On the phonics course that I run, one of the favourite activities has always been using washing lines to teach phonics. Many children love washing lines, and the practitioners like them too. They are easy to create and inspire lots of valuable learning. Using washing lines in general is great for children. It develops their …
You see story spoons all over social media these days, and rightly so, because they are beautiful aesthetic resource that can have a lot of value. But how do you get children to use them in a constructive way, and not just hit each other or have sword fights? In short, how do you use …
Story stones are probably one of the most well-known resources for encouraging children to become independent story-tellers. They feel so natural and part of humanity’s storytelling past. But what do you do with them when you’ve got them? Here’s the quick answer. How do you use story stones? Some of the most effective ways of …
Before children learn to write words, they need to orally segment. Segmenting is simply the skill of separating words up into their component sounds. For example, ‘pig’ becomes ‘p-i-g’. ‘Dog’ becomes ‘d-o-g’. It does not matter how the word is written. You are splitting up the sounds not the letters. So ‘chain’ would be split …
When I very first started teaching I had all sorts of problems with behavior! I remember the first lesson I ever took, and about half of the children lay down on the floor and refused to sit back up again. Dark days! Shortly after this, one of my first discoveries to counter interesting behaviors such …