Butterfly Park Phonics Program
Our pre-K program has an excellent reputation among the areas elementary schools for preparing your child for kindergarten and beyond. This is due to our strong emphasis on early literacy, math and by focusing on the whole child, both socially and emotionally.
Four and five year olds want to know the how’s and why’s. They are truly becoming more independent in their ways of thinking. Our well-trained staff can offer guidance, while allowing learning and discovery to occur for every child regardless of their individual learning styles.Children will be introduced to the alphabet and phonics through our letter and sound of the week program. Writing is strongly encouraged as is sounding out simple words.
Many children will be “ready to read” or reading upon completion of our pre-K program.With this strong foundation, we are confident that your child will continue to love learning and their school experience throughout the years. Blue Butterflies Schedule 6:30am – 8:00 amGood Morning! Please bring your child to the Art Room. Our early morning children have breakfast up until 7:30 am. You may bring your child’s breakfast to eat here. 12:15 pmPreschool children go home.12:15 – 12:50 pmPre-K children play outside on the playground (weather permitting).12:50 pmPotty Time Children get ready for nap.1:00 – 2:15 pmRest Time All children staying all day have naptime.
This is started out with soft music or a story.2:15 – 2:30 pmWake up Children are slowly awakened. Once up, the children may play outside or in the Art Room for more activities.3:00 – 3:15 pmAfternoon Snack Children are served a healthy snack everyday. The snack menu is posted on the parent bulletin board near the entrance.3:15 – 4:30 pmAfternoon Activitesincludes time in the Readiness Room, Art, Dramatic Play, Movement Room and more outdoor time (if weather permits).4:30 pmPotty and Hand Washing and Late Snack Children are encouraged to finish up any leftover items in their lunchboxes.
Parents should supply a little extra food in their child is here at this time.5:00 – 6:00 pmReadiness Room All remaining children combine for some quiet table activities or stories in the Library. During this time, they can also gather their belongings and play in small groups while waiting to be picked up.6:00 pmLearning to Learn Closes.
Back to School 2014Heading Back to SchoolThe vision of Butterfly Park's Alphabet Workout is to enable all children to learn to read quickly, efficiently and joyfully through movement, music and drama. Children learn best when all their senses are engaged. The Alphabet Workout uses movement, music, stories, and drama to stimulate brain development and foster letter sound memory.
So let's get reading and moving.Get Your Training Scheduled NowWe are doing August and September trainings at Parker Core Knowledge, Crescent View Academy, and Belle's and Beau's. Let us know when we can come to your school or center to train your staff in phonics, phonemic awareness, early handwriting, or Alphabet Workout curriculum. We can do introductory, refresher, half-day, and full-day trainings or inservice workshops. Thank you to Faith Lutheran Preschool in Castle Rock for hosting a full day training with 28 enthusiastic participants from Faith Lutheran, Sherman ECC, Parker Core Knowledge, Rocky Mt. Classical Academy Homeschool, and the homeschool community. Other recent trainings included participants from Cherry Creek Schools and as far away as Springfield, Colorado.
Training includes phonemic awareness, phonics, handwriting, and word building as well as the use of stories, songs, games, puppets, and movement to engage children. Contact Mary at 303-358-8187 for details.School will be starting up again soon, if it hasn't already. It is hard to believe that summer has gone so quickly. Time for teachers and staff to think about this year's curriculum. What didn't work?It's time to order new materials and get the staff trained.It's also time for parents to think about how to get children ready for kindergarten. Parent training is also available.Four Reasons to Assess Letter Sounds RegularlyDownload free assessment toolsKnowledge of letter sounds is a critical first step in learning to read.
As you teach the sounds, it is important to assess student progress regularly. There is, however, more to assessing letter sound knowledge than whether or not a student knows the sound(s) a letter represents. The speed at which a student responds and theaccuracy of the response are also important.
Kindergarten and first grade students need to be able to say 31 letter sounds (21 consonant sounds and 10 vowel sounds) in 60 seconds or less. If you are doing the 48 letter sound assessment, students should be able to say all the sounds in two minutes or less.
They should also say the sound correctly without adding 'uh' or 'ah' after the letter-'mmm' rather than 'mah'.Four reasons to assess letter sound regularly are:. To see if students are remembering the letter sounds you have taught. The focus here is on the student. For example, if you have taught ten letter sounds and 18 out of 20 students remember eight or more sounds and two students remember only two or three sounds, you might need to take a closer look at those two children to see if they could have learning disabilities. To see how quickly students say the letter sounds.
In order to read words quickly and fluently, it stands to reason that students must first be able to say each letter sound quickly. Their response must be automatic so that mental energy is devoted to comprehension rather than on individual letter sounds. If students know the letter sounds, but cannot say them quickly, you need to add more repetition and review into your daily instruction. To see if your teaching methods are effective in helping children learn what you have taught. The focus here is on you. Are you teaching the letter sounds in a fun and memorable way? Are you doing daily reviews of letter sounds you have taught? Are you teaching the letter sound accurately without adding 'uh'?
If, for example, you have taught ten letter sounds and the majority of your students remember seven or less sounds, you need to look at how you are teaching and reviewing letter sounds. If the majority of students are adding 'uh' after the letter sound, you may need to listen to how you are saying the individual letter sounds. To monitor the pace you are teaching. The age of your students helps determine how quickly you can teach the letter sounds.
Pro drive garage door opener learn button. Puppets make learning to read a joyful experience! Puppets get students' attention and hold their interest. They are playful tools to engage students in learning. Puppets often become non-threatening, sympathetic friends. They encourage the child to explore sharing thoughts or ideas without fear of ridicule, rejection, or reprimand.
Playing with puppets encourages children to express themselves, tell stories, and use new vocabulary. Students enjoy retelling stories that include puppets and even shy students feel more at ease expressing themselves through the voice and actions of a puppet. Try adding puppets to your class to enhance story time or add excitement to your literacy center. Use a puppet as a prop to talk to children in a fresh new way.
Make finger puppets, stick puppets, and paper bag puppets for children to use as communication tools and take home for parents to share in the fun. Start building a collection of puppets to enhance phonemic awareness and phonics lessons with characters that help children remember the letter sound taught and encourage them to want to practice. By using puppets to teach letter sounds, teachers and parents encourage children to use their imaginations and have fun.We did it for you!
We created puppets and props to teach the sound of every letter of the alphabet!Alphabet Workout has created a set of character puppets and props to use for teaching all the letters of the alphabet. The puppets and props capture a young child's interest and provide a memory 'hook' for learning and retaining a letter sound.
Children love to practice the 'ssss' sound with a snake finger puppet, for example, or the 'mmmm' sound with a butterfly finger puppet they can fly around pretending to drink flower nectar 'mmmm.' How to Use the Alphabet Workout Puppets to Teach Letter Sounds.Letter sounds are introduced with short stories that are each a part of a longer, on-going story. Each letter sound story encourages students to take part in the action, repeat the letter sound, and sing the song-engaging all of their senses as they learn.
The puppets and stories give a 'hook' for remembering letter sounds. In the newly-created book, ABC Fun with Puppets: Using Puppets to Teach Letter Sounds, each letter has a lesson which includes a full color puppet for teacher and demonstration use, a reproducible black and white puppet template so each child can have his/her own puppet to color and use for dramatization, a story to tell about each letter with actions and movements to use to dramatize the story, and finally a song to sing about each letter. Students can sing the song while they move their puppets to further lock in the letter sound.For a highly effective package, purchase the ABC Fun with Puppets book along with The Alphabet Workout: Songs and Actions for Learning Letter Sounds music CD.Kid-Friendly Approach to ReadingJune 2008 Stapleton Front Porch - Interview with Darcie FrohardtOne of the biggest lessons we all have had to learn is to read. Over the years, there have been many different methods of teaching children to read, and some find it easier to learn than others. Today, kindergarten teacher Darcie Frohardt is offering a fun and active method for children ages 3 to 7 to learn to read the English language with her Butterfly Park Educational Materials. Children are taught the sounds of letters, rather than letter names.It's more important than learning letter names, Frohardt said.
Our program is based on actions. For the sound of /H/ they (children) march and /huff./ It's based on the action, rather than having to know an English word. It's really helpful because letter sounds are so critical for learning to read. We do it through action and song, movement.
It's multi-sensory. You use your eyes, your voice, your movement. It's not boring either. They learn their letter sounds by standing up.
It's much more kid-friendly.The program is for all children, including those who speak a second-language, those at risk with reading difficulties, and gifted children. Very bright children progress very rapidly, while it may take a bit longer for others, Frohardt said.
Children with learning disabilities work well with the program because letters are pictures of sounds, she explained. The alphabet is a code for the sounds of the English language. The way you break the code is through the letter sounds. Frohardt and her sister, Mary Forhan, started Butterfly Park Educational Materials in 2003. Forhan is a retired teacher with a Master's Degree in reading.More than 300 Colorado teachers use the Butterfly Park materials in settings including Head Start, private and public pre-schools and kindergartens.
Parents can use the Butterfly Park materials with their children, rather than waiting for teachers to use them. In the eight-session J is for Jump Workshop, Forhan teaches parents and children to use a DVD to teach the children to read. In the DVD, pre-school children, puppets, a monkey, caterpillar and a voice use letter sounds in a series of stories using the entire alphabet.A train carries everyone through Butterfly Park as it teaches children to put sounds together to form words.
Children also are taught pre-handwriting familiarity with letters. Frohardt is working on a new workshop, called READERS Reading Effectively Aloud to Develop Enthusiastic Readers. We would like to do classes for parents because teachers want them to read at home with their kids, Frohardt said. We thought it would be fun to have a readers group for parents where we would demonstrate how to read with their kids.Educational materials can be ordered online or by calling Frohardt. She also offers them to teachers at their conferences.Teach Vowels and Consonantswith this easy chant'I Know My Letter Sounds!'
We want all children to be excited about this accomplishment. It is the foundational skill for learning to read and spell.
In order to become literate, our children must be able to recognize each letter in the alphabet, as well as the sounds connected with that letter. Yet statistics indicate that 30 percent of children starting school are at risk of difficulties learning to read, and many of these problems can be traced back to the tradition of teaching letter names rather than letter sounds. Parents sing the 'ABC' song for their children to encourage identifying letters by name. What child isn't familiar with the infamous letter, 'lmn'? These practices by well-meaning parents, preschool teachers, and daycare centers set our at-risk children up for confusion and failure.Let's look at the uses of letter names vs.
Letter sounds. Letter names are used for spelling out loud, identifying letters, long vowels, the ABC song, putting things in alphabetical order, and playing word games. Letter sounds are used for reading and spelling.
It is apparent that letter sounds are more useful for the most critical skills in school - learning to read and spell.How to Teach Letter Sounds1.Make it fun.2.Alphabet Workout Onlineprovides step-by-step lessons with a backpack full of teaching materials to teach letter sounds, handwriting, and blending letters to decode words.A child will be able to read 3 books after only 14 lessons. Lessons include games, songs, puppets, and stories.3.Children learn best through movement, music, and stories. The Alphabet Workout: Songs and Actions for Learning Letter Sounds is a music CD with songs to teach all the letter sounds. Put it on in the car as you drive.
Match the letter card and story to the song.Letter sounds are the building blocks of literacy. Knowing the sounds for each of the letters of the alphabet will put your child on the road to reading success!Get Ready for Kindergartenwith Alphabet Workout OnlineA child's success in school is often linked to reading ability, yet learning to read begins long before children enter school. Now is a perfect time to start transitioning your 4-5 year old to a successful year in kindergarten. BACK TO SCHOOL SALE - 17% Off! Affordable package for your kindergarten or first grade.
Start your students off with a solid phonics foundation that is fun and active. Package price is discounted over individual items sold separately. Package revised to include new materials. Parents and teachers working with classrooms or small groups of students love this affordable package of easy-to-use materials. Components include:.
Introduction to Letter Sounds - book and CD of stories of 26 basic alphabet sounds and more. DVD - Little Readers in Motion: The Alphabet Workout -.
Saxon Phonics Program
CD - The Alphabet Workout: Songs and Actions for Learning Letter Sounds. Flash Cards - 34 full-color picture flash cards. Handwriting for Kindergarten. Decodable Mini-Books and Activities - New and improved!.
Vowel Patterns Practice for Reading and Spelling. ABC Fun with Puppets: Using Puppets to Teach Letter Sounds. Train Game Rainbow Letter Mats - 6 letter mats with 6 sets of lower case alphabet letters.
Butterfly Park Phonics Program Reviews
Price: $169.95BACK TO SCHOOL SALE - 16% OFF! Everything you need to get started teaching phonemic awareness skills and beginning letter sounds.
Jolly Phonics Program
Package price is discounted over price of individual items sold separately. This package has been revised to include new materials. Blogged AboutCheck out these blogs and reviews of Alphabet Workout:/Charles Silberman blogs about using Alphabet Workout in early childhood classesCharles Silberman blogs about integrating Alphabet Workout into PEBlog by Gina St. Alban featuring Autism Awareness Month and Alphabet Workout CD/letter cardsBlog by Caryn Haluska used with autistic childLogan doing letter TBlog by Kristi Bernard interviewing Mary Forhan about programBlog by Kristi Bernard interviewing Mary Forhan about book recommendationsWe Would Love to Hear From You.