worksheet, and the game "I spy" with Ziggy. The "I Spy" game uses cards and ziggy segments the sounds in one of the words... ex. C..r...a...b. The child then has to tell what Ziggy is spying. It took several tries, my dd struggled with this a bit. She could get some of them, but most of this was just going over her head.

 

I went on to Part 3 "the sound of F". She did fine telling me what started with f out of the 4 pictures on the worksheet page. But then they have a riddle game. You read the riddle and the child guesses the answer. The answers start with F. She bombed on that one, it was just too difficult.

 

So with that in mind, I'm thinking it's probably best to do the program in the order it's in. I'm thinking the lessons build upon themselves.

 

But I have used parts of MFW K in the past. I think it is such a sweet program. I'd like to use it again in the way you describe adding more of an OG phonics program to it. AAR doesn't have much in the way of review. It just goes through the letters one at a time. If you child doesn't get it, (like my 5 year old didn't at the time), it's just too bad, keep moving on to the next letter, or either keep repeating activities, or make up some of your own to help cement it.

 

So I wonder if you could do something like you described with MFW using AAR more as a supplement, pulling activities and such as you see fit. It might not make it worth it, or be very sane ;)...I don't know. I think MFW has more of those fun activities to help cement the letter names, sounds, etc.

 

ETA: I had forgotten about it, but AAR does have a page of additional activities in the appendix that you could do with the letters. EX... use a handwriting program, form letter of the day with toothpicks, pipe cleaners, etc... trace letter of day in pudding, sand, salt, etc.... They also suggest reading books after all the activities each day. I just think MFW is probably more intentional with their activities, if that makes sense.

Edited May 20, 2012 by mom&nana

[PeterPan]

I think it would be fine and simple to reorganize the sheets that way, particularly if dc knows the sounds already. You could repeat or revise the games if desired on the 2nd & 3rd day for each letter. I will probably use the program again with next dd and will probably rearrange the pages.

 

My dd has also had many speech errors with initial sounds as well, and I've not treated the errors as funny, but just as "the old way" of saying X sound, or "a mistake, let's see if we can help him say it better." That way she still enjoys and benefits from the activities.

 

Well that's interesting! I didn't think it would work, but I haven't had the materials in-hand. Cool.

[krismoose]

Well that's interesting! I didn't think it would work, but I haven't had the materials in-hand. Cool.

 

It would have worked for my dd, but as the pp said, the jumps would have been too big for some/many dc. The activities really are ordered well in the tm, and I say that as a certified Speech-language Pathologist as well. You'd just have to try it out and be flexible. :)

[craftyerin]

If you rearrange the *worksheets* for AAR-pre and do them by each letter, would you still need to do the Ziggy activities in order? The Ziggy activities build conceptually right? Can you rearrange the book ENTIRELY by letter of the week, or will that make it not flow right? It's not so crazy to dissociate the phonemic awareness and the letters and sounds, but it did seem a little nuts, like you were paying and then just making a hassle for yourself.

 

So I guess that's a question. Is it sane to re-organize pre-AAR by letter of the week or nuts?

I don't think it's nuts, nor would it be difficult. The letter part and the phonemic awareness part are totally separate. You would need to do the phonemic awareness activities in order, because yes, they do build on one another. But there is no reason why you would have to do the letters in order or why you couldn't do all 3 pages of "A" in a row, etc.

[craftyerin]

You guys have me rethinking this now, too! I'm currently accelerating our pace through the rest of pre-level (doing 3 lessons/week, instead of the 1 we had been doing) since I suspect some of us are ready for explicit phonics and reading instruction. We are about to start the 2nd third of the program, or the 2nd pass through the alphabet. I may put the letters together, doing A two days in a row, and B two days in a row until we finish up. That seems more palatable than doing a full two passes back through the alphabet when we already know our letter sounds and names. Most of what we're learning now is the in the phonemic awareness games. Hmmm...

[PeterPan]

Oops, I totally missed your reply mom&nana! That makes sense. I didn't think you'd be able to rush the Ziggy activities or rearrange them. Thanks for taking the time to type all that out and explain it. Well I guess we could invert it and plug the MFW activities into pre-AAR, lol. Sound crazy yet? Whew.

 

That's what comes of not knowing what you're trying to do! Well I didn't realize what was OUT there. I know what we did when my dd was little (SWR with letter tiles), but it was the crassest, most unfun methodology that totally relied on whatever I thought up. I love that there are more options now that bring more to the table. And I really don't know if that would work, but it actually might. If MFW is set up for 6 days per unit/letter, you could do 2 days of AAR to 3 days of MFW and basically work through the alphabet twice. And maybe the first time through you do the more glossy fun stuff (zebra pudding, etc.) as you learn the letters and the 2nd time through you do more of the word ladders and whatnot as you work on the sounds in pre-AAR.

 

Are the Ziggy activities letter-specific as you go through? I'll bet they are. So if you do them in order, just using a post-it note to hold your spot, you can't change the letter being used for the game?

[PeterPan]

Erin, I'm with you. He already knows his letters. He doesn't need 3 passes through for this. I think *2* passes through would be fine, simply because you're doing them at different levels and reinforcing. But 3 would get nauseating. I just don't have time for that, kwim? I'm not a mom-entertainment machine, lol.

[craftyerin]

 

Are the Ziggy activities letter-specific as you go through? I'll bet they are. So if you do them in order, just using a post-it note to hold your spot, you can't change the letter being used for the game?

 

They actually are not. It's weird, IMO. The lessons are in 3 parts. Reading the story or poem about the letter, playing the phonemic awareness game with the puppet, and then doing the coloring/activity sheet on the letter. But the games really are stand alone. It won't be hard at all do them in order, marking your spot with a sticky note, and to do the letter story and coloring page of your choice, whether or not from that lesson.

[pfamilygal]

The worksheets are repetitive. Part 1 is all Uppercase letters and the little crafts are really fun on those sheets, but it's mostly coloring. Part 2 is the same thing only it's lowercase letters. They have a few pages that are different like coloring all of one kind of letter to reveal a picture or finding the different ways "a" could be shown in print. Then part 3 is all the same cutting and pasting 3 pictures that have the sound of the letter shown on the page. There is just very little variety in there and I think that's why my kids got so bored with it. The TM has the fun activities with Ziggy and other games and such, like the wagon, memory match, etc.

 

In hindsight, I wondered if it would have been better to use all the worksheets for one letter at a time instead of in 3 different parts. What I mean is...say we are on Letter A... Do the uppercase sheet one day, the lowercase page the next and then the sound page on another day... then move on to B. I wonder if that would have helped variety-wise without disrupting the flow of the program? I don't know, it was just a thought, but one I haven't put into practice.

 

 

That's what we did!

[PeterPan]

That's what we did!

 

You're going to drop that and not tell us more? :D When you did that, did you do the Ziggy stuff in order or keep it with the letters? Did you add anything else? :)

[FromA2Z]

It is fairly easy to separate out the phonemic awareness activities. Each lesson has 2 pages. The front page lists the letter activities. The UC activities are the same for each letter, the lc activities the same, and the sound activities the same. The Phonemic awareness activities are on the back of the page.

This is what I do, take the worksheets out of the student book. But the UC A sheet on lesson 1 page in the teacher manual, lc a worksheet on lesson 2 page, sound a worksheet in lesson 3 page. Continue w/ UC B on lesson 4 page, lc b on lesson 5, sound b on lesson 6 and keep going.

You will know when you see the UC page to: do that page, read The zig zag zebra for that letter, use the UC chart and do whatever other handwriting exercises you want to do for that letter. Then do the PA activities that are on the back of that page in the TM. When you have a lc letter you would do all of the above except you'll be reading out of Lizard Lou and using the lc chart. For the sound worksheet you will be finding objects that make that in the pictures of both the Zig Zag Zebra book and Lizard Lou book and using the sound cards.

 

I hope that makes sense. If you don't want to put the worksheets in the TM, you can put a post-it in w/ a note: Lesson 1 UC A, lesson 2 lc a, lesson 3 sound a, etc a. And remember: UC = Zig Zag Zebra, lc= Lizard Lou, sound = both and going over cards. Hth

[krismoose]

This has given me good ideas for the next dd. Back to my original question, has anyone else used the level 1 game supplement? :D

[PeterPan]

It is fairly easy to separate out the phonemic awareness activities. Each lesson has 2 pages. The front page lists the letter activities. The UC activities are the same for each letter, the lc activities the same, and the sound activities the same. The Phonemic awareness activities are on the back of the page.

This is what I do, take the worksheets out of the student book. But the UC A sheet on lesson 1 page in the teacher manual, lc a worksheet on lesson 2 page, sound a worksheet in lesson 3 page. Continue w/ UC B on lesson 4 page, lc b on lesson 5, sound b on lesson 6 and keep going.

You will know when you see the UC page to: do that page, read The zig zag zebra for that letter, use the UC chart and do whatever other handwriting exercises you want to do for that letter. Then do the PA activities that are on the back of that page in the TM. When you have a lc letter you would do all of the above except you'll be reading out of Lizard Lou and using the lc chart. For the sound worksheet you will be finding objects that make that in the pictures of both the Zig Zag Zebra book and Lizard Lou book and using the sound cards.

 

I hope that makes sense. If you don't want to put the worksheets in the TM, you can put a post-it in w/ a note: Lesson 1 UC A, lesson 2 lc a, lesson 3 sound a, etc a. And remember: UC = Zig Zag Zebra, lc= Lizard Lou, sound = both and going over cards. Hth

 

Well you lost me, but I'm gonna go back and look at the samples to figure out what you meant. :lol:

[alisoncooks]

This has given me good ideas for the next dd. Back to my original question, has anyone else used the level 1 game supplement? :D

 

Yes. See my post above.

[PeterPan]

This has given me good ideas for the next dd. Back to my original question, has anyone else used the level 1 game supplement? :D

 

Sorry to get your thread side-tracked! For some reason I thought you had already gotten that answered. When I did SWR with my dd I made file folder games. They're definitely fun to play, and the ones shown for the AAR1 supplement look very nice. If you're doing AAR1, it would make a lot of sense to do them. I'm not sure I want to focus that much on sounding out. We didn't in SWR. There needs to be some, but spelling her way into reading (SWR) worked really well for my dd. So that to me would be the only issue. If you're using AAR1, it would make sense to get those file folder games. They take quite a bit of time to make yourself, and hers seem very nicely made.

[mom&nana]

Oops, I totally missed your reply mom&nana! That makes sense. I didn't think you'd be able to rush the Ziggy activities or rearrange them. Thanks for taking the time to type all that out and explain it. Well I guess we could invert it and plug the MFW activities into pre-AAR, lol. Sound crazy yet? Whew.

 

That's what comes of not knowing what you're trying to do! Well I didn't realize what was OUT there. I know what we did when my dd was little (SWR with letter tiles), but it was the crassest, most unfun methodology that totally relied on whatever I thought up. I love that there are more options now that bring more to the table. And I really don't know if that would work, but it actually might. If MFW is set up for 6 days per unit/letter, you could do 2 days of AAR to 3 days of MFW and basically work through the alphabet twice. And maybe the first time through you do the more glossy fun stuff (zebra pudding, etc.) as you learn the letters and the 2nd time through you do more of the word ladders and whatnot as you work on the sounds in pre-AAR.

 

Are the Ziggy activities letter-specific as you go through? I'll bet they are. So if you do them in order, just using a post-it note to hold your spot, you can't change the letter being used for the game?

 

You're welcome. I'm glad you found it helpful.

 

I think you can do just what you explained with MFW/AAR. It sounds like most of the above posters agree that the Ziggy Activities need to be done in order. But I do like the idea of doing the worksheets together all one letter at a time.

 

I've been using PR to teach my 7 year old to read. I like it, but I wouldn't really call it fun...lol. I like that AAR is a lot of fun games and activities that make it much more interesting for the child. And I did use the Pre-level with her last year, even though she was past it. It was a fun review. I will also play the games from AAR 1 with her, again as a fun review. She enjoys it and I think PR lacks a little in the learning to read department. My younger children will most likely do a few levels of AAR and then move over to PR.

 

I think a few of the Ziggy activities might be letter specific, like the letter F Riddle one I mentioned above. I think they could easily be used at any time though.

[craftyerin]

OK, I just went and planned out our homeschool week, and that involved some time with my pre-AAR manual. I looked ahead ot parts we haven't done yet (3rd pass through alphabet) and the phonemic awareness games DO start to be associated with the letter of the day in the 3rd section. So, I don't know if that would overly complicate your plans to do things out of order. I'll be curious to see if pfamilygal comes back to share how she made it work!

 

Also there were some missing beginning consonant games like the missing ending consonant games that I overlooked in my count of "mistake" games. They, too, feel more like "what's the missing sound" than "what did Ziggy say wrong", but since they involve beginning sounds, I didn't know if your little guy would be sensitive about them. I thought I'd mention it.

[mom&nana]

This has given me good ideas for the next dd. Back to my original question, has anyone else used the level 1 game supplement? :D

 

Sorry about that. I didn't buy those yet, but I plan to soon. I think OhElizabeth is right, it makes sense to get them. It will be a fun supplemental add on that includes Ziggy. I don't think there are any Ziggy activities in the regular TM for AAR 1. However, I haven't looked at the TM that closely yet, so maybe I missed something.

[PeterPan]

It is fairly easy to separate out the phonemic awareness activities. Each lesson has 2 pages. The front page lists the letter activities. The UC activities are the same for each letter, the lc activities the same, and the sound activities the same. The Phonemic awareness activities are on the back of the page.

This is what I do, take the worksheets out of the student book. But the UC A sheet on lesson 1 page in the teacher manual, lc a worksheet on lesson 2 page, sound a worksheet in lesson 3 page. Continue w/ UC B on lesson 4 page, lc b on lesson 5, sound b on lesson 6 and keep going.

You will know when you see the UC page to: do that page, read The zig zag zebra for that letter, use the UC chart and do whatever other handwriting exercises you want to do for that letter. Then do the PA activities that are on the back of that page in the TM. When you have a lc letter you would do all of the above except you'll be reading out of Lizard Lou and using the lc chart. For the sound worksheet you will be finding objects that make that in the pictures of both the Zig Zag Zebra book and Lizard Lou book and using the sound cards.

 

I hope that makes sense. If you don't want to put the worksheets in the TM, you can put a post-it in w/ a note: Lesson 1 UC A, lesson 2 lc a, lesson 3 sound a, etc a. And remember: UC = Zig Zag Zebra, lc= Lizard Lou, sound = both and going over cards. Hth

 

Ok, I'm back with a question about this! I reread it a few times and get it now, lol. So do you tend to do all that AND the Ziggy activities on the same day, or do you alternate days? So you do an UC sheet and all the UC activities *and* the Ziggy pages, all on the same day? How long does that tend to take?

[mom&nana]

Ok, I'm back with a question about this! I reread it a few times and get it now, lol. So do you tend to do all that AND the Ziggy activities on the same day, or do you alternate days? So you do an UC sheet and all the UC activities *and* the Ziggy pages, all on the same day? How long does that tend to take?

 

Well I'm still confused even though I re-read it a few times. But I can answer your question I think... when we used AAR we did a lesson a day. And 1 lesson covers a worksheet page, the letter activities (reading, etc), and the ziggy page. It's all in one lesson so we did do all that in one day and I didn't find that it took too long. We usually did all the activities and reading first, then I would let them color the worksheet page. Sorry if I wasn't understanding correctly. I still can't figure out what that poster was trying to say.

Edited May 20, 2012 by mom&nana

[PeterPan]

Well I'm still confused even though I re-read it a few times. But I can answer your question I think... when we used AAR we did a lesson a day. And 1 lesson covers a worksheet page, the letter activities (reading, etc), and the ziggy page. It's all in one lesson so we did do all that in one day and I didn't find that it took too long. We usually did all the activities and reading first, then I would let them color the worksheet page. Sorry if I wasn't understanding correctly. I still can't figure out what that poster was trying to say.

 

:lol: Too funny! I think I get it, but only because I have some kind of similar brain that would do such a thing. Actually, I figured I'd rip the whole thing apart and scan the pages in the order I wanted them so I'd have something on my ipad in the proper order. Mercy, hope that's not a copyright issue or something. If I buy it, it's mine. If it's set up so consistently, that ought to be easy to do. There are pdf editors for the ipad that let you rearrange pages. So by the time I'm done, I can merge the week plan for MFW and those pages for AAR, all in order, and have it be in one pdf file, right on my ipad. Hehe... :)

 

The lessons do sound long to me, but he's just an incredibly wiggly boy. He can sit, but he's a kinesthetic learner. Guess I better start thinking through that. That's why I got the games book for LoE, because I knew I was going to have some issues there. The speech therapist did a test on him that as this side thing ended up going through the learning modalities. He was dominantly kinesthetic with the next being visual I think. That's going to make it an adventure, sigh. Everything gets thrown, hit or whomped. Everything is a gun. He's more likely to throw manipulatives than move them nicely, lol. If I were REALLY swift, I'd figure out how you do those sound worksheets more kinesthetically. Shoot them with dart guns? Make them bigger and throw something at them? Wow, I'm just realizing what a ride I'm in for, lol.

[craftyerin]

We actually find that there's a good amount of wiggling built into the pre-AAR. The story reading is really fun if you let him act out some of the passages. :lol: Many of the games are active. Some have you jump or clap, or other such things. Others are easily tweaked to incorporate those things even if they're not written that way. 2/3 of my students are wiggly preschool boys, one of whom is diagnosed ADHD, so I understand the need to wiggle. Like I said earlier, I do have a hard time getting them interested in the coloring pages, but I also think that's the least valuable part of the program, so I'm not overly concerned about it.

 

eta: lessons take us about 15-20 min. Longer if it's my daughter who chooses to finish meticulously coloring her page, long after her brothers have run off.

[swellmomma]

Ok, have pity on me here. What is the Ziggy puppet? :)

 

Oh for pete sake! I found it. So it's a zebra. And what do you DO with the puppet? See I was looking at the AAR stuff, and it turns out this is a pre-school/pre-reading level. Ok, I looked at the samples and get what the puppet is for. Now I should go look at AAR1. I've never seen it. I'm back! AAR1 is definitely not appropriate for a 4 yo, so I'm looking at the pre-reading level. Any feedback on it? Works? Too fast? Needs more hands-on? Coloring sheets get old? Good, bad?

 

 

I use AAR prelevel 1 with my dd4, preschool boy and toddler girl. They love it. Ziggy is a favorite here, and they get very excited when Ziggy comes out to play. Of course you have to get the voices and silliness just right. They finish that part of their phonics lesson giving Ziggy a hug good bye. My dd4 and preschool boy are learning a lot from the program. We have a lot of fun with it. They love the activity sheets, they are not just coloring. For example, letter C was painted light brown with drak broown construction paper circles glued on to be like a choco chip cookie. Letter F We made thumb print goldfish in the pond and then colored the picture. Letter B used the end of a pencil to cover the letter with blue polka dots. It is always something different so the kids never get bored. We do other hands on activities too. SOmetimes ones suggested, sometimes out own ideas. So when we did letter F we used the magnet pieces from HWOT to write it out. We used playdough to make letter D. Popsicle sticks glued together to make letter E. Fingerpaining with letter C etc. We do 2 letters a week and then randomly throughout the week we recite the sound the letters we have learned thus far. I have at least 1 activity per day to practice forming or recognizing the letters we have learned.

[PeterPan]

Erin, that gives me hope, lol! Sounds like we're on the right track! BTW, how did your ds get diagnosed so young? I thought they had to be 6 or 7 and that until then it was tentative? Just what I had heard, not really certain.

[PeterPan]

I use AAR prelevel 1 with my dd4, preschool boy and toddler girl. They love it. Ziggy is a favorite here, and they get very excited when Ziggy comes out to play. Of course you have to get the voices and silliness just right. They finish that part of their phonics lesson giving Ziggy a hug good bye. My dd4 and preschool boy are learning a lot from the program. We have a lot of fun with it. They love the activity sheets, they are not just coloring. For example, letter C was painted light brown with drak broown construction paper circles glued on to be like a choco chip cookie. Letter F We made thumb print goldfish in the pond and then colored the picture. Letter B used the end of a pencil to cover the letter with blue polka dots. It is always something different so the kids never get bored. We do other hands on activities too. SOmetimes ones suggested, sometimes out own ideas. So when we did letter F we used the magnet pieces from HWOT to write it out. We used playdough to make letter D. Popsicle sticks glued together to make letter E. Fingerpaining with letter C etc. We do 2 letters a week and then randomly throughout the week we recite the sound the letters we have learned thus far. I have at least 1 activity per day to practice forming or recognizing the letters we have learned.

 

That's marvelous! Sounds like you're having a lot of fun with it! Well now I'm getting excited! :)

[craftyerin]

Erin, that gives me hope, lol! Sounds like we're on the right track! BTW, how did your ds get diagnosed so young? I thought they had to be 6 or 7 and that until then it was tentative? Just what I had heard, not really certain.

 

:lol: Our psychologist said, "Well, normally I wouldn't diagnose a not-quite-5yo, but who are we kidding? Let's not prolong the inevitable." We felt exactly the same way. It's OBVIOUS.

[PeterPan]

:lol: Our psychologist said, "Well, normally I wouldn't diagnose a not-quite-5yo, but who are we kidding? Let's not prolong the inevitable." We felt exactly the same way. It's OBVIOUS.

 

:lol::lol::lol: Well make sure you bop over on the SN board occasionally. It's a fun place! :D

[mom&nana]

:lol: Too funny! I think I get it, but only because I have some kind of similar brain that would do such a thing. Actually, I figured I'd rip the whole thing apart and scan the pages in the order I wanted them so I'd have something on my ipad in the proper order. Mercy, hope that's not a copyright issue or something. If I buy it, it's mine. If it's set up so consistently, that ought to be easy to do. There are pdf editors for the ipad that let you rearrange pages. So by the time I'm done, I can merge the week plan for MFW and those pages for AAR, all in order, and have it be in one pdf file, right on my ipad. Hehe... :)

 

The lessons do sound long to me, but he's just an incredibly wiggly boy. He can sit, but he's a kinesthetic learner. Guess I better start thinking through that. That's why I got the games book for LoE, because I knew I was going to have some issues there. The speech therapist did a test on him that as this side thing ended up going through the learning modalities. He was dominantly kinesthetic with the next being visual I think. That's going to make it an adventure, sigh. Everything gets thrown, hit or whomped. Everything is a gun. He's more likely to throw manipulatives than move them nicely, lol. If I were REALLY swift, I'd figure out how you do those sound worksheets more kinesthetically. Shoot them with dart guns? Make them bigger and throw something at them? Wow, I'm just realizing what a ride I'm in for, lol.

 

 

LOL, well I have no idea about boys. :) That Ipad plan of yours sure sounds nifty!! Technology is so cool. :D

 

Swellmomma is right, the coloring pages have some of the cutest ideas-not just coloring. I remember on the letter N (for nanny goat) we glued little pieces of foil paper on the stack of cans, and they have you making little peanuts with your thumb prints for the letter E with the elephant. We glued spaghetti noodles on the P for porcupines, added cinnamon to the pie on the R page where the Rascally Racoon runs off with the pie. So yes, it's lots of really fun, cute ideas.

 

Now have you looked at the MFW preschool activity cards for your wiggily boy? I just received them recently and they use the Lauri toys sold in the MFW preschool package. There are lots of varying activities included, fine motor and large motor activities, math skills, patterning, etc.. An example using the Lauri lowercase letter linking set is that they will have you lay them all out of the floor and have your child jump to the letter you call out, same with the number set. They have the lacing and linking shapes... games where you put the shapes into a bag and have your child feel for a shape with eyes closed and name it. They have the pegs and pegboard where you build towers, make patterns, etc. There are quite a few activity cards for each Lauri toy. We tried out a few already and my girls loved it.

[PeterPan]

Now have you looked at the MFW preschool activity cards for your wiggily boy? I just received them recently and they use the Lauri toys sold in the MFW preschool package. There are lots of varying activities included, fine motor and large motor activities, math skills, patterning, etc.. An example using the Lauri lowercase letter linking set is that they will have you lay them all out of the floor and have your child jump to the letter you call out, same with the number set. They have the lacing and linking shapes... games where you put the shapes into a bag and have your child feel for a shape with eyes closed and name it. They have the pegs and pegboard where you build towers, make patterns, etc. There are quite a few activity cards for each Lauri toy. We tried out a few already and my girls loved it.

 

You are so naughty!! :lol: I noticed those in the catalog but failed to look at them at the convention to have a sense of whether they'd be useful to us or not. We actually have a lot of Lauri stuff. We use it in speech therapy sessions. I try to take new toys in to keep things fresh and keep him motivated, so he's gone through a lot of stuff. Haven't done much lacing, even though I think we have some of those. I was actually thinking about getting the MFW K5. I didn't know if it was redundant to get the preschool activity cards on top of that. And sometimes I just get more ideas than will actually get done, lol. Anyways, I did order the AAR pre-level. I think it will be fun. I loved how clearly structured everything was in AAS. We'll see how it goes with my ds. I'll probably spring for something from MFW (that K5, whatever) to go along with the AAR. Haven't thought much about math. I did RS A with my dd when she was 5 and it was a bit late for her. We went into B pretty quickly. I'm not sure my ds will be the same, don't know. He likes anything doing. I've gotten out the abacus with him a little, but that was the extent of his interest. Well I take that back, the nut was playing store with my coins today, hehe. Perhaps I've been thinking of this the wrong way! :)

[mom&nana]

:lol::lol: Well I've been enabled quite a bit from this forum so just passing it on. ;)

 

I don't know if it'd be redundant with the MFW k stuff, but you can always look at the Preschool stuff as a fun supplement, just fun learning games to play anytime. But I'm like you.. way to much stuff I like and all these ideas that never become fulfilled.

 

I think you'll have fun with AAR, you'll have to give us an update when you get going with it. And get that little guy a little Learning Resources cash register to play store with. My girls got one for Christmas from my SIL. :)

[alisoncooks]

My 5 yr old (nearly 6) really enjoys it. We don't have the puppet Ziggy, but the game comes with a picture of Ziggy that you can glue to the front of a file folder and prop up to "play" games with. I thought DD was "above it" but she begs for them. So far we've done the 1st 2 games and she asks for them all the time.

 

It took me FOREVER to put it all together, though. I wish the game pieces were printed on card stock b/c they're already getting bent (and I refuse to laminate them :p b/c that's just MORE cutting out I have to do).

 

But overall, glad I bought it. The games really are simple and you could find similar ones online for free... But they've made my DD happy (as has AAR1 in general) so I'll not complain (too loudly). :)

 

ETA: We also don't cut/paste/color the things in the activity book. I store each activity page in a page protector. If it's a matching page (that we should paste) we just don't; we cut it out, match it and then store it to review another day. There's one page right near the beginning of a monster that eats bones; my daughters have "played" with that page multiple times already. The fluency pages also go in a page protector to do a few lines at a time. (I'm saving it all for my youngest, who is just a couple years behind in age, but closer in reading level.) So these pages, for us, almost feel game-like.

 

So, I'm going back to my earlier post and making this amendment....

I spent a good part of yesterday going through the Student Activity Book and pulling pages out, getting them ready ahead of time (cutting things out, storing them in a page protector). IMO, unless you particularly want to cover a skill that is focused on in the Ziggy game supplement, I don't think you need it just to have some games. The pages in the Activity Book are plenty "game-like." Not a single page is writing or requiring a pencil, it's all moving words, matching, sorting, reading. (And there are several pages that can be used over and over for game-like practice.)

 

So.....if I could go back, I'd save that $20 and skip the game supplement; however, we have it and DD loves it so I'm not annoyed or anything, at all. (And according to DD, you can never have too many games... ;))

[MerryAtHope]

What I *want* to do is use the letter of the week structure of the MFW K5 and use the more explicit phonics of AAR. (Or LoE if it's ready in time, or maybe LoE K5 will be a better follow-up to this? I really don't know, it isn't written yet.) If you rearrange the *worksheets* for AAR-pre and do them by each letter, would you still need to do the Ziggy activities in order? The Ziggy activities build conceptually right? Can you rearrange the book ENTIRELY by letter of the week, or will that make it not flow right?

 

You can change the order of the introduction of letters, but you don't want to change the order of the "Language Exploration" sections--do these in order. As you suspected, these build conceptually.

 

The author does capitals first because there are few opportunities for reversals, unlike small letters.

 

HTH! Merry :-)

[PeterPan]

You can change the order of the introduction of letters, but you don't want to change the order of the "Language Exploration" sections--do these in order. As you suspected, these build conceptually.

 

The author does capitals first because there are few opportunities for reversals, unlike small letters.

 

HTH! Merry :-)

 

Makes good sense! Thanks for explaining! :)