Letter Formation - The Mommy Teacher

For Kids Who Can’t Write Their Letters Yet – Building Letters {Part 2}

If you didn’t get a chance to read Part 1 {Click here} – go back and skim through it now so you aren’t wondering what in the world I am talking about.

I didn’t even know at the time that that post was a “Part ONE” but when a Pre-k teacher asked me if I could turn it into a printable, I decided to stay up all night (like the night owl I am) and make it happen.

So, here is how this HUGE set works…
You can have your little one cut up the movable shapes that make up the letters or you can cut them yourself and laminate them, but either way….

I made this so that you can work on a letter a day if you want to OR you can have a bunch of the shapes out and about and let your littles explore with combining them to make the letters (or numbers).

You get an E for effort either way… see what I did there?

The first page acts like a little reference.

I am including this set in my Members Page.

If you EVER have problems with getting locked out of the site or losing your password e-mail me Jessica (at) the mommy teacher (dot) com so that I can take care of it!

Thanks!

November 1, 2014 by Jessica | 0 comments

Building Letters {And Numbers too!}

Let me start this off by saying that this book is one of my new “favorite finds” but it can easily be MADE BY YOU so don’t break out your PayPal account email just yet.

Sean Patrick has been having fun with the book How to Build an A

The pages only give a PICTURE of the letters in block form (not step-by-step) so the book just provides a visual of the letter after you have built one.

But, it does come with the pieces to make /build the letters which is why this is one of my new favorite finds. HOWEVER you can just as easily buy foam at the dollar tree… draw the pieces (straight lines and curved lines) and cut them out to help your little one explore building letters or numbers.

Sean Patrick had so much fun with his little bag of pieces. He carried them around everywhere and he was always either on his way to “Numberland” or “Letterland.” He gave me a great idea to only assist him in making numbers when we were in Numberland (the den) and only making letters when we were in Letterland (the playroom). Kids need to be able to distinguish letters from numbers so this was a great way to compartmentalize the two.

We had a lot of fun with this… especially for my boy who loves hands-on learning. We just play with it here and there…we are not structured in how long or how often we play with this, but here is a glimpse into this activity when we play with it:

I might take the bottom part off of his B and say “If swiper swiped this piece what letter would you have left?” (wait to see what Sean Patrick says) “P” – “I see it too! Let’s find that letter in our book! That silly old swiper – he doesn’t even know that he is helping us make new letters! Your turn to be a swiper…. take one piece away and see what new letter we can find!”

The Letter Construction Activity Set is similar but kind of expensive and you can’t make it. I have an Overhead projector (former teacher here) so I might just have to put it on my wishlist :/ but I am debating that because I don’t think we could keep track of all the pieces if I am being honest with myself!

Letter Construction Activity Set

August 13, 2013 by Jessica | 0 comments

Prevent “b” and “d” Confusion Early… Quick Tips

Following up with Tracing the ABC’s tips about coming up with little sayings to help form the letters, I wanted to share a COUPLE quick tips about differentiating “b” and “d” because they are so easily confused among young learners….

Every time I draw lowercase “b” I say a phrase I picked up from Shannon Hannaman (K Teacher- Baton Rouge) “Baby ‘b’ fits inside of Momma ‘B’s Belly.” This phrase has never let me down. Once kids learn this phrase they seem to automatically know “b” from “d” – You can also say “Baby ‘d’ doesn’t fit in Daddy “D”s belly.” Ooh, and maybe “Papa ‘P’ and Princess ‘p’ wait patiently in line.”

I also wrote the word “bed” on an old little tikes bed and it is a word that will be ingrained in my kid’s minds from seeing it so often.

Please continue commenting with your experiences…. I love to hear this and it gives me some tips for my little one too 🙂 What are your tips to differentiate “p” and “q”?

A Mommy Teacher named Meg shared this comment yesterday on the Tracing The ABC’s Book Post– “Just wanted to say that I purchased this yesterday, printed it off, laminated it at home and my 3 year old did every single letter! I did not expect that at all. I thought she would get bored, but she loved doing it! And we had fun coming up with little sayings about each letter (P was a man and then he put his hat on, etc).”

So maybe if “p” is a man/”Papa P” who puts his hat on then “q” is a queen whose hair flips out ! Share Your Thoughts…. 🙂

July 18, 2013 by Jessica | 0 comments

Tracing The ABC’s Book

Because Sean Patrick is so into tracing right now (and because he is a perfectionist), I decided to make him a book that he could use dry-erase markers and Mr. Clean magic erasers to practice his tracing over and over again without getting frustrated about markings on his paper (courtesy of his little sister).

I printed the pages of my tracing book onto card stock and laminated them with my inexpensive laminator that I bought at WalMart.

We work on it a little each day and I encourage him to do whatever letters he would like to practice making, but I always try to make the formation fun for him. For example, when we were writing “A” I told him to slide down this slide (the left slanted line) then to slide down that slide (the right slanted line), and then to climb across the monkey bars. He said exactly what I said as he traced A the next few times. And for lowercase “a” we rode around the merry-go-round and then climbed down the ladder.

tracing a with marker — “Slide down, slide down, climb across the monkey bars”

If you don’t have a laminator and you don’t want to get it laminated you can also just print it and let your little one trace the pages individually with crayons 🙂

tracing c with crayon 2 — /c/ /c/ crawl around the /c/ /c/ curve to see the /c/ /c/ cow

CLICK HERE to purchase this Tracing Book individually from my TeachersPayTeachers Store.

OR Click HERE to become a member – get unlimited access to ALL The Mommy Teacher Printables!

July 16, 2013 by Jessica | 3 Comments

Bubble Letters

I stay up late sometimes….it is 10:30. But it feels much later so maybe I am being a little dramatic. Being dramatic reminds me of my jr. high days of writing bubbly at all times.

And tonight, I got the itch to download a free bubble letter font….it happens. I went to fontspace.com, searched for a bubble letter font, and I downloaded one called “Janda Manatee” because I liked it the best.

I opened the file, clicked “Install”

And then I opened a Word document, changed the page orientation to Landscape, and typed Sean Patrick’s name using the new cute font.

I then clicked “Insert Shape” and filled his name with circles (I copied the circle size I liked and pasted it a lot of times first to make this go by fast!)…

I had to blow it up a little in the “Paint” Program to make it the size I wanted, but tomorrow I plan to do one of three things (if not all three) with this simple activity:

1) Encourage SP to cover each circle with little “poms poms.”

2) Encourage Sean Patrick to stamp the circles with his dot paint markers.

3) Encourage SP to stamp his finger print (ink pad style) on each circle.

This is a great pre-writing skill that develops his fine motor skills while emphasizing letter formation of the letters that are most meaningful to him, with a concentration on lower-case letters at this time. Do you have any other ideas??!? Cover each circle with a sticker maybe? Please share your thoughts!

Update: HOw the lesson went down>

I used two print outs; one to show him ideas and the second to let him explore on his own. I talked to him about the letters. “Look Sean Patrick…mommy made your name with circles in the letters. Can you still read the letters? What letter is this? ” etc.

We explored covering the letters with pom poms but that didn’t last long. Sean Patrick had more fun stamping the letters with his fingers and decorating his name with star stickers.

August 15, 2012 by Jessica | 2 Comments