Do you see the letter B?

A has never really been into coloring.  I purchased a coloring book for her in the dollar section at Target a while back and would put a few pages out with crayons every now and then.  Although she isn't excited about coloring, she's always enjoyed letters.  This word find was on the back of one of the sheets and we had fun highlighting different letters.  I'd say a letter and she'd color each one she could find.  I've since found "letter find" worksheets online that she's really enjoyed doing.  She even asks for more!

Special breakfast

Since baby sister has arrived, Daddy is usually up early on Saturday mornings with A, allowing the baby and me some extra rest.  A has learned to look forward to her letter pancakes.  Daddy will usually spell words for her; her name, friends, or just the entire alphabet.  She never eats a better breakfast than on Saturday mornings!

Snowman letter match

I pulled out my letter matching snowman and tried it out with A for the first time.  Lowercase letters are written all over the snowman and uppercase letters are written on little "snowballs".  You need to match the uppercase and lowercase letters together.  It was a bit challenging for A, which is good.  I think I'll have to sit with her and do this so she won't get frustrated.  After a few times, I think she'll get the hang of it.

To make:

Draw a snowman on a sheet of posterboard with Permanent marker(color)

Trace circles all over the snowman

Trace circles all over another sheet of posterboard

Write lowercase letters on the circles on the snowman

Write uppercase circles on the other circles

Cut and laminate

Add small pieces of velcro to the circles if you will be hanging it up to use (it can also be used on the floor without Velcro)

Alphabet girl!

A has always been interested in letters...letter names, letter sounds, letter songs!  It comes as no surprise that one of her favorite things to do with play dough is to sit with Daddy and have him make letters with it.  He'll make a letter and she'll tell him the name and the sound.  They do this with pancakes too!

best sensory bin ever

I saw this sensory bin on someone's blog...I can't remember where!  You put popcorn kernels, magnetic refrigerator letters and a scoop in a shoebox.  I used alphabet stickers and put them on three separate pieces of paper and laminated them.  A scoops the letters out and matches them to the letter on the paper.

When we started this, I kept the letters in three separate bags and we only did one page/bag at a time.  Now A has enough interest and attention to do all three pages at once!

*TIP* When doing a small sensory bin like this, place it on top of a blanket.  That way, when the little pieces (popcorn kernels here) fall out, all you need to do to clean up is roll the blanket and pour the pieces back in!

Pumpkin ABC Hunt

Last week, I set up a pumpkin alphabet scavenger hunt for A.  I took laminated pumpkins with letters on them that I had from teaching (I'm pretty sure I got them from Making Learning Fun ), put painter's tape on the back, and stuck them around the house.  A took her pink pumpkin pail and walked around looking for the pumpkin letters. 

After a few rounds, she decided that she would hide the letters herself and then look for them.  We had a lot of fun with this and did it again and again!

Circle letters

Last night, I made A this set of letters.  I found the idea here.

I printed a set of letters from COAHS and laminated them.  Then I peeled off the back of two pieces of sticky foam.  Red is for the uppercase letters and blue is for the lowercase letters.  Finally, I cut the circles out.  I did get a flower punch, but the foam was too thick for it to go through.

I plan to have sentence strips with photos of friends and family with their names.  A can use her letter circles to match the letters to the names.  I will also use pictures of objects and things she's interested in. 

BINGO!

(picture is from pbskids.org)

 So A is into letters, letter sounds, and playing with Daddy's ipad.  The other day we decided to go onto pbskids.org to see if there were any games she would be able to play.  Enter: Lickety Letter Bingo.  It's a Bingo board with either uppercase letters, lowercase letters or a mixture of both.  Alpha-Pig says a letter and you need to click on it.  When you get all the letters, a picture shows up that you can print out if you want.  They also give you a "prize" which is usually a song/video you can watch.

A loves this game and refuses to try another one. 

Magnetic letters

A is very into letters.  I pulled out a magnetic letter set from my school stuff and let her put them on our front door.  You can't see this, but she has a tendency to take all the little pieces that she is playing with and hold them in her two hands rather than take one piece at a time.  She had fun naming the letters as she put them on and took them back off.

Yes, we're a little bit Irish.

Here are a few things we did yesterday for St. Patrick's Day:

Sorting big and small shamrocks

A had a lot of fun with this.  Every time she'd use up all of the shamrocks, she'd look at me and say, "more!"

Shamrock lowercase letter hunt
We did this activity over and over and over.  I taped (with blue painter's tape) shamrock letters all over the kitchen and living room.  A carried her sand bucket and collected them.  She'd yell out the letter (her own idea) as she found it.  When she found all of them, she'd say, "hide!"  She would also yell, "Hooray!"

You can print your own uppercase and lowercase shamrock letters here.

Letter identification charts

When I taught kindergarten, I used these cute little letter identification charts with my students.  I would point to a letter and if they could correctly identify it, they would get a stamp, if not, it was left blank.  They took them home so their parents knew which letters to be working on.

Since my daughter has started identifying letters recently, I wanted to print a chart out for my own records.  I don't use them in the same way.  I don't point to letters and see if she knows them.  I just make a mental note whenever I hear her say a new letter when she sees one (in a book, on a sign) and then use a bingo marker to mark the ones she knows.  I'm so impressed with the ones she already knows!

I printed the charts at Making Learning Fun.  I have one uppercase sheet and one lowercase sheet.  I wrote the months I would be using them in the upper corner.  I plan to print out different ones with the seasons and just tuck them away in a folder until she has a set of filled up ABC's!

Fridge Phonics

While we were visiting family, A spotted two magnetic letters on the floor.  She immediately said, "o" and then "i".  I couldn't believe my ears.  We asked her over and over and she continued to get them correct.  We showed A her older cousin's magnetic word builder and she continued getting letters correct!  She said about six.

We decided to get her the  Fridge Phonics to practice with at home.  I put five letters in a bin (so as not to overwhelm), along with the little dog house.  I made sure that she knew three of them to keep interest.  I'll switch letters out here and there as long as she stays interested.  I like it in the bin because at least for now, when things like this are on the fridge, they just end up on the floor, not played with.