Starfall

Ok, now you know about Munchkin's computer so I'm going to tell you about some of the places that we use it to access.

Starfall is a site that has some very good educational activities for kids.  Classic Starfall is free and is wonderful in and of itself.  This year I decided to get More Starfall which has more extensive activities including numbers.  So far it has proven to be worth the yearly fee, and it's just been a month or so.  (www.starfall.com)

We use Starfall to connect with other lessons in very simple ways.  When doing phonics or numbers, we will go to Starfall.  Munchkin will then complete the activity for whatever number or letter we are working on.  When he's done with the Starfall activity we will go work with the activities I have planned.  Sometimes it's matching cards.  Other times it's worksheets.  Sometimes it's crafts that incorporate the letter or number we are working on.  But normally since we've started with Starfall, which he loves, he's more focused and willing to do the follow up activities.  And he knows that when we are done, he can go back to Starfall which is proving to be a powerful motivator.

One part to More Starfall that I haven't used yet is the teacher section.  I am planning on using it more since it's worksheets correlate well with the education activities.  But given Munchkin's need to work on something multiple times to learn it we will continue using other materials as well.

If you're teaching at home or just trying to help your child, Starfall could be a real help.  Especially for kids with disabilities that need repeated exposure to different things in order to learn them.  Starfall offers repeated focused exposure that is simple for the kids to follow.  And the computer activities have the patience to do the same thing repeatedly while always sounding cheerful and upbeat, even if your child makes the same mistake over and over and over again.  This goes an amazingly long way in helping our kids to keep trying something until they master it.

I know that Munchkin is much more tolerant of his mistakes on the computer than during work time.  If he makes a mistake during work time he gets more and more upset each time until he can't calm enough to to get the work done.  If he makes a mistake on the computer he just keeps going until he gets it right.  Big difference.  Enough of a difference that if I feel that he's not getting a concept I will go looking for a program or app that he can work with until he gets confident enough to not spaz out when he makes a mistake.  Most of the time it works.

Here's hoping that this might help your child as well.



(Oh, and again, no I didn't get paid for this or asked to do it.  This has just proven to be a really, really useful site for us!)

And even more, I don't know why this has sat here in draft form for a few months now.  But I'm fixing that.