Daddy Does School and FREE Phonics Resources

Every now and then my wonderful husband helps with homeschooling. On this particular day AJ (5 mos) was giving me a hard time. She wanted to nurse and sleep in my arms and ONLY nurse and sleep in my arms so it was a long day. Thankfully daddy stepped in and tried to follow my schedule. I battled on wither or not to post this picture since SJ's hair isn't done but then I figured, hey this is real everyday life!

As you can see K is teaching the kids sight words. I have have found two amazing sites that I use for phonics and literacy. The first is Progressive Phonics. My kiddos love that these book allow them to read with me. There are words throughout the printable books that are red, these are the words the student reads while the teacher reads the words that are in black. This is a great way to reinforce independent study. I will often give the printed book to SJ(5) and ask her how many of "mommy's words" she knows.

The next site I use to identify popular sight words for SJ's age. This is based on American standards. In some other countries children are reading fluently around 4 so I introduce both the previous books mentioned as well as the sight words to KJ (3). I use Dolch Sight Words which is a free site that gives you sight words by grade. They also have printable books.

As the kids are learning and growing I am having a lot of fun seeing what works and what doesn't. I have found that for us it works best for me if I have general standards or goals I want to reach. I refer to the common core standards for my state. If you are interested you can find yours here. I have not decided to stick to the standards but I do like to have an idea of what others in my daughters age range are learning.

I've also learned to go with the flow when it comes to teaching. My kids don't care what the common core standards are, they don't want to stick to my objectives for the month, week, or day they just want to discover something awesome, and we get to teach them.