If you’ve been receiving my unit studies for the past couple of weeks, you know that the unit study topic has been dogs. Weekly Unit Study: Dogs Part 1 concentrated on teaching reading, writing, art, conversation, formulating opinions, math, grocery shopping, cooking, sharing and caring. Weekly Unit Study: Dogs Part 2 focused on teaching more reading, writing and math as well as typing, responsibility, geography and computer skills.
Well, it’s Monday again, but instead of doing a unit study, per se, we’re going to work on your child’s memory by means of physical exercises and games. However, some of the exercises and games will be related to the past two Mondays’ unit studies on dogs. This will be a fun homeschooling day for your child and should keep him interested despite his ADD.
READ THIS FIRST
Before starting the exercises, it’s important to understand the two phases of physical memorization games. Please click on the link at the end of the previous sentence to read about it. Then click on your back button to come back to this post.
SPELLING
Fact Explanation/Review Phase
Two weeks ago in Weekly Unit Study: Dogs Part 1 you had your child read a book or part of a book to you. After that you read a book to him that was a little more difficult than the one he read. Grab those books again (or go back to the ones that you read online) and pick some words that you are not sure if he knows how to spell. But make sure to also include some words that you are sure he can spell very well. Including words that are easy for him to spell will help build up his confidence when you play the game.
Write the words on a large whiteboard or chalkboard. If you don’t have one, you could just use a large sheet of paper, but using a whiteboard is the most visually stimulating and interesting to kids. Leave space below each of the words you write. Include no more than 10 words. About half of them should be words he can already spell quite well.
Starting with the first word, mention to him what part of the book used that word. If he starts talking about something that happened in that part of the book since you got him thinking about it, that’s okay. But if his ADD makes him hyperfocus on a topic and he goes on and on about the book, politely tell him that it was interesting, but ‘let’s get back to the spelling of these words’.
Next, have him write the word himself under each of the words you wrote. Don’t focus to much on his handwriting, especially if he’s using a fat dry-erase marker on a whiteboard, but make sure you can at least read what he wrote. If it’s so messy you can’t even read it, kindly say something like ‘I can"t make out those last two letters, can you write them over again?’
Now have him read the first word he wrote out loud, then spell it while looking at it.
Exercise/Game Phase
This game is called the "Push-Each-Other-Around-the-Floor Game". Yeah, it needs a better name, but I can’t seem to think of one (leave a comment with a suggestion if you can think of a good name, please).
Get some masking tape or any other kind of tape that is easy to write on and cut 40 strips of tape about 2 inches long. Together, write the words on the tape, repeating each word about 4 times (if you have 10 different spelling words).
If you have a kitchen floor with squares on it, such as a ceramic floor or a vinyl floor with design lines on it, place one piece of tape on each square. Your playing area should be about 5 squares wide and 8 squares long. Try not to place duplicates of the same words next to each other. If your squares are too small to fit one of your feet on it, then use more tape to outline several squares large enough to fit your feet. You can also use the tape to make your own squares if your floor doesn’t have any.
Now, stand on the middle line, 4 squares into the playing area, with your feet about shoulder distance apart. Have your child face you, placing his feet a few inches away from yours.
Put your hands out like your pushing on a door while he does the same, placing your left hand on his left hand and your right hand on his right, palm to palm. Tell him to push against your palms to try to make you move your feet. When you feel him pushing, push back, trying to make him move his feet. Because you’re bigger and stronger than he is, you can probably make him move and resist moving yourself. However, at times let up on the pressure so that he has the advantage.
If you stumble and move your feet, ask your child to look at the square where the toes of your right foot are resting and read the word that appears there (don’t look at the square yourself). Repeat the word that he read to you and spell it.
If your child is the one that stumbles and moves his feet, then you should read the word while he spells it, without looking at the ground.
Each time you spell a word out loud it helps him, since he hears the word being spelled. You count no points when you spell a word. Each time he spells a word correctly you count one point. If he spells two words correctly in a row, that’s two points. Once he spells a word wrong, the score goes back to zero and he starts over again. Spell the word that he spelled incorrectly and have him repeat the spelling before you resume the game.
It’s important to note that this is not a competitive game. When educational games are competitive, it can distract the child from learning and decrease his confidence level. However, if you have two children, they can play this game together, but their score should be collective. If either of them spells a word incorrectly, their collective score goes back to zero.
The goal is to get 20 points.
Make sure that he realizes that you can only push against each other hands, otherwise it can quickly get rough and crazy, especially between two kids.
There will be lots of laughing as you push and shove each other, and you may find he doesn’t want to stop. Our "Push-Each-Other-Around-the-Floor Game" usually lasts about 20 to 30 minutes. By the time you are done, he will probably know the new words by heart. If not, that’s okay, too. Just continue to use the words that he spelled wrong the next time that you play the game together.
The key to this game’s success is making it fun for your child. If he’s having a great time, he won’t think of it as just practicing spelling the same words over and over. Could you imagine how he would respond if you just had him sit there and spell the words for 20 to 30 minutes, or used flash cards for that long. Blah. That would bore the life out of him.
Share your experience with this game by commenting on it after you are done. Feel free to have your child comment himself!
Let’s move on to the next memorization game, one involving math.
ADDITION
In Weekly Unit Study: Dogs Part 1 , you did some math together when you cooked the dog biscuits (simple fractions) and when you had your child figure out how much many bills to give the cashier and how much cash to get back. In Weekly Unit Study: Dogs Part 2 , your child used math to figure out how much it costs to own a dog over time. But in order to do math problems, he must first be able to add well. In this game your child will practice addition.
Fact Explanation/Review Phase
Start with the whiteboard again. Write 10 addition problems, without the answer. Have your child fill in the answers to the ones that he knows. Try to include some problems which you know he can figure out so that he’ll feel positive about the experience.
Help him to figure out the ones he doesn’t know by memory. In other words, if he doesn’t know the answer to 5 + 4, count out 5 of some item, such as buttons (not coins because they have a number value, and that can be confusing later on) and then add 4 buttons to them, then have him count the total number of buttons. After that, count out 5 buttons again, and have him add 4 buttons, counting them as he adds them. Finally, have him do that same step again, but this time have him put the 4 buttons he wants to add to one side, then tell them that as he adds them to the 5 buttons he must count starting with the number following 5. In other words, he adds a button from the pile of 4 to the pile of 5 while saying "6". The next button he adds he says "7". This teaches him the concept of "counting up". These methods help him to understand the conceptual side of math.
Don’t worry if he is slow at this, but if you see he is getting very bored or irritated, then just do a few of these and move on.
Exercise/Game Phase
If it’s not too cold out (we get some nice days in Winter here in North Carolina), play this game in the back yard or at a park. He’ll love the idea of going to a park for homeschool!
All you need to play this game is a ball that you can kick, such as a soccer ball, a rubber ball or one of those cheap plastic balls that they sometimes sell at Target or Wal-Mart. Oh, and you also need 4 sticks or rocks.
Place the sticks or rocks about 6 feet apart like soccer goal posts. Alternatively you can scrape marks in the ground. Do this on both ends of the field or yard.
Start the game by saying a math problem such as 5 + 4, then kick the ball, trying to get it between your child’s goal posts. He has to try to block your attempt. If you get it in jump and cheer, but don’t count any points.
Next, your child yells the answer to the problem, in this case 9, and kicks the ball to you trying to get it between your goal posts. (If he’s very young, give him a break and let him get it in once in a while.) Jump and cheer again for him if he gets it in.
If he gets the answer wrong, don’t kick the ball back to him. Instead pick it up and say "no, it’s 9, try again", but in a cheerful voice, and throw it back to him. Since you gave him the answer, he’ll get it right this time. On your turn to kick, say the same math problem again until he has done it 5 times. This repetition is only for problems that he got wrong. If he gets it right immediately, just move on to a new math problem.
Every time he gets one right it equals one point. His goal is 20 points. When he gets one wrong he goes back down to zero. If it’s too hard for him or your time is limited, just try going for 10 points.
How hard the addition problems are depend on the age and math ability of your child. If he can add all of the single-digit numbers, proceed on to double-digit numbers. If he can do those, move on to triple digits, etc.
This game can go on for 30 to 45 minutes without most ADD kids becoming too bored. If he does seem to get bored of it quickly, then every 3 points or so, play a one-on-one soccer game where he runs and kicks the ball while you try to get it away from him before he can get it in your goal and vice-versa. This version of the game is great exercise for the both of you.
If the weather doesn’t allow you to go outside, try an indoor version of this game with two socks rolled up in a ball together.
These are just a few physical memorization games that we play with Steven. They work fantastic. I’m sure you’ll find the same.
Do any of you have any variations on this game?
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