Bean Letters

Here is our art project from today, bean letters. Each child got a letter (printed from a word processor document) and glued beans to the letter. Then we glued them to cardboard to make them more sturdy.

Short and simple one today. What are you doing to start teaching literacy to your class?

Chronicles of Summertime: Day 4

Day 4:

Today was a very rainy day. We decided to make some multi-media artwork. First we got out the crayons and markers, then added some paint. Snugglepuppy creatively used many methods of painting including finger painting, brush painting, and stamping. I was surprised at how he was able to describe and label what he was painting. I dictated what he said on the paper. 

We did some gross motor in the basement where Snugglepuppy jumped on the trampoline, played in the ball pit, and played some baseball. That didn't last long though so we came upstairs and looked at some of the library books we got yesterday. 

Then we worked on the alphabet a little using the iPad and some magnetic letters. I showed him a letter on the ABC app and he had to find the correct magnetic letter to match. 

Then he stacked up the letters and made us each an "ABC Sandwich."

It was not a bad day despite the fact that we weren't able to go out at all.

Dollar Finds

Here are just a few dollar items I found this weekend. They are all from Target except the sorting tray which I got at Dollar Tree. There were so many more things I wanted to get from Target (mostly Seuss stuff), but I decided to put most of it back when I found a rug with streets on it for my son's room. I have been looking for one that he can drive his cars around on. 

Anyway, The Lorax bag is an addition to my collection of Seuss bags I bought last year. The idea is to put in the book that goes along with each bag and some other various items that also relate to the book such as stickers, word cards, etc. Then there are the Seuss number flash cards. I already have the shapes and colors cards that I divided among the other bags.

Then just some dry erase markers and dry erase cards to practice writing the alphabet.

Hope you get some ideas for your room!

Thinky Linky Thursday

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Here are the most clicked links from last week.

Adding with Ants from Apples and ABC's: Adventures in Kindergarten

A Garden of Opposites from Adventures in Reading with Kids

Gardening/Flowers from Sunflower and Sprout

Congrats to all who were featured and please grab the button below to display on your blog!

Outdoor Letter Hunt

For this activity, we placed laminated alphabet cards (printed side down) all around the ground on the soccer field.

Then, we passed out small foam letters to each child.

 Then, the kids were off searching for their letter! Since they were face down, the children had to turn each one over until they found their match.

They had an awesome time! This is a great way to take your literacy outside and get some exercise in the process. Learning to read and write doesn't have to happen sitting at a table.

The kids did a great job and helped the others who were having a little bit of trouble. This can also be a good cooperative activity. Maybe you could pair the children up and give one the upper case and the other the lower case of the same letter. Please share your results if you try this activity!

Happy Hunting!

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10 Literacy Ideas for Toddlers

When working with the little guys and gals (toddlers), it's important to make the activity fun, simple, and developmentally appropriate so they don't get too frustrated or feel pressured and maybe not want to do it at all. So here are some of the ideas I have put together that you can do with your little ones to give them their first critical experiences with letters and words!

1. Read to your child. I know this one seems obvious, really allow the child to turn pages, point to pictures, hold the book his/her self. Read books the child picks out plus new fun ones they have not seen before. I like interactive books where my son can move things on the page, turn, push, pull, and touch because children learn better with hands-on experiences. There are some wonderful interactive books out there!  These are just a few hints to make reading aloud to your child more meaningful.

2. Magnetic letters on the refrigerator. 

3. Sing ABC songs. There are more than just "Now I know my ABCs," and tons of variations of it. Below are some I found on Amazon (Check out the great deal on 50 songs for $8.99!) or you can hit your local library and search their kids music section to see what you discover. Most children love clapping or dancing along with upbeat music.

4. Foam letters in the bathtub or water table/bin. They stick to the side of the bathtub when wet!

5. Letter stencils with chalk on a chalkboard. 

6. Dig for magnetic/foam letters in sand. You can even use cardboard cutout letters.

7. Spell child's name on cookie/baking sheet and have them match the magnetic letters.

8. Name puzzle. You can make your own by writing each letter of the child's name on a piece of cardboard and cutting it out. You can have the child paint it or decorate it to make it brighter. My example is a little messy, but I'm sure most toddlers won't even notice. You don't even have to cut around every edge.

9. Play a game with your child where one of you points to an object. You say what it is and the letter it begins with and then encourage the child to repeat the sound that letter makes with you several times. 

10. Make a  song out of the letters of your child's name. For example, to the tune of B-I-N-G-O: "There was a boy whose name was Aaron, Aaron was his name-o, A-A-R-O-N, A-A-R-O-N, A-A-R-O-N and Aaron was his name-o." Get creative!

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Storytime Sunday: Food

Here is my selection of books for our food study. I love the ones with the little veggie guys! The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza is a great book to show the steps in making a recipe. You can even have the children try to make the recipe on their own. The book The Doorbell Rang and another one I couldn't find on Amazon, How Many Ways Can You Cut a Pie? are really good for introducing division/fractions in a simple easy to understand way for young children.

Click HERE to see a past post I did about this book.

HAPPY READING!

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Rice Sensory Table

I am so sorry that Wishlist Wednesday got messed up this week! I made a scheduling mistake and accidentally reminded the wrong person to get their post ready, so I will hopefully be rescheduling the person who I thought was supposed to post for today.

Anyways, instead here is some things we've been doing with rice in the sensory table this week.

We measured and poured. Using the sand toy, we discovered how pouring something into the top makes the wheel spin.

We shoveled, raked and funneled.

We used seasoning shakers from the kitchen area to fill with rice and pretend it was salt or just to shake them up and hear the sound it makes.

Tomorrow, we will be having an ABC treasure hunt by digging in the rice to find some hidden letters!

What have you done with rice? Next time, I want to try to make the colored rice I have been seeing all over other blogs and Pinterest such as these... 

Share and Remember: Rainbow Rice and Garden Sensory Play

Just for Daisy: Playing with Rainbow Rice

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Storytime Sunday: Dr. Seuss's ABC

Today's book is one of my favorites, Dr. Seuss's ABC. There are so many activities you can do with this book. One of my favorite things about Dr. Seuss other than the rhyming of course, is his made-up characters. The kids really get a kick out of these creatures and the silly things they do! 

So, we decided to do a writing activity with this book. We used this as our sample. The kids were to write as much of this as they can (choosing their own letter) and then draw a picture of something that begins with that letter.

Here is one of the children's work:

And here is another. She didn't get around to drawing a picture, but she wrote more of the text.

We made letters with gear blocks as you can see here. We also have the Dr. Seuss's ABC computer game on our computer, so it was a great extension of the book about which we had read and written.

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Thinky Linky Thursday: A Day in Preschool

Here are some of the things we did since being back from winter break. (only 1 day) It was so nice to be back with my kiddos! Love them :)

Floating sailboats. Matching colors and shapes. One of my little girls made up her own song "I'm sailing, we're sailing together."

Love the way this little boy set up the dramatic play area with our new baby dolls! Setting the table shows understanding of 1:1 correspondence.

Isn't this snow angel adorable?!

For small groups, we sat at the discovery area by the window and looked out at the snow. We talked about winter and what happens to the weather when winter comes. Then we drew pictures of things we can do with snow.

My car-obsessed student decided to build this ramp/street/track to run his cars on. A bunch of other kids joined in. Just look at how he matched up the blocks to make them fit together. Excellent!

And lastly, we used these gear blocks (not sure what they're really called) to make letters. 

What have you been doing with your kids?

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