Friday, January 15, 2010

Sonlight LA K

This page will be ongoing as we work through the program it will contain links to other activities I have made or used to supplement our Language Arts Program. I am altering the program to reflect the THRASS (Teaching Handwriting Reading And Spelling Skills) phonics program. So you will see this approach in the worksheets I have made.

Keep checking back during the year as we slowly add to these resources.

Resources we use for the year

Sandpaper Letters (I used the letter sheets from here) and cut them out of sandpaper and stuck them onto another sheet of cardboard. Confessions of a Homeschooler has lacing cards that would be possible to use to make sandpaper letters
(I teach the Upper and Lower case letters together by name and the sounds (phoneme) in a box so we learn all the grapheme (spelling choices) for this sound at the same time. We have a lot of fun with our THRASS chart.) If you want to learn more about what this is. Look here

Find the letter worksheets from BeginningReading.com I will print these up and laminate them and add them to the Letter Folder I am collecting for each letter so next child round I am all organized :)

Make a calender using the blank calender here This is the second year we have used this calender and the girls really like having their own calenders. They cross of a day each day and so keep track of the year.

Note to self - while this calender has been working ok for the older girls, I think the younger girls could do with more calender learning. On my to do list is make a calender board like this one here @ Our World Wide Classroom which is based on this one here @ 1+1+1=1

Favourite Websites for overall Language Arts activities are:
Hubbards Cupboard (check out the abc stations for activities that could easily be adapted for workboxes
ChildCareLand look under free printables. This site has a wealth of extra ideas for workboxes and so simple.


Weekly Letter Page or Alphabet Album

Sonlight has you make a letter page each week. Instead of doing that how about making a photo book? The Photo and idea is from Let's Explore
She has a new Let's Explore Blog here. You could allow your child to take photos and add to the book (and tick off technology for that day!)

Week 1 Letter Ff activities
My Letter Ff Worksheet

Lots of extra activities to do at Confessions of a Homeschooler. I don't do them all but they are good for ideas and extra games to add to the workbox Letter F activities here.
From No Time for Flash Cards - Letter Ff

Week 2 Letter Bb Activities
My Letter Bb Worksheet (note this worksheet contains 'lamb' & 'thumb' which really belong in the "m" sound box. If you don't want to explain this use this one Letter Bb worksheet edit. I didn't realise I had added these until we used it this morning!

Confessions of a Homeschooler - Letter Bb activities

From Walking by the way comes B is for boat

No Time for Flash Cards - Letter Bb

Letter Bb Fun Bag activities from Home Grown Hearts

Lots of fun Bb Activities at Delightful Learning

Language and Thinking Alphabet - we will be using the THRASS alphabet rap song and printed alphabet sheet. Bunny will be able to listen to it on the ipod and follow along on the sheet. This will be a daily workbox activity. You could copy any favourite alphabet song to CD or ipod and allow your child to listen to it independently as a workbox activity - a fun way to learn the alphabet letter names.

Day 3 Activity - Write an Invitation
There are some really nice letter writing papers for downloading here. They are printable letter and envelope in one.
Now would also be a good time to introduce a workbox activity for writing letters. Honey at Sonflower Schoolhouse has one ready to download and go. Letter Writing for the Workboxes (Scroll down the page it is no 67)

Day 4 Activity - Story Sequencing
3 Bears Story pictures printed from Sparkle box . I already have a felt board set for this story I made when I was working in Childcare so I will be offering the option of either or both on different days as a fun workbox activity.

The 3 bear bingo set also from sparkle box will make a good working with sibling fun workbox.
My Sequencing Cards for 3 Bears Activity - use if your child needs pictures to help them.
There are some really cute printables at Kidzclub.com for the three bears. They would make a good book bag activity for the three bears story.


Week 3 Letter Mm Activities
My letter Mm Worksheet

Letter M Fun From Confessions of a Homeschooler

Day 2 Activity - Cornmeal Letters.
I did this activity last time we did K with the last child but I ended up with worms getting into my cornmeal (not nice) so this time I am going to use sand - as soon as I can find a nice box. I want THIS ONE. How nice to write in orange sand and see a beautiful blue with each letter.


Week 4 Letter Tt Activities
My Letter Tt Worksheet (This week there were so many words on the THRASS chart that contained T that the worksheet is 2 pages (print double sided if you want) I actually prefer it this way as it looks like a real THRASS chart - I might have to redo the others!)

Turtle fun for the Letter T from Confessions of a Homeschooler

Day 2 Activities - 3-D Letters
You can download playdough alphabet cards from Childcareland. Scroll down the page until you come to the photo and download.

Day 3 Activities - Bean Bag Game
Make some bean bags (if you don't already have some. Easy instructions here. This would be a good sewing project for children.


Week 5 Letter Rr Activities

Lots of Rainbow fun from Confessions of a Homeschooler.


2 comments:

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  2. Hi! I've just found your blog today, and am thoroughly enjoying looking through it! I am also in Australia (Brisbane), and am doing Sonlight K with my dd - plus a bit of lapbooking and whatever other "extras" we end up discovering :).

    I was particularly interested in this post, as Sonlight's LA is also a bit of a sticking point with me. I actually don't like their LA K at all, and am using Jolly Phonics. We really liked the stories, actions and colouring associated with each sound, and I've been reasonably happy with it till the last week or so, when they were asking me to dictate long "a" words to my daughter ... with no guidance as to which spelling choice (ai or a_e ) was correct. Apparently that is just learned by sight and practice...

    However, I have heard a few people say that THRASS is very thorough, and thought it might provide a little more systematic instruction - is this the case? Can you explain more about how it works? Also, if I decided to buy it - what "bits" are the bare minimum? So many of these packages have loads of add-ons for classrooms, that of course they want everyone to buy! I assume somewhere like EdsCo would stock it?

    Many thanks for your time, and for your helpful posts, and I hope to hear from you soon.

    Karen.

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