If Kids Aren’t Learning the Way We Teach, Let’s Teach the Way Kids Learn!
Engaging Themes…
As Disney well knows, KIDS LOVE THEMES! The Half-Pint Readers were designed to center upon 18 exciting themes. A few examples are: Forest Fun, Arctic Adventures, Digging Up Dinosaurs, Medieval Magic, Down on the Farm, Pioneer Days, Under the Sea, In the Meadow, Circus Fun and Community Helpers. Themes peek the child’s interest and focus their learning on a certain topic. Themes broaden a child’s horizons and make learning meaningful. Teaching with themes is a great way to integrate other subject areas such as math, science, social studies, art and music. It is fun to go to the library to look for authentic literature relating to each theme, including fiction and non-fiction books. Themes also give ideas of places to visit on fieldtrips, topics for research and writing, as well as ways to integrate media and technology. With a little imagination, a classroom or playroom can be transformed into any theme, such as a tropical rainforest complete with hanging paper vines, jungle sounds and children’s artwork of exotic animals. Materials at centers can be switched out with each theme to keep learning fresh and exciting. For example, during a farm theme, toy farm animals can be added to the block center, rubber duckies to the water table, growing seeds at science, straw hats to dramatic play and so on. YouTube offers many songs and educational videos to go along with each theme. If you are looking for teaching ideas for a certain theme, Pinterest will give you an endless supply!! Plus, teaching with themes is a perfect way to organize your materials into bins so items can easily be found when you need them.
Multi-Sensory Lesson Plans…
Early childhood research says that children learn best through discovery and play, not by sitting through endless drills and doing worksheet upon worksheet. Half-Pint Kids believes children learn through joy and meaningful experiences. We have designed our lesson plans to include activities that teach to all learning styles; visual, auditory and tactile-kinesthetic. When children are actively engaged, they want to learn and they enjoy the lesson. Children who act out are usually bored and they just need to get up and move! Check out our free online teaching guides with hundreds of multi-sensory lessons and other fun activities. Most of the materials you will need, you may already have in your classroom or at home. The rest can be purchased inexpensively at a dollar store. You will find yourself having as much fun as your child or students with such a variety of hands-on materials and engaging activities.
Literacy Centers…
To make learning stick, children need to practice newly learned skills and review previously learned ones. A great way to do this is with colorful, thematic, hands-on literacy centers. You can create these centers by downloading, printing and laminating the sets of literacy centers that go along with each theme. Each set contains 12 centers that reinforce skills in a variety of ways. Some of the centers require such items as clothespins, bottle caps, homemade moveable alphabets, etc. Whenever a child gets to use manipulatives, they are learning with joy and it is well worth the effort of creating the materials. The skills in each set of literacy centers are explicit, systematic, sequential and cumulative, just like the skills in the Half-Pint Readers. Practicing skills with the use of literacy centers eliminates the need for numerous worksheets.
Activity Pages…
We believe that children learn best with multi-sensory experiences. However, we also feel it is important that children have the opportunity to practice skills with paper and pencil, as long as this is not their only way to learn! We have created an activity page to go along with each of the Half-Pint Reader decodable books to reinforce skills and to encourage children to follow directions. These free activity pages are colorful and engaging, with a variety of tasks to complete. The activity pages can be downloaded and printed in color or grayscale.