Jessica - The Mommy Teacher

Do you know your ABC’s?

My ABC’s for teaching your child the alphabet:

Always Be Creative

You could spend hours upon hours trying to find alphabet activities online, but really? I mean, I get overwhelmed with the oversupply of ideas and end up forgetting all of the great ideas I have seen.

Reality is that kiddos need to learn their ABC’s back and forth, inside and out; it’s seemingly simplistic but when it comes down to it the key is Reinforcement.

For starters, there are great Alphabet books you need to read to them…”Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” is great for learning letters, lower and upper case; point to each letter as you read about it. Click here to order from amazon: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Additionally, go to the Library and check out some other ABC books; children love hearing books over and over because they become familiar with them and feel so confident.

To teach your child each letter of the alphabet, I recommend introducing the letters in their name first, and then working with the other letters one letter at a time.

Here is just one alphabet activity to start with:

Alphabet Color Font PDF

1. Print the letters of the alphabet attachment and make a book by stapling it, hole-punching and putting it in a folder, or if you are fancy, have it bound. Go through some old magazines with your child and focus on one page of the Alphabet book at a time (I suggest one a day). Thrift stores sell magazines for about 15 cents if you don’t have any around your house.

2. For the first page, encourage your child to circle all the A’s and a’s they see in the magazine.

3. Cut them out for them (it is most likely a little too small for their motor control). While you are cutting, let your child glue each letter onto the alphabet page it belongs to.

This is a great way for your child to learn a letter and how it looks in several fonts and sizes.

ACCOMMODATION: If your child already knows their ABC’s you can do this same book by having your child cut out pictures of things that BEGIN with the letter SOUND. For example, cut out alligators, and apples to glue onto your Aa page.

Bonus: Make a Cover yourself. Come up with a title and help your child write their name next to “By:”

November 22, 2010 by Jessica | 2 Comments

E-mail ME!

If you have had a chance to do any of the activities with your child, or if you plan on it, please TAKE PICTURES 🙂
With your consent, I would love to post some pictures of you and your child working on an activity, or a modification of the activity, on my visitors share page.

November 21, 2010 by Jessica | 2 Comments

Updates

I added a resource to the post “Number Fun” because I figured not everyone knew how to use/download a new font. So, to make it easier on you, I made a PDF for you to print of the the numbers 1-10 in “Color Font” for the color rubbing activity.

I don’t plan on uploading activities on Saturdays and Sundays, but I did add a new page to the mix that is going to be a quick reference for activities. It is “Activity Archives”. I plan to upload all my activities to that page so they can all be found in one place. Feel free to print and share with others, but they are not to be reproduced for financial gain. Thanks!

November 20, 2010 by Jessica | 0 comments

Number Sense

In my last Math post “Number Fun” I talked about some of the attributes of numbers that children need to learn. I mentioned that children need to learn that each number has a quantity; most children can count to a number but have no idea what the number represents.

When we think of a number, we can picture the number itself in our minds, we can picture where the number stands on a number line, what numbers are greater or smaller than the number, and we can picture all the different ways that number amount could be rearranged spatially. It takes a lot of repetition and hands-on experience to store a repertoire of number concepts into a memory. So get busy!!!!

If your child still doesn’t know their number names “1, 2, 3 4….”, up to 10, out of order, then they may not be ready to learn the number amount yet. Master the basics first.

Here is a number activity for your child to practice counting one object at a time in a set group of objects and identify the number they counted. Ask them to count each group of objects and find the number to draw a line from the amount to the number.

Number Sense – Matching

November 19, 2010 by Jessica | 2 Comments

Why Rhyme?

Little Miss Muffet would be glad to know that her legend lives on. We all grew up reading, singing, and memorizing a variety of nursery rhymes, but would you know that children are still expected to know nursery rhymes? Yep…it is a GLE (Grade Level Expectation) for pre-k and k kiddos. There are a few reasons behind this seemingly dated benchmark. 1) Children are expected to be able to recognize familiar songs and rhymes for extended learning in classrooms, 2) Children are expected to utilize their memory, 3) Hearing and making up rhymes is a reading indicator!
I understand if you tuned me out for the first two reasons but did you hear what I said? Yes, rhyming is a tier on the reading ladder. If a child can hear and make up rhymes then that means that they can manipulate sounds in words, and manipulating sounds is a big chunk of what reading consists of in early readers. Rhyming is a definite pre-reading activity. 🙂
So, go crazy around your house speaking in rhyme: “Are you ready Freddy?” “See you later gator!” “After a while, crocodile” “That’s easy cheesy!”
Explain to your child that rhymes sound the same at the end of the word. So you can say two rhyming words in a sing-song way and it sounds almost the same, but if you say two non-rhyming words in a sing-song way then it just sounds awkward.
So, check out some mother goose books from the library and read some nursery rhymes to your kids and, of course, here is a hands-on activity.

Open the Rhyming activity attachment. Print it, see if your child can identify all the pictures (name them), and ask your child to color all the words that rhyme with “sat” red (-at word family) and then color all the other pictures whatever other color they would like.

rhyming activity -heart

Note: The first rhyming activity you do should focus on seeing if they can hear a rhyme or not. So, if you take out this sheet and say the names of everything on the paper, dont just ask them to find the rhyming words. Ask “Does cat rhyme with sat?” Then, “What about bear? Does bear rhyme with cat?” Say them right next to eat other and wait for a “yes” or “no” from your child. For example, “Cat, sat?” “Bear, Sat?” Give guidance for the activity. If your child says “yes” to cat, say “Good listening! Color it red because cat rhymes with sat!” If your child isn’t getting any right, put the activity sheet away and work on just making up silly rhymes and give this a lot of practice before continuing or moving on.

November 18, 2010 by Jessica | 1 Comment