More Fun with Letters!

My 2 1/2 year old is starting to understand that letters are everywhere! She knows about 10 letter sounds now. It is so fun to see her little mind working. She has started to notice letters as she reads books, looks on the back of cereal boxes or even plays with her toys that have alphabet letters on them. "Look! There's the c, Mommy!" I forgot how much fun it is when they actually realize letters can be found everywhere!

I recently came across a great list of activities to do with the letter Q from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I am doing a preschool for my 4 year old daughter's coop tomorrow! Many of the activities can be used with any letter of the alphabet. Make sure to check out her site for other fun ideas on letter games. I am going to copy and paste my favorites directly from that site:

**Alphabet Activity: This is called the stair game, everyone loves it! She stands at the top and I flash a letter, she says the letter and its sound. If she’s right she gets to jump down a stair. When she hits the bottom she wins!

***Finger Tracing Paint Bag: This is simple and fun, I filled a bag with tempura paint, you could also use cheap shaving cream. Then I'll tape it to her desk for her to practice writing her letter on using her finger. You could also skip the bag and put shaving cream on your counter if you're feeling brave ;o) After we do the letters we do numbers, shapes, and whatever else we can think of!

Short Vowel Readers!

I always struggle to find books my children can read when they are first starting reading. When my children have mastered short vowels, they want to read books! That is why we created a few short vowel books we have posted for free here. There are so few books out there that only have short vowels :) I recently found a great series!!



The Now I'm Reading! Series by Nora Gaydos is adorable! I'm so happy I have found it.

Things I love about these books:

1. There are 20 books for short vowel words. Can you believe it, 20!

2. Each set comes with a cute set of stickers that coordinate with each book. The children have 4 stickers per book. Each time they read the book by themselves out loud, they get a sticker. I love repetition and my daughter loves putting on a sticker each time she reads it!

3. Each page builds on the previous page. Each story starts with two words, the next page has three words (repeating the first two words) and it continues to build on the first two words as the story goes on. It is a perfect way to build confidence in the early readers!

4. The stories are actually fun to read! They are cute and clever. They are not boring to read over and over again! Sorry, I am not a fan of the BOB books. It makes it so much more enjoyable for my daughter and for me to read these books :)

Click on the two sets of stories above to find out more about them, read other great reviews and buy them :)

Word Families Website!

For reading and spelling, I have found that my oldest daughter really catches on quickly when she can categorize words that have similar sound endings. We are focusing on a word family each week to learn to recognize, read and spell the words.

I searched around for spelling books or other types of workbooks with word families and I couldn't find any that I liked. I searched the internet and couldn't find any good sites. But then I came upon a real gem. I love this site!

Reasons why I love Word Way Word Families:

*the pictures are adorable and have more than one picture for different meanings (hook and Captain hook, for example)

*there is a variety of fun activities to do: fill-in-the-blank, word search, name the picture, cut and paste, and other games.

*each word family includes a lot of words, including compound words (for example, for the /-ark/ family, they have remark and bookmark).

*they have a configuration station page. They use these in school to help kids picture how letters are below and above the main line. I think my oldest will really benefit from this and I didn't want to have to create it myself.

We are starting with r-controlled word families found here. As we complete a set of each word family a week (taking out some activities/worksheets I don't like as much), I am also planning on doing other interactive games with the word families. I am planning on building on the word families from prior weeks to review how to spell them as well. So, we will do these activities with the /ook/ family we did last week and the /ar/ family that we learned this week.

Here are the extra games my daughter can choose from to do with me:

*Mommy Matches: Make a matching sheet for Mommy with pictures
*Rainbow Letters: Write five words with three different colors
*Finger Paint Words: Use your finger to spell out five words with a bag full of paint
*Bend it: create five words using wiki sticks or pipe cleaners
*Playdough: create five words using playdough
*Run & Spell with Mom: Mommy gives you clues and you have to run in the other room and write the word correctly
*Silent Charades: act out each word and then the guesser has to write the word down correctly in order to guess.
*Dictation: Mom will dictate a sentence using words from different word families. You will write the sentence and draw a picture.

The Power of Cereal Boxes

I just posted a fun new way to enjoy breakfast over at our Spanish teaching blog here. You can apply this to anything you are teaching your children. You could use it to reinforce things they have learned or motivate them to get interested in a new subject. Check it out!

Treasure Hunt Reading!

To change our reading up a little bit, I decided to create a treasure hunt for my 4 year old. It took maybe 3 minutes to do :) I wrote out simple instructions like "Go to Mom's bed" "Go to the fish" etc. At the end, she had to find a cup in the kitchen with her surprise in it. She had a few M&M's in hers, but you could put some yummy fruit or marshmallows or even a smoothie in it. She was so excited to find every clue, she was shaking with excitement as she picked up each paper and then squealed with delight after reading each one. You can make them more complicated depending on their reading level and even make fun riddles. Just a fun way to show kids all the ways reading comes in handy :)

I'm sure everyone has done a treasure hunt, but here is how we did it. For the set-up, write out 5-10 clues. Start with an original clue ("Go to Mom's bed"), then put the next clue at mom's bed (maybe the clue on mom's bed says "Go to the car") so then the next clue would be on the car and so on. The very last clue leads to the treasure :)

Peep and the Big Wide World Giveaway

There is a wonderful giveaway and introduction to a wonderful resource for teaching children Spanish. There are darling little videos that teach science concepts. Then there are videos giving ideas for experimenting with each concept. What a wonderful idea. Go see this wonderful giveaway at SpanglishBaby.

Yoga in Spanish Giveaway

I just heard about a great giveaway. There are two yoga workouts, one for adults and another for children. They are in Spanish by a wonderful Colombian lady, Ana Lilian. I love Colombians and the way they speak Spanish. You will understand what I mean when you listen to her speak. Since I am not a native speaker, I always say that just my heart is Latina and more specifically Colombiana. Great opportunity! Go here to enter.