I have to admit. I am kind of a geek when it comes to office and school supplies. Notebooks, pencils, pens, stickies, they get my heart pumping. It is all I can do to walk past aisle 20 in the grocery store and not throw a random box of crayons in my cart. So you just can’t imagine the thrill I had when I came across online retailer Carolinapad.
Carolinapad is an online retailer of fashion school, office and organizational products perfect for students (or their office supply product addicted parents) to enhance their learning. They offer a variety of unique private collections including my son’s favorite Sasquatch which offers products that are eco-friendly and (mostly) printed on recycled papers. Good for learning and good for the environment. That is a A+ in my book. Students can also click on the Sasquatch link for tips and information to green living.
While many people only think about purchasing school supplies during the school year, my household often purchases many of these type items as part of our summer learning materials. Having an active and fun summer learning program helps keeps kids from losing the skills they learned the previous year and prepares them for next year.
As a former teacher, I especially understand the importance of keeping those skills that presented a challenge the previous year. For Eph the skills that we have been focusing on the most are his site words, letter sounds (especially blends) and counting from 1-120. I created a program for him that only requires about 20 minutes a day to help prevent summer learning loss.
Here is a short video showing him working on his reading and writing skills:
In this video you can see that Eph is using his journal/notebook, flash cards and the white board. I love this reading/writing activity because it allows him to be creative as well as keep a personal journal of his summer activities.
To do this at home, all you need is a journal, pencil and white board (or another sheet of paper.). What I have Eph do is start drawing a picture about anything he wants. As he is drawing I ask him questions about his story and then have him tell me the story as I write it on the white board. We typically do 2-3 sentences. After he is done he will copy the story on to his journal. If there are any of his 150 site words, I will pull them from his flash cards and have him match and practice those words. I will also have him write the site words on the the next page 3x each but no more than 3 words. This is a great reading/writing activity to help prevent summer learning loss.
Other activities that we do are:
- Nightly reading
- Site word review with flash cards
- Summer skills books. (Ask your teacher for a recommendation)
- Outdoor activities
- Chalk writing
- Counting (rocks, flowers, bugs, how many steps to get to the pool)
- Measuring cups for water play
- Field Trips
- Public Library programs
- Park programs
- Factory Tours
- Speciality camps
- Online educational games and activities
- Educational DVD’s or similar products.
Need some new materials for summer learning? Check the new 2011 products from Carolinapad. These items and many more can be purchased at most large retailers including Meijer, Walmart, Target, Office Max, Staples and MANY MORE!!
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| The Playbook Collection |
Want to purchase from their website? From now until July 31st, they are offering a 25% discount to all Sunshine Praises readers. Just use the discount code BTS2011 when checking out.
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Carolinapad. In exchange for my thoughts on summer learning loss, I will receive a selection of Carolinapad materials. Regardless, all thoughts and opinions are mine and I was in no way influenced.
What a great post! Thanks so much! Love the video!
Also – Carolina Pad products cannot be purchased at http://www.carolinapad.com; our products can only be purchased online at http://www.carolinapadstore.com.
Thanks again!