Activity ideas

Read A Songbook!

I love to sing. More than that, I love to sing to kids. Whether I am singing “This is the way we pick up our toys…”

Or “This is the day the Lord has made…”

Kids seem to be mesmerized by music, and shame on me, but they are so pleasant when they are in a trance.

Today, I want to help you mesmerize your little one for academic purposes, and maybe even for a quiet car ride on an errand run.

The cheap-o that I am will warn you that you may want to invest in a binder and sheet protectors for today’s activity, but you can technically do without it.

This is a songbook that I made for my sweet little friend Carsyn. I wanted it to be meaningful because I was filling it with a lot of educational songs too. So I simply uploaded a picture of her into a word document and picked a fun font (Kristin ITC).

Then I simply picked the songs that I targeted with the skills I wanted to teach her at the time. The FREE printables for these songs can be found at Kelly’s Kindergarten, Kid’s Count under School Is Cool Big Books , New Jack Hartmann Big Books, and Dr. Jean Big Books, as well as Dr. Jean.org.

Print them and put them together in sheet protectors back to back.

The book will be unique depending on the songs you pick.

If you are an over-achiever like me, you can download the songs you picked to print and make a CD that goes with the book. Or find a friend who has a lot of children’s songs on their computer and borrow.

**Sing-along books are great for SO many reasons**

Sing-along books:

Make it easy to follow along with the pictures and words.
Engage and maintain a child’s interest.
Help children follow along with print, one word at a time (one-to-one correspondence).
Teach children to read independently and with purpose.
Teach skills through rote memory (just from hearing a “Days of the Week” song over and over a child will memorize and learn the days of the week).
Help kids connect stories with pictures.

“Carsyn loves her songbook! She reads it all the time. She loves to sing along and read it to her little sister.” ~Kasey of Baton Rouge, La

The Starter songbook I made for Carsyn were the following picks:

Alphardy –sing to learn Album by dr jean (Letter Naming and Sounds Awareness)
Down by the bay – raffi singable songs (Rhyming)
Color farm –sing to learn (Colors and Color Word Recognition)
The Shape Song – Shape-A-Loo song fromTotally Math by dr jean (Shape Identification)
Five Fish – Sing Silly Songs Album by dr jean (Adding On)
Chant and write – totally math Album by dr jean (Number Identification and Formation)
Today is Sunday –dr jean and friends Album (Days of the Week)
The twelve days of school –keep on singing and dancing Album by dr Jean (Ordinal Numbers)

February 16, 2011 by Jessica | 1 Comment

5, 6, Pick Up Sticks

I am always encouraging you to find materials in your house for teaching opportunities. Why?

1. I like to save money!

2. You are more likely to do the activity if you can access the materials right away.

3. It is more meaningful.

4. Did I already say that I’m a penny pincher?

Well, here is a GREAT idea from A Mommy Teacher named Casey and you probably even have the materials in your house already (because you can always substitute), but if not she gets her materials for this activity at the Dollar Tree….Penny pinchers think alike!

From Casey:

“This is our new math activity that James and I do. I bought all of these little tins at the Dollar Tree 3 for $1 in the wedding favor section. So, I bought 12 for $4. Then we got 1000 Popsicle sticks at Hobby Lobby for like $3. We could have used a 40% off coupon if I had it, or waited until they went on sale for 50% off to get them cheaper, but I was impatient.

With a permanent marker, I wrote the numeral on one side, and spelled out the number on the other. We do lots of different things with these…
– put them in numerical order
– put the correct number of Popsicle sticks in each of the tins
– add (he can see the quantity of sticks then count them all to see how many he has)
– subtract
– count by 2s
– find the missing number in the number line (put out the tins for 1…2…_…4… and find which number is missing)
– count backwards
– read the words for the numbers (have all of the numbers facing us, then turn one number around showing the word so he can start recognizing the spellings)
– count by 2’s

Things we do with the popsicle sticks:
– count by 5’s
– count by 10’s
– draw things in sand or rice
– use them to make squares, rectangles, triangles or letters with straight lines

Hitting lots of math standards for only $7 w/o waiting for stuff to go on sale ”

Thanks again my Friend!

February 15, 2011 by Jessica | 2 Comments

Math Night

I don’t know about you but I am a board game enthusiast who loved game nights with my family. In my post “Games Galore,” I posted some game ideas for literacy. Today, I wanted you to have a good idea of which games are beneficial for young children to practice their counting, adding on, shape recognition and manipulation, and other great math skills.

If you have these games, use them! If not, borrow them or check out a local thrift store. If you want to add to your game library, click on the links below and find the cheapest used game. However you go about acquiring new games, PLAY THEM…don’t let them go to waste taking up space in your closet!

February 7, 2011 by Jessica | 1 Comment

I Spy

Everyone knows the game “I Spy” where one player says “I Spy something….” and names something specific in the area and the other player has to find it.

Well, I am going to put a Phonemic Awareness spin on it which just means that I am going to make it a listening activity where your little one is listening to the “play on words” to identify the object.

If you read the post “What is Phonemic Awareness?” then you know that there are three phases to this game because there are three different skills to be mastered.

PHASE ONE:
First you are going to play the game by focusing on the parts in the words. So you will say “I Spy a pic -(pause) ture”
This is to get your little one to focus on putting syllables together to hear a word.
If you are confident that your little one can hear and combine syllables then move on to phase Two. If not, practice this game a little each day in different locations.

Phase Two:
This time you are going to focus on the initial sound and the rest of the word so you are isolating a sound but you are still including the bigger chunk of the word.
So you are going to say “I spy a /p/ – /en/”

Phase Three:
Finally, you are going to focus on segmenting all the sounds so that your child has to listen carefully to figure out the word.
If your child cannot figure out the first two simple words PLEASE don’t force it, spend some time working on the earlier skills first.
So you will say, “I spy a /p/ – /e/ – /n/”

This entire activity is meant to build your child’s familiarity with sounds in spoken language, but make sure you have fun with it. Give a pep talk “Let’s play I Spy, it is a fun guessing game, but I’m going to be tricky and hide the word I Spy. I wonder if I will stump you.”

February 2, 2011 by Jessica | 0 comments

Letter Order

I over-heard some moms talking about teaching their child to write his/her name before a screening test and I couldn’t help but give an idea for this. If your child is capable of writing their first name, you can also do this same activity with their middle/last name, OR with simple words like sight words your child’s grade level may require that they learn.

In earlier posts I have tracing activities for children to practice writing their names, but this activity is a simple way to jog their memory recall and order their thinking.

1. I want you to search your house for some magnetic letters, foam bath letters, puzzle piece letters, or any loose alphabet pieces you can find.

*If you don’t have any letters or enough to make up their name, you can type their name in large font, print it onto cardstock (so it will be sturdy), and cut it apart.

2. Invite your child to play a game with their name!

3. Write the child’s name on a sheet of paper and go with the letters in front of you ask your child to name and find each letter and put it aside. (This step can be skipped if you had to print your child’s name from your computer).

3. Place these letters (the letters that make up your child’s name) into a brown bag or a small container. Shake it up to mix all the letters (lor shuffle them by throwing them in the air and flipping them over wherever they land).

4. Show your child how to put their name (or whatever word you choose) in order.

5. Put the letters back in the bag, shake again and this time put the letters in order WITH your child.

6. Finally, repeat but allow your child to attempt this on their own.

****Another activity extension is to place ALL the letters in a bag to shuffle and place the letters in ABC order.

Below is an example of the name and sight word letter order activity. I used post it notes and a black marker.