Resources of the Week – Brain Benders & Cut-and-Paste Phonics

Brain Benders Books 2– (Instant Download)

If your child is in year 6, you will understand the pressure of SATs.

In primary school, the preparation for SATs begins before you even know it! There are more tests upon tests and the ultimate aim to score highly on the SATs.

Now we know that SATs are not the most important thing. Furthmore, if we are to focus only on the SATs and the curriculum, our child will have a very narrow education and view of the world.

Having said that, using SATs as a baseline is a good idea. Then you can expand on what your child needs to learn instead of restricting them only to what is required for the SATs.

Reasoning in maths seems to be an area in school that all teachers are pushing for our children to practise and become experts at. This includes understanding a word problem, solving the problem and then explaining how they got to their answer and why.

It’s not as straight forward as doing a sum anymore. The reason for this is because; professionals have become aware that maths needs to be understood as part of everyday life, so that our children can learn its purpose.

Brain Benders is a fun way to get your child to work through challenging word problems.

So, why is this book different?

Brain Benders 2 is part of a series of three downloadable books which come in a ready-to-use format, using large print, mainly limiting one problem to one page so your child does not become overwhelmed and answers are provided in step-by-step methods which children are likely to use to solve the problems.

The answer pages are also good for us parents, to ensure that our children are working through the problems well before they check them.

The strategies which this book encourages children to use and develop are:

• guess and check
• looking for patterns
• drawing pictures
• modelling objects
• listing and eliminating possibilities
• filling in grids
• using timelines
• making assumptions and estimates and judging the reasonableness of them.

The problems are also designed to highlight the importance of reading mathematical language carefully.

If you would like your child to work further on reasoning and word problems, this book is ideal. Download today and use straight away, you can print off what you need, even if it’s a page a day, a downloadable book gives you the freedom to choose how you want to complete the tasks.

There are 3 books in the series aimed at different ages, take a look at the samples to help you decide which one might be best for your child.

Cut and Paste Phonics Book 1 – Single Sounds (Instant Download)

We all want to prepare our children before they go into ‘big school’, whether that means building their confidence, potty training, being good eaters or learning their letters and numbers.

We know that a good, strong foundation can really give our children what they need to start school on the right foot.

There has been an ongoing debate about whether we teach our children phonics (sounds) or the names of the letters first. That debate is up for discussion on a later date!

However, it seems that either way, our children learn to read at some point given the correct guidance and support.

This book helps your child to recognise the relationship between letters and sounds; killing two birds with one stone.

We take it for granted how quickly we are able to reel off the alphabet and recognise their sounds without thinking twice about it. Children need time to, not only understand that relationship, but to also be able to make those sounds.

Once this foundation has been formed, your child will be able to use those sounds to read words. Then those words will become sentences, but without knowing those sounds, they will struggle with the words.

The Cut and Paste Phonics – Single Sounds book is a downloadable book. This means that you can get access to it instantly, print it off and start using it! There are many advantages to buying a downloadable book, and with this book in particular, it means that you can print the pages off in different sizes and as many times as you like.

You can also print a few pages at a time and work your way through the book gradually – moving on to the next letter when your child is ready.

Your child will be able to engage in the activities in different ways, and the symbols will allow your child to recognise what they will need to do for each activity. These include colouring, gluing, cutting, reading and stapling.

The understanding of letter sounds and their formation are reinforced by repetitive tasks. When working with letter sounds, you can make use of old magazines and get your child to cut out pictures and stick them next to the letter sound which relates to that picture.

For example when working with the letter sound ‘A’ you can get your child to cut out a picture of an apple and stick it next to the letter A.

They can also look around the house for objects and words beginning with those letters. This will really help them to understand the letters by being able to apply what they have learnt to their environment.

This download also allows your child to create mini books of each letter. You can really tailor the book to whatever theme you want, making it much more exciting for your child to complete.

Since it is autumn, you could use that as a theme, or Christmas, Diwali, Eid, animals, fairy tales or movies!

Whatever theme you choose will help your child learn the sounds and letter formations.

I would highly recommend this book for your pre-school child as it will really give them the kick-start they need before they start school.