I really need some ideas, these two things are driving me nuts. 1. I hate Calendar time so I quit doing it. Sami has lodged a formal complaint. She wants her calendar times back, and they must include discussion of the weather. (I quit the weather part a LONG time ago when she had it down well (Basically we looked outside and determined if it was cloudy, partly cloudy, sunny, raining etc.) 2. Sami is having a really hard time with positional words. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and directions right, left, north, south etc are easy for her but over, under, between, before, after etc she really dosn't get. IF I ask her to count by 2's no problem, If I say "What number comes first, 6 or 7?" She'll roll her eyes at the easy question. If I say "what number comes before 7?" She hasn't got a clue! please help!!
I don't know what you were doing for calendar time, but one time we made a calendar and since then I've been printing them out. Just yesterday Daniel asked why we don't make them anymore and he want's to make next months. So maybe you could get out the crafty stuff and make one together. In the morning while I do the breakfast dishes he crosses off yesterday and tells me what today is. As far as weather, they have some weather board things at the dollar tree, they say "today the weather is" and you put the correct piece in. They have them for days of the week too. I got the days of the week one, but haven't started using it yet. Have you ever seen the weather bears? You dress them according to the weather. A friend who used to be a preschool teacher told me about them. Under, over, between...sounds like a great reason to crawl under the table to me. Maybe read a book under the table everyday until she starts to understand. And why quit then? LOL. For between you could sit some of her stuffed animals between you while you read, and talk about how the table is over your head. (So try not to bump it!) For counting I would just say we have to get her and Daniel together. He can count backwards from 10, but counting by 2's? Nope.
since it only takes about 5 minutes of your day and it makes her happy, I'd say do the calendar time her way. We got the little spinner weather chart from Target $1. It has a spinner with a pie like thing with different weather options and you put the spinner on that picture for the day..... Donald loves telling the weather and is in charge of that, But honestly, after the monsoon season it will just be stuck on sunny any way. I'm just now getting to put together a real school like calendar.
I just got a big blank calendar from the teacher store (plain, no fancy stuff for about $1.50) I also bought the basic numbers. I got velcro dots and put one side in each calendar square and one side on the back of the numbers. My kid stick the date up as soon as they are up. Even my 10yo will race to be first. What is it about the calendar? Anyway they like it and I don't have to hear, "Mom, what's the date?" a thousand times a day. Our weather chart came from the dollar section at Target, but we really don't use it much. No one seems to care much about it. My dd5 also has trouble with the "before" thing in math. We just keep practicing, and she has gotten better. For now I'd say that Sami just needs more practice, too. But.. I'm open for suggestions on teaching that concept, too. Maybe if you have some type of manipulatives with numbers on them she can put them in order and physically see which one comes before.
Try practicing counting backwards from ten on a daily basis until she has it down pat. If you were asked what letter comes three letters after S, you wouldn't have to think about it much, the answer is V. However if you were asked what letter comes three letters before S, you'd probably have a hard time with it, correct? The majority of us (including me) cannot recite the alphabet backwards. That reminds me... I need to teach my kids how to recite the alphabet backwards. I'm sure it comes in handy for more than just sorting exercises.
For positional words, we used play time to learn them. I had a box and would have the student put a stuffed animan in the box, on the box, in front, behind etc etc etc. We would use several animals at times, and make a gain of positioning them as quickly as possible. You could also use this for before and after with letter cut outs, number cards etc. Hand me the number before 7. The letter after K. etc etc. A number line printed out might help teach these concepts with numerals.
She can recite her numbers backwards (She does fine with that) it's the idea of "Before" Or "After" IF I say, "you can have a popscicle after you eat your dinner." she says "So do I get the popscicle 1st??" I can give her directions by saying go north! She can. but if I say "It's under the chair" no go. I guess it just baffles me that I could teach her directions (north south east west) by pointing ONCE and now she always knows. But then something(over under before after) that seems easier to me is so hard for her. LOL I STILL can't tell North from south without looking at the sun as sunrise or sunset! I have some calendar stuff I will haul it out again. We have a little wipe off calendar in a book the shape of a school house and the bell tower is a clock face with moveable hands to practice telling Time. the middle of it is a blank space and we have window weather clings to stick to it for the day. That spinner thing sounds good for the weather, she can do that without me since she understands it perfectly. Maybe I can set it up as an activity for her to do more independantly than we did before. The third side of the book is a world map we used to learn the continents.
I play a game with Jeanne using a hundreds chart where I say I'm thinking of a number, and it comes before 5 but after three. We just did a review of ordinal numbers on Friday. The lesson called for us to pretend we were vets. I lined up a bunch of her beanies and named off different positions. She had to name the beanie in that spot. I then had to tell her I was the nurse and they had to see me first. I was opposite her, with the beanies between us. I turned them to face me and had her name positions of different animals now that I turned them. It really does come down to practicing, like someone already said.
