Playing with Letter Tiles

Playing with letter tiles is a free, easy way for kids to have fun with letters. Most families probably have an old Scrabble game in a closet somewhere that has been collecting dust. Our letter tiles are from Bananagrams that I play maybe once a year. The Pea loves to play with the letter tiles. She always wants me to make her name, then my name, then Daddy's name, and her sister's name. Lately she has been putting the letters together and asking me, "What does that say?" I feel bad saying that it says nothing so I just read it phonetically and end up saying nonsense words like PNNTLO. But she likes it and it's something to do on a rainy day! Since she can spell her name verbally, I often ask her to tell me how to spell her name for practice and I also ask her to look for the letters. I also begin her name with the C and ask her to place the next letters. This teaches her left to right directionality, words are formed from left to right.

This is definitely an activity that requires supervision since the letter tiles are small and could become a chokable. We never use these with Anna nearby! They do provide a nice alternative to magnetic letters since the magnets present an even bigger danger to children.

Alphabet Bingo

Whenever the Pea and me do "Mommy School" we have a letter of the day. All I really do with it is show her the uppercase and lowercase letter and tell her the sound. I name a few things that begin with the letter. Then she has to find it in a stack of flashcards. Since yesterday's letter of the day was Zz we celebrated today by taking a break from the normal routine. I found these Alphabet Bingo cards on Pinterest a while back and have been saving it for a rainy day! They came from www.sassysanctuary.com. The writer of the blog made 8 different cards that you can print out to use with your little one. This is great for letter identification - either learning or assessment/review. Since the Pea already knows all of her uppercase letters, I used this as an assessment/review by calling out letter names randomly using my stack of alphabet cards. The Pea used the Do-a-Dot dotter to mark the letters as they were called.

It was also good hand-eye coordination practice to mark the letter with the dotter since she had to do it carefully so as not to mark the wrong letter. When she filled a row I taught her to yell BINGO, which she enjoyed thoroughly. Then she dotted the rest of her card shouting the letters while she was doing so. She proudly said, "I am going to show Daddy when he gets home!"

Alphabet Bingo can be used with little ones to practice letter identification by holding up the flashcard with the letter on it, naming the letter, and then having her find the letter on her card.

Dot Art Flower

Claire loves Dot Art! And if Claire is happy, I'm happy! So when Claire asked to do Dot Art this morning, I said "Sure!". And to tie in our flower theme, I suggested that we make flowers.

First get yourselves some Do-a-Dots. I bought these with a 50% off coupon at Michael's!

I showed the Pea how to make a Dot Art flower.

And here is the little artist herself making hers. Isn't it spectacular?!

Then she wanted to make one for her swim teacher since we were going to her swim lesson later on in the morning. She chose blue dots. And then asked me to make a flower. Unfortunately we forgot to bring her Dot Art with her to swim class which caused a major meltdown in the pool. Notice the small cluster of blue dots that form a line. She did that herself! This took some serious fine motor skills! I have been trying to get her to make a straight line with Do-a-Dots for a while now, so this was kind of a big deal in our house. You can incorporate color names, parts of a flower, and making patterns during this activity.

Flower Sensory Tray

For the Flower sensory tray I went to the dollar store and bought some fake flowers and fern. I had been saving some of the seeds from fresh fruits and veggies that I had been making last week. Just rinse them and set them on the windowsill for a few days to dry out. The sensory tray is just a mud tray I found at Target. I introduced the Sensory tray by skimming Zinnia's Flower Garden which we read yesterday. And then I showed her what was on the tray to explore. You can use the sensory tray time to introduce vocabulary words and discuss texture and feeling words. Here is the coversation the Pea and Me had: The Pea: I smell it. Achoo! Me:What happened? The Pea: I smelled the flower so I sneezed. Me: Do you think flowers smell? The Pea: Yeah. They smell like dirt. Me: What do you think plants need? They need soil. More cereal. I need to water plants. I need a watering can. Then the Pea got really hung up on watering her flowers. She wanted a watering can to fill with water. I tried to convince her to use her fake pitcher from her play kitchen and pretend but she was not having it. And since she couldn't get her way she didn't want to play with the sensory tray any more! (Sigh) Kids... :)

Theme of the Week: Flowers

To kick off this week's theme I read Zinnia's Flower Garden by Monica Wellington. This book was a gift from my mom last spring and it was the perfect story to read to the Pea! It kept her engaged the hole time and provides detailed illustrations of seeds, flowers, butterfly life cycle, and more. The book describes how Zinnia plants her flower garden and what she has to do to care for her plants. This book has a simple storyline for my 2 1/2 year old but includes more advanced information for older children. I definitely would have read this book to my third graders during our plant unit.

Creating an Environment that Supports Emergent Literacy

Although we often assiciate school with beginning reading and emerging literacy skills, the preschool years are when a large amount of literacy development occurs. It is a critical time for emergent literacy - motivation is high, children's brains are developing, and there are many ways to promote literacy. In his book Reading Instruction that Works: A Case for Balanced Teaching Michael Pressley outlines four ways that parents can create an environment that supports literacy. I have listed these and included practical examples.

1) Experiences with family - exposing your child to new places and activities introduces them to new words, new feelings, new experiences. They are able to build their vocabulary and expand their background knowledge so that when they are reading they recognize words and are able to make connections to the text, which aides in their comprehension. Take children to a zoo, a parade, the grocery store, a farm, a creek, your backyard, a soccer game. Experiences as toddlers will actually help them later on when they are reading!

2) Provide an environment with literacy materials easily accessible - stock your bookshelves of age-approriate books of all genres. Put magnetic letters on your fridge. Include alphabet puzzles in your child's toy collection. Allow your child to use crayons, markers, sidewalk chalk. Write a letter to grandma so that your child can see writing take place.

3) Children need to see adults have a positive view of literacy - read in front of your child. Show them that you like reading. Studies have correlated reading success with children seeing their parents read. They learn through imitation. So, read the paper or a novel in front of your child.

4) Share in experiences with your child. Read to them, invite them to read to you (even if they can't really read yet!), talk about the book you are reading, do alphabet puzzles, write together. Making reading and writing enjoyable for them now will help them to become lifetime lovers of literacy.

Green Sensory Tray

Sticking with GREEN as the theme for this week I gathered together some items that were green for the Pea's sensory tray. Grass, plastic bugs, shamrocks, her Percy train, and more items were present.

St Patty's Theme - Green

Here are the ideas I cam up for Green week!
Do-A-Dot Rainbow - Decorate a blank rainbow template using dot art.

Green Pepper Painting - If you cut a pepper in half it creates the shape of a shamrock. You can use this to make shamrocks by dipping it into green paint.

No-mess Paining - put blue and yellow paint into a gallon ziplock bag. Your little one can make letters, pictures, scribbles,in the paint without getting messy! Blend the two colors to make green.

Rainbow Drops - Fill a glass bowl or pitcher with water and vegetable oil. The oil will stay on top. Adding food coloring drops of all colors will form a really cool effect.

Pot-o-Gold Bag - Fill a pot of gold with "treasures" for a sensory type activity.

Clover Hunt - Go on a clover hunt in your yard, press them in a book. A few days later make a bookmark using the clovers and contact paper.

Green Collage - hunt through magazines and find green things. Glue them to paper to make a collage.

Sorting Pasta

When the Pea was younger she thought every animal was a dog. She saw a cow, she said "Dog." She saw a pig, she said "Dog." Children often generalize based on their prior experiences. Claire's first experience with an animal was when she saw a dog in our neighborhood. To her, everything that walked on all fours and had fur was a dog. She eventually realized that dogs are animals that bark, have fur, and are often on leashes. She began calling a horse a horse, a cow a cow, and a sheep a sheep. One day, as we were driving out to my grandparents house, she saw a brown cow in a field. She said, "Horse". Claire had given cows specific characteristics - black and white spots, walk on all fours, roam in a field, etc. When she saw the brown cow, it did not fit in the category of "cows". To her, it looked more like a horse with its solid brown color.

Children learn through comparison. They compare cows to non-cows to learn what a cow is. They do this same thing when they learn letters, colors, food names. To help children learn more naturally we do comparisons of letters and words by sorting. Claire is not ready for letter or word sorts quite yet. But sorting is a preliteracy skill and can be practiced as a toddler.

In this particular instance, I had Claire sort a group of three different types of pastas - bowties, macaroni, and penne. I divided a piece of paper into three columns and placed two of each type at the top. I told Claire "These macaronis go in this column. The penne go in this column. And the bowties go in this column."

I asked Claire to place each pasta in the right column.

She did a great job and put all of the pastas in the right column! Being able to sort the pastas will later be applied to sorting letters of different fonts and later to sorting pictures/words using sounds.

After sorting, Claire decided to make a pattern.

In addition to sorting, pasta is great for sensory purposes, fine motor skills (threading onto plastic string), and making patterns.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

March 2nd is Dr. Seuss's birthday! And a day dubbed "Read Across America" in his honor. To celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday we are going to read lots and do a few other fun activities.

Oobleck
Oobleck is a super fun, sensory activity for kids. It's kind of like play dough but not as stiff. It comes from the book Bartholomew and Oobleck by Dr. Seuss.
Here is a link to the recipe: http://www.kinderteacher.com/oobleck.htm

Seuss Hat Snack
I saw an idea on pinterest that has half an oreo cookie on the bottom, icing and red gummy life savers alternating to make a Cat in the Hat hat. I thought I could use chocolate wafer cookies (homemade) with banana and strawberry circles alternating instead...to try to be a little more healthy!

Seuss Games Online
http://www.seussville.com/

Reading
Pick any book, especially your favorite Dr. Seuss book, to read to your child.

Story Time
Take your child to a local story time!

DCM
Today, tomrrow, and Sunday the Delaware Children's Museum is doing a special story time at noon in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday.

Clothespin Name Making

We have been working on name recognition with the Pea. She does really well with it so I decided to introduce an activity where the Pea can make her name, and begin to identify what letters make her name. I decided to use clothespins for this, although you could easily do plain old letter tiles, magnetic letters, anything! I also decided to use felt hearts glued on to the clothespins for a couple of reasons: 1) to incorporate a fine motor skill - pinching the clothespin to open it 2) the colors provide a sort of pattern - this may aid her in remembering what order the letters are in. You could do a simple a-b-a-b pattern rather than the one I chose 3) we had the hearts from Valentine's Day!

Here are the clothespins with letters.

I told the Pea that we were going to make her name. I set down each clothespin and asked her to tell me each letter. This was done in a random order. I told her that her name begins with C and asked her to find C. She found the C clothespin right away. I asked her to clip it onto the plate. That's when I realized that she doesn't know how to use the clothespin! I showed her hown to pinch the ends to make it open. She tried and tried but couldn't get it on her own. So, we resumed the name-building and I put them on for her. After we made her name, I repeated "C-L-A-I-R-E says Claire". She really liked this activity and we did it about 5 more times. She still couldn't get the hang of working the clothespins, but by the fifth time of the activity she was starting to be able to say which letters came next to make her name! Which was the whole point! :) You could also write the letters of your child's name on the paper plate and have him match the clothespin letters to the letters on the plate. This may give him a sense of independence and would be a great matching activity.

Name Recognition

One quick and easy thing I do with the Pea each day is name recognition. She has demonstrated an ability to do this for a while now, since one of things she has loved to do outside is ask me to write her name in chalk outside. I remember her little itty bitty self saying "Claire" as I was writing it one day! I was so excited! So, at "Mommy School" I start by having her pick out her name from a set of names. I use the following as the set she chooses from.

After a while with this set, I typed out a bunch on the computer using different fonts. The idea is to make sure that she can identify her name using the letters. Using different fonts or cards will ensure that your child is not using other means to memorize what the cards say. (For instance, some kids may pick up on that their name has a tattered edge and use that feature of the card to pick out their name.) You want your child to attend to the letters that make up their name. We are on the third set of names and Claire is doing great with picking out her name. She likes to ask "Does this say Claire?" pointing to each card. Instead of answering for her, I say "I don't know. Does it say Claire?" And she answers, "No, that says Daddy." She now knows the words "Mommy", "Daddy", "Anna", "Claire", and our last name most of the time. I give her practice in other settings, such as at Gymboree. We use nametags there, so I write out our names and ask her which one says Claire. She is doing so well with it!

Duck for President

I read this book to the Pea during lunch. Sometimes I do storytime during lunch since she is busy eating, sitting in one place for a longer period of time than normal. AKA The chance of her running away like a nut is less. So I began by activating her prior knowledge like any good reading specialist mommy would do. (Roll your eyes.) Here's how the reading went:
Me: Have you ever been to a farm?
Pea: No.
Me: Are there animals at the farm?
Pea: Yes. Duckies are at the farm. Piggies. Horses. Sheeps.
Me: That's right. Who do you think is in charge at the farm?
Pea: The duck is in charge. (I had the book already out so she probably said that because there was a duck on the front. I should've left the book out of sight until after this discussion.)
Me: Actually it's the farmer who is in charge. He runs the farm and does a lot of work. This book is about a duck who thinks he should be in charge. First he wants to be in charge of the farm. Then he wants to be in charge of the town. And then he wants to be in charge of the state. Last he wants to be in charge of the country! (At this point I can tell I am losing her so I quickly begin reading!)
When I reached page 12 and guided the Pea to use picture clues, here is the dialogue:
"How do you think Farmer Brown is feeling." The Pea answered, "Sad." This was a great answer but it showed that she did not fully understand the real meaning of furious! (*Note: Always ask your child why they think that so that you can see their thinking. I forgot to ask the Pea why but it would've been great insight for me.) Because the farmer is actually angry, I pointed to the picture of the farmer, who was waving his fists and had a furrowed brow.
Me: "Is the farmer angry or sad in this picture."
The Pea: "Mad."
Me: That's right. The farmer is really mad! He is furious. "Farmer Brown was furious." Furious means he was very mad.

The Pea liked the book and asked me to read it again. There were a lot of other teaching elements that could have been incorporated with older kids.
Overall, it was a fun read for President's Day!

Theme of the Week: Leaders

Since Monday is President's Day, I thought "Leaders" would be an appropriate theme. At first, I thought it might be a little over the Pea's head but more often than not we underestimate kids. So "Leaders" week it is.

Book: Duck for President by Doreen Cronin

This book is perfect for a discussion about Election Day, government, or community leaders. It is about a duck who decides to become leader of the barn. So he sets up an election and wins the animals' votes. He works his way up to winning the presidential election. A great comprehension strategy to tie in is Using picture clues to determine a word's meaning on page 12 of the story. The story reads "Farmer Brown was furious." This may be a new word for your child, but your toddler most likely knows the feeling of being furious! Ask, "How do you think Farmer Brown is feeling." Discuss the picture of Farmer Brown to use the picture to figure out the meaning of furious.

Book: Arthur Meets the President by Marc Brown
This is a book but it is also online with an oral reading! Another great way to help your child develop an understanding of the meaning of "President".
http://classroommagic.blogspot.com/2012/02/just-in-time-for-monday.html

Concept Discussion/Vocabulary Builder:
I have the following cards prepared...

Discuss with your child who leaders in her world are. This can just be a discussion for you to expose your child to the concept of leaders/president. For older kids you can do a concept sort that compares leaders/followers, levels of leaders with the goverment, or types of leaders. For the Pea, I prepared the cards above and wanted to tie in things she would understand. I plan to use the verbiage "Who's in charge of..." And I will include ideas that incorporate the leaders of home, Gymboree, Playgroup, TV shows or movies ie: Who's in charge of the ocean in The Little Mermaid. Who's in charge of the trains on Thomas the Train?
Yes, that is a picture of President Obama. And that is a clip art of George Washington. What kind of Mommy would I be if I didn't mention the name of the current president? Or the first president? I'm sure she'll just look at me like I am a psycho. Next on the agenda: Have the Pea memorize all 44 presidents in order. Just kidding.
P.S. Ignore the pizza stone in the picture.
P.S.S. (Or P.P.S.??) Since I use my iPhone and not a fancy smancy camera, the glare on the cards is bad. They just have pictures and words to tell Home, Gymboree, etc. The cards are mostly blank since we will them in together during our discussion. I will keep them in the container labeled "Leaders" for her to look at when she feels like it. Or for her to destroy. Since that's the more probable scenario.

Art: Do-a-Dot Flag
Prepare this template and have your child repeat the dots to make a flag. This is great for fine motor skills and following directions. You can tie in counting, patterns, and/or colors if you'd like.

"Field Trip":
Delaware Children's Museum is having a special exhibit for President's Day, called "Polling with the Presidents". We may just have to check it out!

Writing Activity: "If I were president..."

I got this from http://classroommagic.blogspot.com/2012/02/presidents-day.html
We all know that I think my little 2 1/2 year old is a genius but no, she cannot write yet. The plan here is for the Pea to dictate to me what she would do if SHE were the president. She talks, I write. I am not sure how well this activity will work since it may be a little advanced for her. But since I do not believe in underestimating her ability, we will give it a whirl!

Letter Writing on the iPad

It's no secret that the iPad is amazing. What is even more amazing is how easily the Pea is able to use it. She taps around on the "pPad", as she likes to call it, as quickly as I can. She especially likes to look at our family photos on it and to play her games. We've bought a few for her, including Dora's Skywriting. This game focuses on letter formation. It's great because it makes you start in the correct places, and requires her to drag her finger to form the letter. She zips right through the uppercase letters. Letter-sound relationships are a secondary focus by having a picture of something that begins with the letter. For example, an apple comes after A. Dora comes after D. My only complaint about this game is that in order to reveal the picture, she has to tilt the iPad many times to get acorns to fall into certain places. It is difficult for her and she often asks for help. But, that really is not a big deal. Overall, this game is giving the Pea experience with proper letter formation in a way that she enjoys and gives her a sense of independence. Montessori teachers, and others for that matter, often use a sensory approach to letter formation. One example would be having children write letters in sand with their fingers before actually doing so with a pencil and paper. Using the iPad for letter formation is the same idea. Perfect for my indpendent toddler who wants to do everything on her own!

"Invitation" by Shel Silverstein

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

-------
My favorite teacher had this poem hanging in her classroom. It always spoke to me because it so perfectly describes reading.

Pretend Reading

A few months ago I listened as The Pea pretended to read a book in her bed during nap. She said, "Once there was a princess. Then a dragon came and Rhhhhaaaaaa! Then he flew around the world really really fast. Then, Ronald, you are mess! The end." It was so cute! And I was super excited that she was pretending to read because it is so much more than another cute thing that my daughter did. Pretend reading is actually a very vital part of the process of learning to read. It is the first stage of Literacy Development. The Pea was showing that she has been paying attention during these last 2 1/2 years of storytime. By using the story language "Once upon a time", "The End", "Then..." we can see that she acknowledges that stories have special words in them, that are different than the way we speak. When pretending to read, The Pea often changes her voice to show dialogue. It's usually this funny, throaty kind of voice that sounds like a cross between a monster and an old man. Regardless, this change of voice shows that she understands that we use expression in our voice when reading dialogue. Children usually use the pictures to help them know what's going on in the story, as the Pea did when pretending to read The Paper Bag Princess. This skill is important for comprehension as children develop their reading abilities. You may notice your child replicating the sing-song type voice like you use when pretending to read stories such as "Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?" by Bill Martin Jr & Eric Carle. This shows they understand that this book has a rhythm to it that not all books have.

You can encourage your child to pretend read by asking them to read to you, a stuffed animal, a sibling, or even a pet. You can read to your child a wide variety of books that include storybook langauge, dialogue, and rhyme. You can draw your child's attention to the illustrations by talking about the pictures. You can read wordless books to your child that require the use of picture cues to determine what the story is about. Good Night Gorilla is a great wordless book.

So, next time you hear your child pretending to read, celebrate silently as you are witnessing early literacy taking place! It is so much more than just cute!

Keep reading!
-Kate

Baby Library Must-haves

The Pea has a ton of books! She got them as gifts before she was born, when she was born, and for almost every holiday since. I am pretty much a book hoarder, so I frequently pick her up a book here and there. (Because the 500+ books I have from teaching aren't enough.) You can’t have too many books! She has touch and feel books, lift-the-flap books, ABCs and 123s, color & shape books, rhyming books…you get the idea. But there are a few books that she has always gone back to. Ones that we started reading to her as a newborn and have always had around. She stopped wanting to read them at bedtime for a while, so when my second daughter was born I moved them into her room. I thought that Claire had moved onto other favorites and I wanted to read them to Anna at bedtime. Well Claire did not like that. When she saw them on Anna’s bookshelf, she stacked them up in her arms and took them right back to her bedroom. “Oh! Sorry, Anna! Those are my books,” she said. Who can blame her? So I bit the bullet and bought Anna some of the classic bedtime board books that I feel are absolute must-haves for any baby library. Everyone has their own personal faves, but these are ours for one reason or another:

1)Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown

Look how worn Claire's is! She LOVES this book. It has a lovely kind of cadance that used to lull her to sleep when she was a little baby. It goes through the day at the barn, describing the animals and the noises they make until the sun sets and the animals all go to sleep.

2)Good Night Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Classic story. And there's a reason for it. It describes a bear's bedroom through rhyme. Alternating between colorful pictures of the bedroom and back and white pictures of things in the room. You end up saying "Goodnight" to everything in the room, which you could also do in your own child's room. The Pea used to love pointing to the things in the pictures and was particularly interested in the bowl full of mush for some reason.

3)Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann
The only writing in this book is dialogue bubbles which only consists of the zookeeper saying goodnight to the zoo animals. But if you look at the illustrations you will notice that this is a story about a mischievous little gorilla who gets his hands on the zookeeper's keys. It's a great way to talk about the story line with your little one, rather than just reading the words.

4)Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
I think my husband and I love this book more than my daughter does because of its sentimental value. The Daddy bunny and kid bunny in the story go back and forth telling each other they love the other more. It's endearing and yanks at the heartstrings.

5)I Love You, Good Night by Jon Buller and Susan Schade
It uses simile to tell how much the Mommy mouse loves the kid mouse. "I love you like I love blueberry pancakes. I love you like I love strawberry milkshakes." It's a cute bedtime book that the Pea requests often.

The line-up of bedtime books is always changing in our house, but these ones will always remain special to us!

Talk.

The Pea has changed so much since I last posted. Her vocabulary is extensive, and I could not begin to count the words she knows. She uses full sentences, with pronouns, prepositions, verbs, you name it. She is 2 1/2 now and has a 5 month old sister, who we nicknamed "The Poppy".

The Pea has always been verbal and I attribute this to many things. 1) We read to her beginning the day she came home from the hospital. It felt weird since she was a newborn and didn't really know what we were talking about. But it was absolutely beneficial to her. It provided a bonding experience, it was a part of our bedtime routine which signaled bedtime, and it allowed her to hear the language of books as well as new words. 2) We talked to her a ton. I remember reading somewhere when she was first born to talk to your baby all the time. I always kept this in the back of my mind. I talked to directly to her, the way you do with babies. But I also narrated as I was doing household tasks. For instance, while washing the dishes I would say "I'm putting soap on the sponge." "I'm washing the plate nice and clean!" You get the idea. I still remind myself to do this with The Poppy. It also seems kind of strange when they don't seem to know what you are saying, but babies are nonjudgmental! 3) I expose my daughter to new experiences and places. The more diverse children's background experiences, the more vocabulary they are exposed to. Take your little babies out into the world and talk, talk, talk! 4) Nature could also have something to do with it. I was voted most talkative for my 8th grade superlative after all.

Hello Again!

Once upon a time there was a mommy who tried to blog, but it fell by the wayside. She got her Master's degree, had another baby, and then decided to try her hand at blogging again!

This time - this blog will be dedicated to my fourth love (fourth only after my husband and my two girls of course)- LITERACY. I received my masters last spring in Literacy and have my certification as a Reading Specialist. I am staying home with my girls full time, but I plan one day to go back to teaching. Until then, I am hoping this blog helps me stay in the literacy loop and keep what I have learned fresh in my mind.

So, here's to new beginnings! Maybe this time I've found my niche!

Happy Reading!