Letter from Betty for April 2014

Hello, 

Happy Spring! It appears that change is upon us as we exchange our winter coats for windbreakers and shovels for garden tools. Flowers are preparing to bloom and birds are chirping. Here at FFL I am pleased to tell you about a change we have made.  

Ivette Gonzalez has joined the FFL staff! Ivette has become well known in the area by working as a reading specialist for kindergarten through third graders at an area independent school. Learn more about Ivette below and give her a call at FFL to set up a time to discuss concerns you have regarding your child's pre-reading or reading skills.

Enjoy the pleasant weather!

Betty

Betty Bodenweiser
Director
Foundation for Learning

Ivette Gonzalez Joins Staff

Foundation for Learning welcomes Ivette Gonzalez as the newest member of our dedicated team of tutors.

Ivette is our reading expert for kindergarten through 3rd grade students. She specializes in the Orton-Gillingham approach with students who are dyslexic and have reading challenges. She is a certified reading specialist and oversees the literacy program at an area independent school. She also works with parents and students to teach preschool literacy skills and kindergarten readiness. Ivette holds a BA in psychology, masters in elementary education, masters in reading instruction and curriculum design, and has over 24 years of teaching experience.

SAT/ACT Test Schedules for April 2014

Mark your calendars! Here are the latest SAT, ACT, and SSAT test dates.

Math Games in Everyday Life

As parents, we have some really great opportunities to introduce, reinforce, and practice math skills with our kids. Including our kids in some of our everyday activities while pointing out “real world” uses is an easy and painless way to help our kids understand and conceptualize all kinds of math skills.



Here are a few fun ideas and games to get you started:

SIGN HUNT
Go on a sign hunt! While on a walk or a car trip, bring along your camera phone or inexpensive digital camera. Have your child search for signs (traffic, directional, business, etc) and take photos of the signs he/she finds. Better yet, have your child take the photos. When you get home, upload them to your computer and cuddle up together to organize the sign photos by color, shape, etc. Are there more of one color/shape? How many are there? How many more are there of one kind than another? Getting your child involved in the hunting, snapping, and organizing is a great way to learn basic color and shape recognition as well as counting and basic organizing skills.


GO FISH
Remember playing “Go Fish” when you were a kid? Well this simple game is a fantastic way for your child to learn number recognition!




CONCENTRATION
How about “Concentration”? This card-flipping challenge is sometimes called the “Memory Game” and for good reason. Taking turns flipping over numbered cards to hunt for matches is a great way to enhance number recognition and number matching while at the same time slowly developing concentration skills and spacial memory…in a fun way!


ZOO GAME
A super easy game which will help your child develop counting skills as well as basic addition and subtraction is the zoo game. With just a couple of cute boxes of animal crackers and a tray or plate you can make your own zoo. With parent as zookeeper, place a couple of animal crackers into the zoo (plate) and ask your child how many animals are there. Add a couple more and ask again. Every time your child eats a cracker or two ask your child to count them out (subtraction the fun way!). Continue adding and subtracting until snack time is over. How fun!


FAMILY COOKING
Cook with your child! Including them in kitchen activities while you’re cooking and baking is a super way to learn about estimation (How many chocolate chips are in each cookie?), measuring (ingredients), fractions (teaspoons, tablespoons, half cup, whole cup, etc.), and counting (How many cups of flour do we put into the bowl?), and the results are delicious!


MONEY GAMES
And kids of all ages will benefit from money games. Matching coins or paper money denominations, counting, adding, and subtracting are all great activities. Let your child get hands-on with money while talking about it! Both younger and older kids will benefit from the exercise of planning, budgeting, and saving for a particular item purchase. Is there a toy, game, or some other item your child is yearning for? Well, help them to find out the price and then plan, budget, and save for that item. When that goal is achieved then go on a shopping trip together and let your child get the item from the shelf, take it to the counter, and pay for it themselves. What a great life lesson! It’s never too early to learn money management.

We have so many everyday opportunities to teach our kids math skills and to make it fun!

The Puzzler: The Missing Dingo

In the Land Down Under, the road signs warn highway travelers of animals not found anywhere else in the world.

QUESTION: If I told you that the warning signs in the photos below depicted a cassowary, koala, bandicoot, kangaroo, emu, and wombat, but not a single dingo, could you tell me which was which?



BONUS: Set out from Sydney and travel west 10 km. Stop, turn around, travel east 2 km. Stop again, turn around, travel west 5 km. Stop, turn around, travel east 2 km. Stop! How far will you have to go to get home to Sydney?

No worries, mate! Answers next month.



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LAST ISSUE'S PUZZLER: If You Liked That Author (Part 2), with ANSWERS
 

Most avid readers will find a book they like and then explore more books by the same author. Here are images from 4 books for older children, each written by an author listed in our feature article above. Can you name the authors? Bonus points for the names of these great books!

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ANSWERS: 

1. J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings.
2. E.B. White, Stuart Little.
3. Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree.
4. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass.