Learning How to Read and Spell with Shaka

Aloha! We spent some quality time with Shaka the Tutor, again, yesterday. I thought of creating yet another PowerPoint presentation (where our virtual pet, Shaka, "lives") to check if my older son really is learning how to spell words correctly and construct sentences properly. I wanted it to be a family activity, so I took his list of spelling words and made one slide per word, along with an example of how to use the word in a sentence.

The big letters allowed me to follow along by looking at the computer screen from a distance (while tending to a newborn baby) and nodding in approval as each child did their part correctly.

Introducing Our Newest Pet, "Shaka"

Meet Shaka, our newest pet! When he is hard at work, we call him "Shaka the Tutor". 

Shaka is not a real dog. In fact, he hails from Microsoft PowerPoint! He does not live in a fancy neighborhood, either; I got him from ClipArt! Despite his humble origin, he turned out to be the main character of our homemade tutorials, "Learning with Shaka".

We "adopted" our virtual pet yesterday and trained him to be our children's math tutor. Picture him as the scholastic version of Microsoft Office's "Clippy", the defunct paperclip character that had served as the "Office Assistant" for many years.