Rhyming (word families)

I got this really fun idea from Family Fun Magazine for word family practice!

Dress up an egg container (whatever size you want/have)!

Use old plastic eggs to fill the container.  

I scrounged through ours to find all of the ones that were already detached from each other and used those (they have to be detached to "spin").

Use word endings that your child already can sound out or are pretty easy for them!

This is helpful for "practice" so if your kiddo only can sound out a few, just do 4-8 eggs.

It should be fun practice for them, so don't make it too difficult :)

I used a word families website to cheat (18 eggs wasn't easy!)

Write initial sounds on the bottom (smaller) side

Spin & write another (I fit 4 beginning sounds on each!)

These are our 18 all finished!

Planting

It's Spring!

Anybody else in heaven?

I'm almost ready to start planting our garden, but yesterday we just started with a few pots in the windowsill.

Kids love to get their hands dirty, so why not with a purpose?

Buying a pack of flower seeds at the store is cheap, but delightful for kids!

We planted three different types of flowers and some herbs.  

The girls loved how different each of the seeds were :)

There are ENDLESS amounts of things kids learn from planting things themselves.

I'm already excited about all the new learning we'll have this year just from our garden.

A few things I asked:

* What do you think plants need to grow?

* Can you "predict" which pot will have a plant first?

* Where might be a good place to put our pots? Why?

* Which color flower do you think will come from this seed?

The "science-y" learning is endless.

An unforeseen math connection popped up during this video!

I thought she would just guess a number of days, but that's what I get for thinking :)

P.S. This video was too long so I had to cut off the end with the answer, but you get the idea!

Adelyn checked on our "plants" even before she fixed her hair this morning :)

Tear & Paste

There is so much that I don't know about little kid development.

What I do know?  

Gross and fine motor skills are a huge part of learning.  

If they weren't, we would have 3rd graders who can't tie their own shoes or cut out a picture, etc

The other day I ran across a "Cut, Fold & Tear" book for preschoolers.  

 

I was intrigued.

Of course I didn't buy it because I didn't think the activities looked all that difficult to reproduce.

This morning we were talking about the letter Hh that Adelyn learned yesterday.

We were creating H and h with marshmallows and I realized that I could use the above concept with our Alphabet learning.  So I did a quick google images search for "Letter H worksheets".

I decided on THIS one because it was chunky enough to fill with more paper, but there were a million choices.

I printed 3 copies (so I could model/play too!)

Each of us chose a color of construction paper and got to tearing them into little pieces. It's quite soothing :) and I realized how difficult this was for Adelyn. It actually takes some fine motor capabilities for tearing and it was great for Charlotte too (it was easier, but not "easy" per say) 

Charlotte had the most patience (of course) and even used some patterns

An unforeseen benefit is that Charlotte got to practice using glue alone

Adelyn's patience ebbed and flowed, so she would work for a couple of minutes, then run around for a few minutes.  I completely expect this, but was really proud of her that she "finished" without much prompting.  It's obvious from her final product that she was more patient in the beginning, but she's 2.  Who cares?

 

Charlotte's finished product (left) and Adelyn's (right).  After Charlotte wrote her name at the bottom of hers, Adelyn decided to do some of her own writing :)

Alphabet Sound Tubs

When I taught Charlotte letter names (around the age of 3), she didn't pick up on the letter sounds much at all.  That didn't come until later.  Your 2nd child always does things differently.  Not only is Adelyn randomly "knowing" letters that I haven't taught her, she has really picked up on some letter sounds, mostly from watching Letter Factory.

So, I'm realizing that while I'm teaching her 1 letter at a time, I guess I should do something to focus on the sound(s) of that letter too!

Geesh!  Way to make Momma work!

So I went a-searching! At Lakeshore Learning, I found this awesome letter sound tubs set that has all sorts of little things inside of a bucket for each letter.  

CUTE, right?

Yeah, well $150 later, it should be cute.

So, as usual, this thrifty teacher/momma decided to make her own.

First, I started with a container that I was going to throw away.  So far, I've chosen containers that are mostly one color so that there is minimal painting.  Then, I use some $0.57 craft paints to paint over any other colors on the container.  This raisin container took a few coats (this is a shot after the 1st coat).

After the paint dries, use a Sharpie to draw the letter(s) on the front and top of the container.  Below is a shot of a Cocoa container we used for the letter G.

 Then comes the fun part!  After teaching your child a letter and what sound it makes, go searching through the house for things small enough to fit into the container that start with that letter sound.  Put a few things inside the container and TA-DA!  Your letter container is complete.

Spend time every day or two pulling out all of the things in the letter sound container and talking about the name of each and how they sound like "G"

This is truly for Adelyn (2 1/2) but honestly, Charlotte (4) finds as much pleasure out of the scavenger hunt and using these letter tubs.  I love things that engage both of kids at once :)

At our house we found: Goofy, Giraffe, Gummy bear, Green Grapes, Giraffe Glasses, and a capital letter "G"

Good luck :)