Letter lunches

This week Charlotte (4) had her last ballet class of the session.

So, during class, we got to sit inside the class and watch/video her as she danced.

I thought her sister (2) was enthralled and enjoying every moment - and she kind of was.

Until we left.

She promptly looked and me and said "We did NOT learn a new letter".

Oops!

It hadn't occurred to me that the 40 minutes of uninterrupted time she gets each week from me as her sister takes ballet (during which we learn a letter of the alphabet) was more important to her.

For the last 48 hours, she has been constantly asking me when we are going to learn a new letter.

So, after we got home from the grocery store today, I decided I needed to pull a rabbit out of the bag or I was going to be on Adelyn's grumpy side.

As the girls played outside, I made a special "M" lunch :)

 We have alphabet cutters that we use with playdough (which are awesome) so I pulled that cutter out and went to town on a variety of things I found in my fridge & cupboard.

Tortilla, turkey and cheese M's (stacked like a sandwich), along with fruit leather, nutrigrain bar and snapea crisps :)

These are an easy buy when learning letters!

A happy customer :)

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Of course to drink, we had "M-ilk" 

With letter punches, you could make letter lunches any time. 

You could even pack them, if your kiddo goes to pre-school.  

Especially if they have certain letter days :)

Audio Books

Audio books are awesome!

Not audio-visual books, but audio books.

I was an avid reader as a child and my mother very much remembers my obsession with disney's audio books on tape.  I would sit and listen and read along often.  I believe they had a lot to do with my success and lifelong enjoyment of reading.  Why wouldn't I want to pass that on to my 2 loves?

If you're into literacy instruction, the "Daily 5" is a very popular approach to literacy instruction right now.  

I'm going to share how 2 of the 5 activities are able to be accomplished with Audio books at home!

I did extensive research before I bought Mp3 players for my girls. 

There are a ton out there, so do your research.  I was looking for one that could be manipulated easily by me but that would NOT be easily manipulated or broken by my active 2 and 4 year olds!  I am EXTREMELY happy with my purchase of the Sweetpea3.

One of the reasons I was really excited about Audio books is that we live far away from a ton of relatives, so having relatives read books to Charlotte or Adelyn is a great connection for them.  It's also a cool idea when a parent travels, etc.

I like this software because it's only $0.99 and it's easy to use with an iPhone!

(If you have questions - please don't hesitate to ask!)

Charlotte LOVES her new mp3 player full of audio books!

One of the ways we're using her mp3 player full of audio books is to enhance her instructional reading level.  There are book sets that she can read to herself alone, easily and fluently.  Those are at her independent reading level.  However, there is a level just slightly more challenging than that (called instructional level) that kids can practice at.  One of the methods you can use audio books for is something called "Choral Reading".  Choral reading is when two people read a text together at the same time (like a chorus).  Instead of another person sitting next to your kiddo, you can record a set of books so that they can choral read with you.  These Bob Books (below) are at Charlotte's instructional level.  I recorded the entire box as one of the 10 potential playlists.  In daily 5, this choral reading is considered "Read to/with Someone".

This is the book set we're currently using for Choral Reading

A fun second way to use audio books is just for listening pleasure!  This is considered "Listening to Reading" in Daily 5.  We all know it's important, right?  

What is fun about audio book sets is that kids can listen to you read the same book 100 times :)

Haven't we all FELT like we read a book 100 times in one day?

Another cool aspect is that a variety of people (that your kids love) can read books that kids love into these eclectic book sets! With the above software anyone with an iphone or ipad can read a book with their phone and email you the file in minutes!

Our current mixed set includes a variety of types of books (13 total), lengths, difficulties, etc.

A book of Nursery Rhymes

Did you know that research shows that 4 year olds that know 8 nursery rhymes are more likely to become better readers by the age of 8?

I love mixing in stories that really have strong messages!

 I use stickers at the bottom left of the book with a number that corresponds to the number the book is on the playlist.  This way, when I turn on a playlist, Charlotte can easily navigate to the book she wants to listen to.

This is one Charlotte can probably read along during parts

Classics never get old!

Charlotte loves to use the mixed set during her quiet time with headphones :)

Good headphones are another must-have for kids.  

We have loved these so far for a variety of purposes!

Seasons

The girls and I have been talking about seasons in the last few weeks.

We've been reading lots of stories about seasons, so today we decided to take it to the next level

I looked online at the various "sorts" for seasons and I really didn't like any of them.

I wanted a sort with items that meant something to my kids, so I made one that I thought fit them.

Feel free to use it! 

(I made it a word document so you can download it and make changes that might fit your kiddos!)

Cutting is SO FUN - at least for my kids.  It's half of the fun of sorts.  You can probably tell which parts Charlotte cut, versus Adelyn ;)

We sorted the first time together, talking about each picture!

We got a ton out of this activity.  We started with Charlotte sounding out each season.  Then we talked about each picture together!  Some they knew immediately, while others they didn't!

I love sorts because you can use them over and over again.  Later, I'll probably layer in new pictures and maybe the months of the year to make it increasingly challenging.

Then, we created season trees, which is an idea I stole from my friend Kelly.

I didn't do it as artistically as she did.  I printed tree templates and just pulled out paint.

We had already sorted, so we used the trees from our sorts as models.

Charlotte chose Spring - no surprise - there was pink involved!

Adelyn chose Fall because she LOVES yellow :)

 After painting, I let Charlotte use the headers from the sorts as models to write the seasons names on the paintings (so she got in some reading and writing - yay!)

Adelyn's finished product

Mommy even got to paint!

Charlotte's "Spring" painting

Winter is kind of the "non" painting :)

Finished and hung where they can see them every day and talk about them!

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 :)