Turns out setting up the word search activity was more complicated than I expected. 😅 But it's finally done. Here's a quick Monday grid (scroll for solution 😁). Want to make your own? 👇

It's so nice to hear confident words from your kids. Even before he started the word search, he said: "I'll be good at this, because I'm good at mazes!" Also, word search activity coming soon to the site :D

The Days of the Week Word Cloud activity is free for a limited time. Give it a go with your kids and share your thoughts :)

First activity pack shared 😁 While I'm still working on the word cloud activities the handwriting practice is free to download. My kids seem to enjoy these as they did the Friday one without prompting this morning 🤯

✨Book update✨ Another 'days of the week' activity type. A while back I've read that repeated, incremental patterns help with memorisation. It also breaks away of just drilling the word on its own.

A brief break in book updates and worksheet work... due to Cradle inspired cake activities 😅 Orthos & Little Blue

✨Book Progress✨ Experimenting with a multilingual activity. Two things I'm looking at: 🧵

Fellow dyslexia/AuDHD people/parents what are some good accounts to follow for tips and laughs? One thing I struggle with is the content gap between the preschool and teen/adult ages. We’ve got the basic phonics down, and reading is fine(-ish). Need more tips for spelling and focus for a 9yo…

I used to panic that my dyslexic child would never love books the way I do. He loved being read to — chapter books, bedtime stories, anything. But when it came to him reading? He’d do anything to avoid it. 🧵

Book progress update! ✨ I’ve finally cleaned up the word cloud activity enough to release it. We tested the “colour the correct spelling” version today. The kids loved hunting for the right Monday.

Here’s my step-by-step process for making spelling a 15-minute daily habit. If you’re trying to fit practice into real life: Step 1: Pick one set time (e.g. before dinner). Step 2: Keep materials ready — no setup faff. Step 3: Use one or two short, engaging worksheets.

I need your help. What's your best tips for building curiosity and internal motivation in children?

I kept hearing, “Don’t worry, he’ll catch up.” But my gut said something was off. It's hard not to second guess yourself with your first child.

This month I'm writing not one, but TWO books! 📚 Normally I join #NaNoWriMo, but this year I’m swapping word count for page count. Here’s what I’m creating 🧵

This book will be tested on children 🥼 ;) I’m designing my first dyslexia-friendly activity book. Here’s a sneak peek at the cover in progress and the tools I plan to use 🧵

Need to reset or recharge? Here’s my go-to playlist for work and, well chilling :D open.spotify.com/playlist/37i...

Here are 5 things scarier than 👻 ghosting your projects: 1. Spending hours making the “perfect” worksheet no one uses 2. Waiting for the right time that never comes 3. Letting comparison stop you from experimenting 4. Forgetting that kids learn through messy tries 5. Mistaking activity for progress

3 ways to avoid ghosting your goals: 1. Have a plan - for us it is having the rule of homework before screen time 2. Have a backup to your plan - well, it's half term here, so there might have been some pre-homework screen time

I stopped sharing my daily worksheets. Here’s why 👇

Here’s how I’m avoiding ghosting this month: Step 1: Sign up for Buffer’s social media challenge Step 2: Realise most prompts expect you to have things figured out
 Step 3: Panic about not having anything to sell or a magic solution to everyone’s problems

😍

When kids are in the other room, what’s scarier: 👻 silence 😱 indiscernible shrieking (maybe they are happy, maybe they are about to murder each other...) Curious where you stand - which one puts you more on edge?

Mornings... ah, the bane of my life... Didn't like them before having kids, like them even less now. So it felt like a double curse when we discovered that ironically one of the best times for doing homework was... you guessed it morning!

I often wish I had a good weekly routine. But it’s not easy with school pickups and after school clubs. Nearly every day is different (including lunch time decided by my OH’s meeting schedule). Since having kids I’ve been working 3 days a week to make this chaos work.

If you’ve been stuck trying to get your kids to practice handwriting and it’s not working, you’re not alone. I recommend 1) separating writing practice from spelling activities 2) using proper guide lines for their skill level.

I made a weekly workbook for my kids this week. Ask me anything 😄

I was going to write about what I’d do if I had to start again from scratch, but both parenting and the MDL site are still a work in progress. It’s also hard to detach some lessons learned from the experience that brought them about. But here’s a few things I wish I had done earlier:

One thing I’m quite proud of as a parent is the love for stories we managed to spark in our children. And I say STORIES as for a while the struggles with reading with dyslexia had me worried we will lose the childhood joy of books.

I’ve been working on various activities for the site for a while. But I kept chasing perfection. I’ll just test it a bit more, iterate a few more times, then it will be perfect and it will fix all my edu-parenting problems…

A glimpse of the dragon cave… erm, my office. When I’m there I can disconnect from the household clutter, chores and just focus. It’s far from the kitchen too, so no snacking distractions 😂

 What’s your workspace like?

Two types of study environments: 🤫 absolute silence vs. 🎶 listening to music. Which one are you? And if you pick music, what’s your go to type?

Sometimes there are days when I'm out of ideas or out of time to prep. For such times I have a few goto activities that mean we still have something to do. 1. This Is Not A... - a creative drawing activity that the kids love and you can prep in 30 seconds. Kudos to the lady on instagram (link below)

We’ve been stuck in post-summer chaos, in need of a reset to our routine. I’ve been less consistent and the kids responded by avoiding the work more than usual. A bit more flexibility and variety in the activities will hopefully improve my results.

New feature alert :) 'Today Is' section in the custom worksheets now comes in two flavours - simple (old) and a new detailed format with more guided structure. :)

Not sure I properly introduced myself before, so here goes: I’m Joanna and I post about worksheets, homework, fun reading and writing activities, (not) getting my kids to do the activities... and trying out various dyslexia friendly resources.

Worksheet update! The kids do love to insist on following the instructions to the letter, so when on occasion I asked them to write something else (or god forbid more!) it was like talking to a lawyer. Now the text is editable, directly in the worksheet creator for each new sheet. :) #devlog

Day 67 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. Focused practice for b/d and th. :) And I finally got my son on the maze (everything was too easy before...) #dyslexiaSupport #homework

Day 66 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. Mazes and times tables! #worksheetsForKids #homework

Day 65 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. Working on our Polish vocabulary and some of the diacritics.

Day 64 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. Back to the good old 'this is not a' activity. I'm also tormenting the children with times tables.

Using up some test printouts for a quick challenge. Practising muktiplication with tokens and a few activities from a workbook. I like to lay these out for the kids thr night before so they can do them before school if they like or leave it for later. #homework #practiceAtHome

Day 62 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. More Cradle inspired colouring :D Some of the days of the week just don't seem to stick at all :(

Had a request for a different math activity today and DS decided he wants an erupting volcano with numbers on boulders. Both kids are doing number sorting at school so I could reuse these for both kids - one sheet with 1-20 and another with up to a thousand. #worksheets #mathHomework

Day 60 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. I was asked to make an exploding volcano maths challenge for this one :)

Day 61 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. Big word season and misspellings activity for days of the week.

Day 59 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. Both kids struggle a bit with flipped letters, so a bit of b/d colouring today. Plus more times tables :)

Day 58 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. Back to a trusty maze and examples of the -ck spelling since it was the first spelling problem we hit during the OG assessment.

Day 57 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. After a hectic weekend back to spelling practice - red words.

Day 56 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. On Saturdays we learn Polish. While my son speaks quite well the reading and writing needs a bit more work. Autumn themed word list. :)

Day 55 of making custom #mdlWorksheets. Back after a few day break - end of summer holidays and start of school was pretty hectic. Quick review of numbers and multiplication to ease back into homework.