She chose the peekaboo hairstyle where the hair dye would only be applied to the lower layers of her hair. That way, the blue hair only showed a little at the ends from the front or back and would show more if she tied up her hair into a ponytail or did a half-up half-down hairdo. 

1. The appointment ran from 5pm to 7:30pm. It would actually take till 8 pm if I hadn’t hurried the hairdresser toward the end. The process involved bleaching the hair you want to be dyed and waiting for half hr or so till it turned a bit yellow/orange. The hairdresser then washed the bleached hair with blue shampoo so that the desired blue color can be achieved when coloring it. Finally, she then dyed the bleached hair blue. We had to wait a while before washing her hair a bit and them blow-drying the hair. 
2. The dyed hair needs to be fully dried before leaving the salon
3. The hairdresser warned to always wash hair with cold water to prevent the dye from fading or turning into grey or green shades.
4. She also said not to go swimming often, and to use an old towel or cloth on the pillow to avoid tainting the covers. My daughter is enrolled in swim classes, but luckily the dye stayed on after her first class. 
5. My daughter’s neck and the top of her shirts were pretty much blue for 1-2 weeks. It seemed to get a bit better after a week, but the blue tint was still there over her skin. She had to keep wiping it down every night and wash her clothes with an alcohol-based agent before tossing them into the laundry machine. Update – we realized later that she should have washed her hair on alternate days with the color treatment shampoo and that stopped the dye bleeding onto her skin and clothes. She avoided hair washing for a while thinking it would remove the hair dye completely.
6. Make sure you use shampoo for color-treated hair – professional ones like Bedhead, Redken, or Biolage were recommended by the hairdresser. Using regular shampoo may wash out the dye and you will regret spending over $100 to get your hair dyed.
7. Also, avoid getting your hair wet often…
8. Next time, highlights or ombre would be better so that the neck and clothes don’t get stained
9. My daughter didn’t wash her hair for around 2 weeks, and the hair dye bled all the time. After she did hair wash once in 2 days few times, the bleeding of hair dye reduced significantly.

The post Things I wish I knew before dying hair blue first appeared on Travel Life Stories.

In the 21st century, hand washing is emphasized everywhere and it would seem strange if anyone did not know the importance of hand washing as it is pretty much taught from your preschool days. So it is interesting to know when I looked up the first handwashing discovery, not only did NO one really wash their hands habitually but there were many people opposed against the theory that hand washing may prevent disease.

Sammuel Ignaz was an Hungarian doctor who noticed new mothers in maternal wards dying due to medical students attending to them. These medical students in particular , worked with cadavers and autopsies. After working with cadavers, they would come to attend as obstetricians. The women who gave birth on the street were less likely to do from postpostum infection. Thinking about it now in this world and internet age, one would immediately conclude that the mothers in the maternity ward would fall sick.

At the time when Sammel Ignaz pointed out to the doctors that they should wash their hands before going to the maternal ward, the students/doctors scoffed at his thoery. The germ theory came much later when Loius Pasteur made the discovery, but Sammuel not knowing the real reason behind maternal childbed fever, still continued to uphold his theory that hand washing would help prevent the spread of germs.  More information about Sammuel Ignaz is here. 

Adidas and Puma brothers

Adidas and Puma are popular and well known sports brands all around the world. But did you know that the founders of Adidas and Puma are brothers? Rudolf Dassler left the family business and started Puma footwear, whereas his brother Adolf Dassler stayed back and changed the name of the family business to Adidas (Adi for Adolf).

Both the brothers had a quarrel which led them to split up and they continued to have severe rivalry till their deaths. The town they lived in caused the inhabitants to be separated as well, as most of the residents either worked for Puma or Adidas. Interested in reading more, go here.

Fast Fashion and Dead White man’s clothes

Fast and changing fashion in Western countries like the US, European nations has changed the landscape of Ghana, a country in Africa. People of western nations donate clothes to charity after light or heavy use, but probably are not aware where all of it goes. Clothing which are in good condition to be sold in thrift stores are kept, but the remaining which cannot be sold end up being exported to countries like Ghana.

‘Obrani Wawu’ or ‘Dead White man’s clothes’ are sold everywhere in cities like Accra in Ghana. Though this business of retailers in Ghana importing clothing from the West has been going on for a long time, it has become more frequent with about 15 million pieces of clothing imported every week. This definitely is more than what the country needs, and though some of the clothing with minor defects may be reused, a lot of it is thrown away which ends up in landfills or in the sea.

High quality or lightly worn clothing is in demand, but the remaining stained/torn clothing sadly end up being thrown, when actually they should not have been exported in the first place. Accra’s Kantamanto Market, the popular market in Ghana gets a daily import of ‘dead white man’s clothes’, as the locals call them. I found this website where a team has done research of the growing crisis of clothes wastage and pollution of the environment, and probably you can help in the effort!

Pompeii and Vesuvius

You may have heard of the ancient city of Pompeii in Italy and how it was destroyed by Mt Vesuvius’ fiery wrath. In 79 AD, the volcano buried Pompeii under a thick layer of volcanic ash. Thousands of people died during the volcanic eruption at the time, and many thousands fled the area. Explorers in 1748 rediscovered the forgotten city and found the buildings and remains of people who lived during the time.

Interestingly, archeologists were able to even find the ‘preserved bodies‘ by filling plaster into cavities and holes left in the thick volcanic layer. So, basically, a cavity some 30 ft below the surface, which contained skeletal remains, was found and filled with high grade plaster. Once the plaster hardened, an outline of the body formed and the archeologist gently removed the outer layer of volcanic ash and dust to reveal the body frame. Though it is sad to know, it is also interesting to note that no other bodies or buildings have been so well preserved this way for 2000 years, if not for the volcanic ash.

More facts to come…

The post Interesting Facts Now and Before first appeared on Travel Life Stories.

1. Digraph ‘sh’

‘sh’ sound like in ‘she’, ‘shirt’, and ‘cash’

Worksheets for digraph ‘sh’:

Try out some activities on the worksheets at superteacherworksheets.com

Have the child read aloud the words on this page, so they are familiar with the ‘sh’ sound.

Have the child read some sentences using the digraph words.

Fill out the missing digraph here

2. Digraph ‘ch’

‘ch’ sound like in ‘chin’, ‘chair’, and ‘chip’

Worksheets for digraph ‘ch’:

Try out some activities on the worksheets at superteacherworksheets.com

Have the child read aloud the words on this page, so they are familiar with the ‘ch’ sound.

Check out some digraph ‘ch’ worksheets here

3. Digraph ‘wh’

‘wh’ sound like in ‘white’, ‘which’, and ‘when’

Worksheets for digraph ‘wh’:

Try out some activities on the worksheets at superteacherworksheets.com

Have the child read aloud the words on this page, so they are familiar with the ‘wh’ sound.

Check out some digraph ‘wh’ worksheets here

4. Digraph soft ‘th’ and hard ‘th’

Soft ‘th’ sound like in ‘thin’, ‘theft’, and ‘with’

Hard ‘th’ sound like in ‘there’, ‘this’, ‘mother’

Worksheets for digraph ‘th’:

Try out some activities on the worksheets at superteacherworksheets.com

Have the child read aloud the words on this page, so they are familiar with the soft ‘th’ and hard ‘th’ sound.

Check out some digraph soft ‘th’ worksheets here at easyteacherworksheets

5. Digraph ‘ph’

‘ph’ sound like in ‘phone’, ‘elephant’, and ‘dolphin’

Worksheets for digraph ‘ph’:

Have the child read aloud the words on this page, so they are familiar with the ‘ph’ sound.

Check out some digraph ‘ph’ worksheets here at education.com

Splendidmoms.co.in has flash cards for all the above digraphs.

Here is a children’s book my team has published, please check out the following Kindle link. The book can be read online or you can buy the paperback. Free promotion in December 2022!

The post Common digraphs – consonant phonics first appeared on Travel Life Stories.

1. ‘ou’ vowel digraph words has this pattern:

ou like in ‘couch’ and ‘house’

Worksheets for ‘ou’ vowel sounds:

Worksheets at Super teacher.com

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘ou’ activity at easyteaching.net.

2. ‘ow’ vowel digraph words has this pattern:

ow like in ‘cow’ and ‘crown’

Worksheets for ‘ow’ vowel sounds:

Worksheets at Super teacher.com

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘ow’ activity at easyteaching.net.

3. ‘oi’ vowel digraph words has this pattern:

oi like in ‘coin’ and ‘boil’

Worksheets for ‘oi’ vowel sounds:

Worksheets at Super teacher.com

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘oi’ activity at easyteaching.net.

4. ‘oy’ vowel digraph words has this pattern:

oy like in ‘boy’ and ‘toy’

Worksheets for ‘oy’ vowel sounds:

Worksheets at Super teacher.com

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘oy’ activity at easyteaching.net.

4. Long and short ‘oo’ vowel digraph words have these patterns:

Long ‘oo’ like in ‘pool’ and ‘food’

Short ‘oo’ like in ‘good’ and ‘foot’

Worksheets for ‘oo’ vowel sounds:

Worksheets at Super teacher.com

Worksheet with cut and paste for Long ‘oo’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Worksheet with cut and paste for Short ‘oo’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Missing vowel worksheets

Worksheets to fill in the missing vowel are here at the teachingaunt.com

Here is a children’s book my team has published, please check out the following Kindle link. The book can be read online or you can buy the paperback. Free promotion in December 2022!

The post Preschool vowel worksheets – part 2 first appeared on Travel Life Stories.

Vowel sounds ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, and ‘u’ are the basic foundations in the English Language. Finding the correct worksheets can be a challenge, so I have listed some preschool vowel worksheets and printables that can be useful to have on hand. Once your preschooler gets a hang of the beginning and ending consonant sounds, they can go on to figuring out the vowel in each word. First, I would go over the sounds of each vowel in a word, and explain how the short vowel sound is made like in a certain word, and give them a worksheet to practice. Here are some preschool vowel worksheets to use:

https://www.k5learning.com/free-preschool-kindergarten-worksheets/vowels/identify-short-vowelshttps://www.softschools.com/language_arts/phonics/worksheets/short_vowel_worksheets/

Short ‘a’ sound like in ‘can’

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/letter-short-a.html

Short ‘e’ sound like in ‘pen

’https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/letter-short-e.html

Short ‘i’ sound like in ‘pin

’https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/letter-short-i.html

Short ‘o’ sound like in ‘pot’

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/letter-short-o.html

Short ‘u’ sound like in ‘bug’

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/letter-short-u.html

More vowel worksheet practice

:https://www.teach-nology.com/worksheets/language_arts/phonics/

Long vowel sounds

Once your preschooler is familiar with short vowel sounds, and consonant sounds using the beginning and ending sounds worksheets. The next thing to learn would be the long vowel sounds. A child might get confused and take some time to know the difference between the short and long vowel sound, but don’t worry, they’ll eventually get it over time and practice. Below I have some word patterns which would help get an idea and to go over with your child.

1. Long ‘a’ vowel words have these patterns:

a_e like in ‘cane’

ai like in ‘rain’

ay like in ‘stay’ 

Worksheets for long ‘a’ vowel sounds:

Worksheets at Super teacher.com

Worksheet with fill-in-the-blanks for long ‘a’ vowel at mathworksheets4kids.com.

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘a_e’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘ai’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘ay’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Find below another worksheet I created where the child can search for words with long ‘a’ vowel sounds.

2. Long ‘e’ vowel words have these patterns:

ee like in ‘feed’

ea like in ‘beach’

Worksheets for long ‘e’ vowel sounds:

Worksheets for long ‘e’ vowel sounds at the measuredmom.com

Some examples of ‘ee’ and ‘ea’ sounds can be found here.

Worksheets at superteacher.com

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘ee’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘ea’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Worksheet with cut and paste mixed long ‘e’ activity at easyteaching.net.

3. Long ‘i’ vowel words have these patterns:

i_e like in ‘line’

ie  like in ‘tie’

igh  like in ‘light’

Worksheets for long ‘i’ vowel sounds:

Worksheets at superteacher.com

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘i_e’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘igh’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Find below another worksheet I created where the child can search for words with long ‘i’ vowel sounds.

4. Long ‘o’ vowel words have these patterns:

o_e like in ‘bone’

oa like in ‘boat’

Worksheets for long ‘o’ vowel sounds:

Worksheet at superteacher.com

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘o_e’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘oa’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Worksheet with cut and paste mixed long ‘o’ activity at easyteaching.net.

Find below another worksheet I created where the child can search for words with long ‘o’ vowel sounds.

5. Long ‘u’ vowel words have these patterns:

u_e like in ‘tube’

ue like in ‘glue’

Worksheets for long ‘o’ vowel sounds:

Worksheet at superteacher.com

Worksheet with cut and paste ‘u_e’ activity at easyteaching.net

Silent ‘e’ for long vowel sounds:

Words that have an ‘e’ at the end with another vowel in between change the sound of the vowel. So basically, for instance, take the word ‘can’ – adding an ‘e’ at the end changes the sound of the vowel ‘a’ as it sounds in the word ‘cane’. Please see the worksheet printables and examples below.

https://www.education.com/worksheet/article/just-add-e-second/

https://www.k5learning.com/free-preschool-kindergarten-worksheets/vowels/long-vowels

An example worksheet of silent ‘e’ words can be found here.

Holiday long vowel worksheets.

Please leave a comment if you found this post useful. I can post more worksheets and links soon.

The post Preschool Vowel worksheets first appeared on Travel Life Stories.

1. Phonics

No matter how old your child is and even if they are well past Kindergarten or First grade if they don’t have a solid understanding of phonics, it’s going to be hard to spell words. So, remind your child of the phonics rules and go through the basics if they have trouble sounding out words. The ability to sound out words easily gives a child the confidence and motivation to read more often and rids them of any fear when they start reading a new book. Alphablocks on youtube is a great resource for teaching phonics as well.

2. Read Aloud

Make your child read aloud books that are either at or a slightly higher level than what they usually read. They can pick the perfect book for their ability by reading a page of the book and finding out how many difficult words are present. One can use the ‘Five Finger’ rule as described here. Reading aloud sentences with a parent or guardian is helpful so that they can be taught how to correctly pronounce any words they are mispronouncing and to try to sound out words that are new. It also helps spelling skills. It may be hard missing out on your favorite show tonight, but the time spent in getting the basic reading skills down with your child is rewarding for your child as well as you as a parent!

3. Context clues

Another thing that reading aloud with a parent or guardian can help with is context clues. So if your child comes across a new word in their daily reading and asks you the meaning of the word, have them try to figure out the meaning themselves by looking at context clues in the passage.

4. Reading passages

Reading passages on free or paid websites such as Readworks, Ducksters, Scholastic books/passages will help with practice. Getting the kids to think of the main idea of a passage and having them attempt to answer helps a lot.

5. Daily reading habits

Daily reading is a critical part of learning and leaving out this and following all the other four strategies doesn’t make sense. Reading every day even for at least 30 minutes – 1 hour helps them come across different words and will help them to remember them by sight the next time they see them.

6. Find books similar to your child’s interest level

Find books similar to your child’s interest level at the library/bookstore/kindle store. Just like we wouldn’t like to read a book that doesn’t excite or interest our minds, children feel the same way. So if your child likes books that are humorous or adventurous, search online for other books of the same genre or search ‘books similar to this title’ and take that list to the library/store. For example, my daughter liked the juvenile book ‘Night divided’, so I searched for books like that title and came up with ‘Words on fire’ which she equally liked and held her attention.

7. Reading a variety of books:

Just reading fiction and avoiding nonfiction all together especially for kids 3rd grade and older is going to be a problem. They are at a point where they are expected to read math word problems, Science, social and other subjects, fully understand them, and put them to practice. So, helping them gain some interest in other genres is key.

8. Audiobooks

Trying out audiobooks instead of screen time help in building up their vocabulary.

9. Persistence

Be persistent in making them pronounce new words according to phonics and help them if struggling. This way they can gain confidence that they are able to read any word using phonics.

10. Patience

Have patience when teaching them! It’s not too late to help your struggling reader and do not give up otherwise they will have a harder time the older they get, so start now!

This article says kids struggle due to their lack of phonics sense and not being taught about it well in school

Another link with info for struggling readers from ThisReadingMama.

The post Help for Struggling Readers first appeared on Travel Life Stories.

Check out some of the printables below which cover some of Fry’s 100 sight words and go ahead and print them for free for your own personal use! Also, worksheets on ‘Vowels’ and ‘Beginning and Ending sounds’ can be found on this site.

The post Fry’s Sight Words Worksheets first appeared on Travel Life Stories.

Preschool Reading/Writing

Here is the curriculum for teaching reading/writing to a preschooler that I followed, and it has helped my 4 year old get motivated to read, so I’m hoping it may help another parent. Some of the worksheets listed refer to some other sites that I found very useful and these sheets can be used for preschooling at home, homeschooling, or just some prep before the kids start going to grade school.

First I would start with sight words and phonics. Sight words are words that are frequently encountered while reading like ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘I’, ‘you’ and a bunch of other words. They are usually not words that you can easily sound out, so it’s easy to just know the words by sight which comes by frequently reading the word and practicing writing. Here are some sight words printable sheets which I found useful to teach my kids.

Sight word printables

The website k5learning has really useful worksheets in Math and English Language Arts for practice and test preparation. Fry’s 100 words and Dolch sight words are a good start for a list of sight words to go over every day with your child.

https://www.k5learning.com/free-preschool-kindergarten-worksheets/sight-words/printing

Some printables for the list of Dolch sight words that are pretty commonly used in the English language:

https://www.littledotseducation.com/post/2017/04/10/pre-k-dolch-sight-words-worksheets-set-1

https://www.sightwordsgame.com/sight-words/worksheets/

https://www.sightwordsgame.com/sight-words/worksheets/printable-sight-word-worksheets/

Finding sight words

These printable have some fun activities for preschoolers so that they can find the sight words in a bunch of letters or a bunch of words. My preschooler found these to be fun and enjoyed the activities, so your child might like them too.

https://www.k5learning.com/free-preschool-kindergarten-worksheets/sight-words

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/sight-words-unit-1.html

I couldn’t find many websites that have all of Fry’s sight words and most sites don’t have a sentence incorporating the sight words, so I created my own sight words worksheets which can be found here.

Tips for teaching

Recommended Workbooks/Games

Here is a list of books and games that are useful to learn sight words:

1. ‘Learn to Read’ workbook which I found on Amazon proved to be very useful in teaching my child phonics and reading words.
2. ‘My First Learn to Write’ workbook is a book teaching a child to write their alphabets, so this is a starter book before they get into words.
3. ‘Sight Word Bingo’ is a game which has Fry’s list of 100 sight words and is a great resource to teach your child in a fun and engaging way. It’s basically Bingo with sight words! My daughter loved the game and wanted to play it over and over, so it’s a winner!
4. ‘Spectrum First Grade Math’ is a great resource for Math if you are looking for a Math book for practice addition and subtraction.
5. ‘My Sight Words workbook’ is another resource which has fun activities to learn at an engaging pace.
6. ‘200 Must Know Sight words’ activity book have fun activities for kids as well as sentences to trace for writing practice.
7. ‘My Phonics workbook’ is full of games for phonic practice and should make learning fun!
8. ‘Bob Books – Beginner Readers set’ is a useful pack which I heard from many parents and teachers which should build phonic foundations.

Phonics worksheets

Here are some links to phonics worksheets on other websites in order of the way I would suggest teaching preschoolers:

1. Beginning sound worksheets:

The below website by the Measured Mom has free worksheets for beginning sounds:

Beginning sounds worksheets

2. Ending sound worksheets:

Learning to know the letter for the ending sound that you get in a certain word is another thing that a preschooler should know. This site has some resources for that purpose.

https://thisreadingmama.com/write-ending-sounds-worksheets/

3. Short and Long vowel worksheets

Short and Long vowel worksheets can be found here

Alphablocks is a children’s program on youtube which has a guide to all the English language letter sounds. It’s a fun way to engage your child while making the learning process easier and interesting. This is a great resource for your child.

Here is a children’s book my team has published, please check out the following Kindle link. The book can be read online or you can buy the paperback. Free promotion in December 2022!

The post Sight words and phonics first appeared on Travel Life Stories.