Activity ideas

One Activity Can Go A Long Way

I know some of you are ready for more easy ABC activities that you can do with your little ones to really reinforce their knowledge of letter names and letter-sounds.

Well, today’s activity IS going to be a great game for practicing those skills, but it is also going to be a great game to practice lots of other skills to!

Take a mini chalkboard, mini whiteboard, or even a paper and pencil with a great eraser.  You basically just want any materials that you can use to wipe off what you have written/drawn.  A white board would probably be the easiest to clean.

Today’s game is all about writing or drawing a letter or picture and using different prompts to get your child to erase the letter or picture you are referring to.  You can play this game focusing on a lot of the skills that we have talked about in previous reading posts.  Here are some examples of different ways to play, depending on what “step” your child is on.

 I got my whiteboard at WalMart 🙂

Practice rhyming:

Draw simple pictures on a whiteboard, and ask your child to wipe off a picture that rhymes with _______.  Example: “I drew a fish, a cat, and a rose. Erase the picture that rhymes with NOSE ” (rose).

Practice listening for segmented words:

Draw simple pictures on a whiteboard, and ask your child to wipe off a picture that has these sounds  /_/-_____.  Example:“I drew a fish, a cat, and a rose.  Erase the picture that has all the sounds /r/ – ose” by saying just the first sound and the rest of the word.

Or, if this skill comes easily, have your child “Erase the picture that has the sounds /r/-/ō/ /s/” by saying all the sounds in the word.

Practice letter recognition:

Write random letters on a whiteboard, and ask your child to wipe off a letter that you name.  Example: “I am going to write some letters on the board, can you erase the letter ‘P’?” You can even put it to a tune like “The Farmer and the Dell” and sing “Erase the letter ‘P’ Erase the letter ‘P’ Which letter do you know to be the letter ‘P’?”

Practice Letter-sound relationships:

Write random letters on a whiteboard, and ask your child to wipe off a letter starts with a certain sound like /p/.  Example: “I am going to write letters on the board, can you erase the letter that makes the sound /p/?”

Or to erase the picture that starts with the same sound as /r/abbit (rose).

Practice upper-lower case matching:

Write letter sets (upper and lower) on a whiteboard, and ask your child to wipe off the pairs of matching letters that you name.  Example:”I am writing mommy and baby letters on the board, can you erase the “Bb” family?” –Remember that “baby “b” fits inside of momma “B’’s belly.

 

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Physical Activity Survey

A friend of mine has a request of the Mommy Teachers so this is from Lauren, studying physical therapy at the University of Southern Alabama:

“We are doing a research project on parent’s perceptions on young children’s (ages 1-12) physical activity. We have created a survey on surverymonkey.com and hopefully plan to distribute it to as many moms/dads as possible:)

I will attach the survey address below. Let me know what you think:) We will be collecting data all the way until February 28th… which leaves us about 1 week
Thanks so much!”

Depending on how many kids you have, it should only take 5-10 minutes.  Here it is:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2CXM2XM

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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:

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

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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!

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