Treasure hunters and pirate sight words

Its been a while since I've posted, but the daily grind of finding new techniques to make my world of reading a better place, is in full swing. We are moving in a kind of rhythm these days, we have found some peace and the learning is...might I actually say...fun? Yep, I'm throwing it out there. And for any mom with a child with learning disabilities, that can be a daunting task. Force feeding learning down a child's throat is possible, but you risk killing the desire to learn in that child. Don't get me wrong, I would pay big bucks to put language arts in an IV and hook my kids up to it. Unfortunately, it requires not only my ability to conjure magical ways to make learning fun, but also opening up their minds to new ideas. There is no way to force this on anyone. We have to decide if we want to retain something. Think about all you learned in school, its only the stuff that was fun to you, that you retained. Or the stuff that some creative teacher made fun, and somehow burned it into your brain. That being said, our jobs as parents/teachers can be very difficult!
I have a few new ideas, nothing amazing but things that are working and brightening up our days.

Just this week, the kids and I watched the Today shows story on Forrest Fenn. Look it up, its a fun story! We are embarking on a treasure hunt and possibly field trip to New Mexico. We will see how far we get on the clues. So in the meantime, my 1st grader, who does not have a learning disability, just a disinterest in reading, and my 2nd grader with dyslexia have been giving me bouts of anxiety about the next school year. I know, why can't wait until summer to worry about next year? Unfortunately, it came to me that if we didn't get into gear, I'd have another year of two non-readers... Ugh... that is not something I want to deal with. I want at least two fluent readers and maybe one that's a struggling learner. That, I can at least comfortably close my eyes and get a good night's sleep with. Sooo...as I pondered the fun in treasure hunting, I realized that this could  make some interesting reasons to want to read. Voila! An idea to make things funner, came to mind. (it's a word and I'm using it!). I created 6 reading clues, some small words to sound out and some of the hated "sight words", hid them all over the house and placed a $1 bill in a treasure box. Amazing what a little creativity and cold hard cash can accomplish. My two little treasure hunters were running around the house, hardly noticing they were reading. Success! No crying, no frustration, just fun. It set the mood of our day very well. We did our sight words with sidewalk chalk on the back patio and then buried ourselves in Forrest Fenn's hidden treasure. Some may say that because we didn't do hours of book learning and flash cards and reading, that the day was wasted. But for me, it was a day of triumph to see my children find the joy in learning. Tonight, Graham opened his e-mail account and sent me the following e-mail:

hi mom you are full of love

And Noah began blogging about his treasure hunt. I will post his postings as they are ready. He will need some help with the poem's clues!

Now for the latest in "sight word art", Daniel and I came up with a picture for "are". Some of these sight words are so difficult to match with a picture.

Pirates say ARE ggghh!

This is a fun story I found at the library and we listened and made a lap book. The lapbook downloads were all free and was to find. This a fun story for boys who don't love reading.

I have now exhausted my idea cache for the week. please post any ideas you may have, I'm always looking for new and improved ways to learn.