DoodleBlog – Page 26 – Crazy Smart Articles from Timberdoodle.com

5 Min Read

In a fascinating article written by Cyndi Ringoen, a neurodevelopmentalist, she pointed out that until a child has developed his auditory short-term memory, the ability to recall a sequence of numbers, phonics training would be unsuccessful. What that means is that to utilize phonics beyond memorizing individual sounds, a child must have an auditory short-term memory. This is perfectly logical, but what do you do if your child’s auditory memory needs work? The following e-mail conversation with Danielle is shared with her permission:

My daughter is 4 (5 in April) and is almost done with the K kit. She is very smart and is on track to finish K in April and I plan on diving right into 1st grade once she’s finished. She rarely struggles with any of the subjects/concepts and usually gets everything correct the first time. I suspect she is mildly Autistic- Aspergers specifically. All that to say- she consistently struggles with the auditory/memory portions of Developing the Early Learner. She rarely gets more than 1 or 2 right in a list of 4+ and if the list is more than 4 things she will only get 1 right. I’m not sure if this is due to her age/development or something else. Do you have any suggestions to help her with this area?

– Danielle

…The rule of thumb is that it is typical for a child to be able to recall 1 item in a list for every year of age up to about age 7. So a 3-year-old can usually remember 3 steps, letters, etc. and a 6-year-old can, on average, recall 6.

The fact that you’re noticing a deficit now is fantastic. You can truly help her train her brain now and it will help her for the rest of her life.

There are two different approaches to consider. The easiest, but most expensive, is a program called Brain Builder which we sold years ago. We no longer offer it ourselves, but it is still available: http://www.advancedbrain.com/brainbuilder/brainbuilder.html. When we last sold it, it was the best of its kind. (It’s also the program my Grandpa used to rebuild his memory after a stroke.) All the advantages and disadvantages of a computer program apply, from automated sophisticated level tracking to the somewhat artificial nature of computer screen memory games.

The other approach (and the two are by no means mutually exclusive), is to make memory drills a part of your everyday life. Here’s a smattering of ideas to get you started:

1. You could start with 2 identical opaque cups, hide a small treat under one and assign them random letters or numbers (we found it easiest to use words, phone numbers, zip-codes, just so we didn’t mix them up). Call them out: “O” “N” then tell her that her treat is under “O.” That first level may prove to be too easy for her; when it is, add a third cup. To know where to claim her treat she has to recall the names of both cups.

2. Another version of this we used was small bowls filled with tiny treats such as nuts or M&Ms – they don’t all have to be the same. Line them up in front of her, and name them off: “D” “O” “G” then tell her she may pick one from “O.” Again, she’s having to maintain the entire list in her head until she knows which one is going to be called.

3. A third variation of the same activity is to use a scrabble set, Banagrams, or Jumbo Banagrams to physically have the letters. After setting up and naming off the cups or bowls, she flips her letter over to see which one she can pick from this time.

4. Letters also lend themselves to finding activities. “Can you find me 2 As and 1 N?” “Line up a C, an O, and a W.”

5. If she’s an active child, she may find Simon Says type of activities to be more motivating. “Simon says, ‘Touch your nose, then your toes!'”

6. Treasure hunts are another fun one but will require some work on your part. Make it a rule that only Mom can read the clue, and make each clue one that requires two steps (In the living room, behind the curtain). You’ll also want to have a rule that if she guesses wrong you go back to where the last clue was found and read it again. For instance, if the next clue was “In the bedroom, under something red,” but she looked under something blue in the bedroom, you’d return to the living room and re-read the clue.

7. Another variation on that is a scavenger hunt. “Find something black and heavy.” “Take a picture of something big without feet.” There are a ton of treasure hunt/scavenger hunt ideas online that could be tweaked to suit you both.

We suggest trying to work in some form of a memory drill multiple times a day. It doesn’t need to be elaborate every time, but just the repetition will help it begin to click for her. Record a game or make a note of how she’s doing every few weeks and I think you’ll be thrilled with how her skills incrementally expand more and more!

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Workbooks are Blank Walls! and Other Reasons to Use Workbooks With Your Little Guys

By Joy D.

In FAQ, Tips, Tricks, and Opinions

5 Min Read

When we talk about workbooks for the 5 and under crowd we almost always hear the same thing from certain friendly folks. They thoughtfully respond that “He’s a little young for worksheets. Don’t push him into academics this young but instead just let him ‘be a kid’ for now.” We beg to differ. 🙂

Of course, let’s not forget to state the obvious! We agree 100% that there really truly isn’t a big push to get a young child enjoying workbooks. After all, we agree with these friends that we are not here to build a child genius whose incredible academic success was obtained at the expense of his joyful spirit and creative personality. Or, worse yet, advocating that you gear his education around what makes his parents look great.

Workbooks are Blank Walls!

Don’t forget though, that he already loves to create. If you doubt that, give him free reign with markers and watch his masterpiece emerge on the walls! So what’s the difference between the walls and worksheet for him? How do we get him excited about the potential there? Not every child is reluctant to engage with a worksheet for the same reason. Here are a few of the most common scenarios we’ve seen:

The Overwhelmed Student

Some children honestly just are dismayed by the idea of a worksheet or sitting down to work on a workbook page. Our friends have a daughter who loves everything about her worksheet pages but initially freaks out at the idea of sitting down and working on it. This is typically an oldest-child phenomenon, as younger siblings are almost always eager to have their own workbooks just like their older siblings!
If that’s your child, it may be helpful to find some pages that you know he will enjoy once he relaxes, and simply work through one a day as a non-optional activity. The point isn’t to force him to do something too advanced for him, but simply to help him overcome his fears so he can enjoy this new activity!

The Bouncing-On-and-Off-the-Chair Child

Some children, boys especially, just don’t have the attention span or physical ability to sit still or hold a pencil for long enough to do a page. If that’s your child, I’d suggest almost the same thing, but for entirely different reasons. If he has one quick page to do and then is off and running again he will begin to build the muscle memory and attention span he needs without burdening him now with page after page of seat-work. There is a fine-line between forcing him to do something too difficult and helping him build skills. Only you know him well enough to know exactly what that balance is. But pushing for a tiny bit of growth each week will help him develop skills and endurance that leave him free to create and explore!

The I-Don’t-Get-the-Point Kid

Most children are naturally curious and will love solving problems on paper. However, some will do so much better if you take a moment to make a story about the page. Is today’s activity drawing lines from birds to nests? Perhaps these could be “busy mommy birds that went and caught food for baby (child’s name) but now can’t find their way back home. If you don’t draw a line to help each get home, the baby bird will be SO hungry!” Simple? Yes, but extremely engaging to the story-driven child!

Tip 1: Start Short and Sweet

This is a workout for him and you’re not going to begin with a marathon. Just have him do one page (or less) of the most interesting kind for him. Ideally you’ll do it just before the best part of his day. If he knows that as soon as he’s done, it’s off to the park it will help him focus.

Tip 2: Work Through It

Be prepared to take much longer than it “should” to get his work done the first week. Some children may even benefit from hand-over-hand assistance to get the hang of how doable this is. We’re not talking about spending hours at the table, but don’t expect the 2 minute page to take only 2 minutes the first time!

Tip 3: Make it Amazing

Relook at your supplies and worksheets. Are the markers making a horrid screeching noise as they grate across the page? Are the worksheets tediously boring and only covering things he already knows? Or perhaps they are just way too hard for him? Take the time to invent a story about the page too.

Tip 4: Don’t Forget the Goal

You know that once he can enjoy worksheets the whole world opens up to him. He is going to love creating and exploring in ways he can’t do without them. There is a puzzle and mystery to good worksheets and he will love doing them, once you get him going. At the same time, very few skills are limited to worksheets only. Pencil grip can be encouraged with bead mazes, Magnatab and the like. Math can be introduced with Inchimals, and language arts encouraged with First Thousand Words and endless reading times. Phonics could even be introduced with Jumbo Bananagrams if you have the time for that. So don’t be overwhelmed by the learning process here – figure out what works best for your family and do that! We just want to encourage you not to throw out workbooks for little guys entirely. Done right, they add so much fun to the tiny years!

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Schedule Planning Your Custom Curriculum Kit

By Joy D.

In FAQ, Tips, Tricks, and Opinions

2 Min Read

You’ve created your own custom curriculum kit (bravo!), and now you’re wondering if there is any help for scheduling? The answer is ABSOLUTELY!

If you drop by Timberdoodle Schedules you’ll find a free blank schedule form that can be used with absolutely any curriculum. Start with the annual planner and input the books/programs/kits you will be using this year, along with how many lessons/pages/paintings each contains and how many weeks of school you’ll be using. Go to the next page and you’ll find your weekly checklist is ready to print and use, starting now!

If you ordered a Timberdoodle Custom Curriculum Kit you’ll also have access to two other great resources. First off is the standard curriculum guide, which will help with all the parts of the kit that you didn’t change.

Second is the pre-filled PDF of that grade level. You’ll receive access to the above Timberdoodle planner, but already filled in with all of the standard items for your grade. This means you don’t have to look up lessons or number of pages for the 90% of the kit that you didn’t change. Just change those couple items and you’re done! How easy is that?

For more information on guides, scheduling and independent learning check out:

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Has a 15-Month-Old Outgrown the Baby/Toddler Kit?

By Joy D.

In FAQ, Tips, Tricks, and Opinions

3 Min Read

My son just turned 3…should I go with the preschool or pre k program? My youngest is 15 months do you think he will be bored with the baby program?

Great question – though it’s a bit tricky to answer! The answer will vary widely by family but I think most families will prefer going with the Baby/Toddler Kit and the Pre-K kit.

Here are the 3 primary reasons behind that answer:

1. The Baby/Toddler is completely reusable. If you anticipate more children, then it becomes easier to look at it as a long-time investment! (By the same factor, there are 7 workbooks and a couple consumables in the Preschool kit, so if you decide it is a better fit for your 3-year-old you could refill it for your youngest in a year or so.)

2. Pre-K is designed for 3-4 year olds, so a new 3 year old is going to have a blast with it! And most families prefer the added bang-for-your-buck of having the child grow into something instead of rapidly growing out of it. Just ease into it, and don’t force your child to complete all of it in one year. (He might want to though, most kids become eager to do as much as your schedule allows! But there is no pressure to complete it all right now.) The one book you might want to add is the Mathematical Reasoning Beginning 1. It is a gentler introduction if your little one hasn’t had much exposure to math yet.

3. We customize kits all the time, so if you need a Baby/Toddler kit without certain items, or a Pre-K kit that also includes a few Preschool items, we’d love to build that for you!

All that said, I’ll take a moment to walk you through the Baby/Toddler kit since it is helpful to see exactly which items will still help your 15-month-old.

Let’s just say up-front that there are some tools that will have limited life for your 15-month old. For instance while Oball Rattle will continue to get tossed around, the rattle component isn’t going to provide much stimulation for a 15-month old. PipSquigz and Hello Animals are also designed for a baby, so won’t provide a ton of benefits for the toddler.

The rest of the kit though, could have a long and productive life.
Active Baby, Healthy Brain actually provides ideas up to age 5+.

The Peanut Ball is often hijacked by older siblings anyway, so expect to get years of play out of it.

15 months is a wonderful age for Poke-A-Dot Old MacDonald’s Farm and First Thousand Words.

The construction kits too will be far from outgrown: Grip ‘N Staxx, Habaland, and SmartMax Extreme.

Gator Grabbers and On the Farm Threading are also probably a good match developmentally.

The Teach Your Baby to Sign Cards and Let’s Sign Baby will have the most value if your child is still working on words. If he’s an advanced talker then these become less critical.

That leaves 3 more tools that will really vary by the child as to how much they are utilized: Indestructibles, Starry Playsilk, and Nicki Baby. The last 2 really have an endless life-span, but it just depends on how much they interest him!

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Homeschooling Different Grades Together

By Joy D.

In FAQ

4 Min Read

My ages and grade of my kids will be 6th, 4th and 1st. I am really wanting curriculum that is student taught for the most part PLUS that I can teach them all together. I am very scared and really don’t know what I am doing in regards to switching things up from a DVD set program to teaching on my own. Any help or suggestions I would really love….I have heard that the Apologia is a great curriculum to teach multiple grades at one time!!!! So again anything you have I would love to hear.

The good news is, teaching your children doesn’t have to be overwhelming!

Our curriculum bundles are designed to encourage students to become independent learners, though obviously that will be more true for your 4th and 6th graders than your 1st grader. The older ones particularly should be able to do much of their work independently, with you monitoring their work and inputting where necessary, while the youngest obviously will need more of your involvement as the “teacher.”

One of the things that will help, as you mentioned, is having them work together where they can — which will probably be science and history. With the age range of your children that should work pretty well with a couple of them at least, though it may stretch a bit far for all three of them.

Apologia science is a great program to have children from multiple ages work together. This is the one where you can probably even stretch it for all three to do. You can pick just one of the available topics in their Young Explorer Series, for example the Zoology 1. You can read as a family, or they can do the reading together, which would help the youngest along in that respect, then you can get the standard Notebooking Journals for the older children and the Junior Notebooking Journal for the youngest, allowing them each to do the journal work at their own levels. If you opt to do science with all three children together, your best options are:
Zoology 1 (ideally done before jumping ahead to Zoology 2 or 3)
Exploring Creation with Astronomy
or Exploring Creation with Botany,
although you could also consider Anatomy and Physiology or Chemistry and Physics.

History is a little more of a stretch all the way from 1st to 6th, although it can be done. If you wanted to do all three together I would lean toward Mystery of History. Although it’s written for 4th grade or higher, it can be used for younger grades with some additional explanation (vocabulary and sentence structure aren’t aimed at a 1st grader), particularly if they do the reading together. There are suggested activities and questions and such at the end of each section, and you can adjust your expectations there for each child based on their ages.

The other alternative for history would be to break it up so that you have the 1st grader doing Story of the World volume 1, then have the 4th and 6th graders work together in either America the Beautiful (US history) or in Mystery of History (world history).

Math, language arts, and thinking skills are generally done independently by each student at his own level, although occasionally you may have students at two different grade levels who are close enough to work together in one of these subjects as well.

Hopefully that answers some of your questions, and gives you a little more to think about. Please let us know what questions you still have or what we can better clarify for you. You can email us, or feel free to give us a call, whichever works best for you.

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FAQ about Timberdoodle Curriculum Kits

By Joy D.

In FAQ

12 Min Read

GENERAL QUESTIONS

• What’s the difference between Basic, Complete and Elite kits?

• Is Timberdoodle curriculum accredited?

• How do I teach multiple grades with Timberdoodle curriculum kits?

CUSTOMIZATION QUESTIONS

• Can we customize the kits on the website or do we have to call in and do it? It would be a lot easier to do it online and order.

• When you pick and choose to customize your kits, can you choose from different grade levels? What if your child is in a higher or lower grade in math or spelling?

• Can I order just part of a curriculum kit?

• What are the limits to customization?

CURRICULUM GUIDE QUESTIONS

• Is there a teacher’s guide telling you what to do each day?

• Are there samples of the teacher’s guide?

• Is the lesson guide printed? PDF?

• I had remembered seeing something about being able to customize the weekly/yearly schedule for my custom kit. Is that possible?

• I have a teen who wants items from the 11th and 12th grade packages. How does the teacher’s guide work? Is it easier to just stick with one grade level?

RELIGIOUS/SECULAR QUESTIONS

• Is Timberdoodle curriculum religious or secular?

• Why don’t you have Bible in your curriculum kits?

• Can I order a non-religious Timberdoodle curriculum kit?

• Why don’t you have high school non-religious kits available?

DISCOUNT/PAYMENT QUESTIONS

• Do you have any secret discounts? Military, missionary, multiple students…

• How much do I have to spend to get free shipping?

• What if it goes on sale after I buy?

• Do you take payments?

• Do you have to pay for shipping when using your doodle dollars?

What’s the difference between Basic, Complete and Elite kits?

The Basic kits are the nuts and bolts backbone of the curriculum. You’ll cover the essentials of math, language arts, and thinking skills. Mostly workbooks, no bells and whistles, but for those of you on a tight budget, this will get you off to a great start. Most families find they can add science and history using their local library to maximize that budget.

Complete kits include everything listed above, plus science, history, and the best hands-on learning components.

Elite kits include all of that, plus the bells and whistles we’d add if money wasn’t an object. Depending on your grade level, you’ll learn a second language, paint more, build cells, learn through puzzles, and much more.

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