Homeschooling ADD Kids

Last Monday I explained how you can teach your child how to do Internet research on the topic of dinosaurs,  which was the theme of our unit study for the two weeks before that.

Today we’re going to work on your child’s memory by means of physical exercises and games again, like we did a number of weeks ago after doing the unit study on dogs.  If you did the games from last month, you’ll notice that the instructions below are basically the same as last time, except that I changed the game/exercise activities.  Keeping the same basic system for doing the Fact Explanation/Review Phase is a great aid in creating enough "ritual" to make it easy to remember how to do.  At the same time you’ll find enough variety in games that your child won’t get bored (especially if he has 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: Dinosaurs 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 Playdo Hockey.  If you don’t have any Playdo, you can make your own or just make a little inedible modeling dough and use that.

Clear off the kitchen table.  Your child stands at one end and you stand at the other end.  Cup your right hand (or your left if you are left-handed) and think of it as being a little hockey stick.  Start the game by saying one of the spelling words that you used in the Fact Explation/Review Phase in the section above.  After you say the word, hit the Playdo with your palm so that it slides or rolls across the table toward your child.  Your goal is to try to knock it off the other end of the table.  Your child should try to prevent this using his right hand.  He can only rest his hand on the table, though.  He can’t block the end of the table with any part of his arm.

Now he has the opportunity to hit it toward you with his hand and try to get it to go off of your end of the table.  However, before he does this he must spell the word that you said to him before you hit the Playdo.  If he spells it incorrectly, tell him so and spell it correctly for him.  Then tell him to repeat the correct spelling.  Have him spell it one more time correctly, after which he may now hit the playdo toward you.

Each time he spells a word correctly, he gets one point.  The goal is to get to 20 points.  (It can be less depending on your child’s age or ability).  There are no points awarded for getting the Playdo off the opponent’s side of the table.  That part is just for fun.

When he misspells a word, his score returns to zero. 

If he seems to get bored of the game quickly, then every 3 points or so, play a fast hockey game where you both hit the Playdo back and forth without stopping until one of you misses.   This is great fun, but make sure to stop and go back to the previously-described way of playing so that he can practice the spelling words.

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.  So laugh a lot and enjoy the game!

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, which teaches math.

MULTIPLICATION

Last week in Weekly Unit Study: Dinosaurs Part 2, you did some math together when your child colored in the dinosaur, using colors matched with the solutions to addition problems.  But in order to do math problems, he must first be able to add, subtract, multiply or divide well.  In this game your child will practice multiplication.  However, if your child is still working on addition or subtraction, keep working on that instead.

Fact Explanation/Review Phase

Start with the whiteboard again.  Write 10 multiplication 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.

When your child gets stuck, tell him the answer, but have him write it on the board.  Then erase the answer and have him do it again.  Since he just wrote it down, he’ll probably remember the answer.  Do this a number of times until it seems that he can get most of the answers right the majority of the times that he does it.

Exercise/Game Phase

Say a number and then do that number of jumping jacks.  Now ask your child to say a number and do the number of jumping jacks that he said.  Now ask him what the answer is if he multiplies your number of jumping jacks times the number of jumping jacks that he did.  Give him a point if he gets it right.  (Don’t worry, neither of you have to actually do the number of jumping jacks equaling the solution to the problem.) 

Next, say a number and do that number of push-ups. If you can’t do push-ups, try kneeling and doing them.  Ask you child to say a number and do that number of push-ups, too.  Have him multiply the numbers.  Again, he gets one point if he gets it right.

Continue to do the same with other exercises such as squats, sit-ups and similar exercises.

The goal is to get 10 points.  For this exercise game, it might be better not to go back to zero if he gets an answer wrong, otherwise you might both fall on the floor from exhaustion.

This is a great way for the both of you to get some exercise while improving your child’s memory at the same time.

NEXT WEEK

Now that we’ve had unit studies on both dogs and dinosaurs, we’ll move on to another topic, yet to be decided.

Up to now I’ve only been writing unit studies and games for memorization for each Monday.  However, I would love it if one of you would like to write and submit some unit studies, too.  We are almost at 100 subscribers.  If each of us submitted a unit study periodically, we could have enough unit studies to cover each day of the week!  Sharing is a great way for all of us to benefit from each other’s experience and knowledge.  If you are interested, please comment here or e-mail me at kbroccoli@homeschoolingADDkids.com

In: exercise, games, math, spelling | | #