Showing posts with label Book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book. Show all posts

Friday, November 3, 2017

Make your Child love ABC Writing and Reading

I couldn't believe my eyes when my son who is 2 years old, called my attention and told me he wrote 'A'. and  he continued to write the whole alphabet!




Many parents struggle to teach letter sounds and writing to their child. It was no exception for me  since I didn't know much about how to present it other than the traditional way. After trying several methods, one or combination of these might work for you.

1. Wooden letter Puzzle
I took advantage of his obsession in repetition until the item is mastered.
I encouraged also his need for order, he always matches in alphabetical order A-Z.
Choose one that has a pincer grip,
it will also help them prepare for pen writing later
2. Letter books and Music

 Read, read and read, add a tune, singing makes it easier to remember.
check version sung by the author
Go to a local Market and match the fruits and vegetables
take a careful look
Find and frame letters around your city

3. Sandpaper letters and Movable letters
Trace with two fingers, say the letter sound.
Ideally, limit up to three for introduction of letters.
Read more on Montessori method of  presentation.
image from http://www.infomontessori.com/language/written-language-sandpaper-letters.htm

4. GAMES: A-Z sound
During traffic, we take turns in thinking words that start in letter A and so forth. You'll be amazed at what words kids think of.


5. Handwriting Without Tears
This has helped us build the uppercase letters with fun.

Building Mat Man
Image from Mrs, smith singing the Mat Man song


Building Letters
made our custom made pieces from foam board,
you may purchase or make wood for sturdier pieces


Friday, February 10, 2017

Love is in the Air

Children are very expressive of their love. They love unconditionally. Oh how I wish everybody loves like them,  trusting, true and overflowing.

Our activities are always coupled with a fine picture book.

1. Book: Cranberry Valentine



We fell in love with Cranberry Thanksgiving, so we continued with the series. After reading, my daughter is inspired to do Valentine cards.

2. Arts and Craft- Valentine Cards
As simple as it sounds, but it develops fine motor skills on cutting, pasting.
Brainstorm ideas and let those creative thoughts coming.
Practice writing, drills might bore a young child, but expressing their thoughts get them writing.



3. Bake
A recipe is provided at the back of the book, or celebrate with a special treat and make the whole activity memorable





4. Quotes and Bible Verses
Make a heart chain filled with verses about love, open one per day and discuss further.





5. Sensory Play: Color Baskets
 Present one color at a time for your toddler, starting with primary colors, in this case it is red.
photo from Counting Coconuts




6. Sensory Play : Find the Heart
Identify the shape, use visual discrimination.
Touch the sides and contour, let him feel and trace the shape.
Games to play, blindfold the child let him find the heart shape thru sense of touch.
Another variety, put several shapes inside a pouch and let him find the shape.
photo from Orange and Coco
May your love overflow unconditionally. 

Friday, March 18, 2016

Leprechauns with a Pot 'o Gold

St Patrick's Day is not a big thing here in the Philippines, but since there was a unit about it and we already have the materials for it then we went for it.

1. Books: Under the Rainbow, St Patrick



2. Geography and Reading Preparation
Locate Ireland in the Map.
Make a game identifying all words that starts with sh

3. Botany & Bible: 
Talk about shamrock and its meaning.


2. Art: Color Sequence of a Rainbow
The Song Colors of the Rainbow as sung at Kindermusik class helped a lot in remembering the sequence.
We coupled it with activities and painting.


3. Language: Rainbows around the World:
Colors in English,Tagalog and how often Spanish words are used in the Philippines (a short introduction to Spanish influence to the Philippines) and Chinese

Red - Pula红色
Green -Luntian (berde) - Spanish Verde 綠色

and so on

4. Music: Classifying High and Low

- Visual thru pictures (pointing and looking for objects), High and Low
- Kinesthetic thru movement and dance
-  Auditory thru singing the high note and low note, play the high low note in the piano



5. Musical Term: Glissando
-Visual thru the logo

-Kinesthetic thru waving the scarves in an arclike movement


-Auditory thru playing the slide whistle



6. Dress Up




7. Do an Irish Jig
Put a clacker (bottle cap/coin) at the bottom of our shoes and followed the dance step.





In the end we found the pot of gold, and ate them all up!

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Survive Quicksand

It is summer, time to play with sand!

1. Book: The Quicksand Book
We love Tomie dePaola books, here is one informative and amusing book, coupled with a science experiment.
   

2. Video: We watched a video from Discovery Channel on quicksand

photo credit to Discovery Channel video


3. The Experiment

-Dry Sand

-Attach the hose at the bottom, a pail is better,seal the connection

-add with a little water


-add lots of water



-test how hard it is to pull Bert out


-wait and the water goes up and sand is again stable



4. Survive in a real Quicksand

photo credit to Wikipedia
-use stick to check where you are going
-in case you already fell lie back to float and slowly roll over to dry land
-don't panic and do slow movement of pulling your legs out
(read the book for complete details)
Be careful and have a great summer everyone.


Monday, February 29, 2016

Finding North

Geography basics is one of the topics in the book we are rowing (Five in a Row curriculum)

1.Two Main types of Compass

Magnetic & Gyro

2. Reading a Compass
Read the compass and use the sun as your reference to check your reading.
(sunrise and sunset)



a gift to my husband few years back,
now we are using it for our activities
3. Making a Compass
We used Usborne's 100 Science Experiments.


-With a Needle
  


and Magic School Bus' Weather Lab

-With a Magnet






4. Mapping Out
-Make a relationship between North in the compass and map's North




5. Application
-Treasure hunting with directions




6. Book Reading
Stories to relate:

-Katy and the Big Snow
One of the topics discussed is reading a compass, you can make a sub-topic or activity about it just like this.



-Eric Carle's 10 Little Rubber Ducks


Happy hunting!


Sunday, January 31, 2016

Noodles from Scratch

This month's theme is Jazz Kitchen, singing, dancing to Jazz music and of course activities to make it memorable

1. Book:



2. Practical Life & Math

Grocery list, ingredients listing , money counting, and measuring are among the things you can learn in this simple task
Count, pay and go

3. Project Noodles from Scratch

Learn cooking terms by doing and seeing it
insisted on making noodles just like the animals in the book

mixing and measuring

kneading the dough


cutting by an adult (start with banana slicing for your child)
the one we did is still too thick

twirling some noodles for drying, we tried different shapes
4. Cooking: 

tomatoes, cheese & mushroom

Viola, finished product

5. Music : Singing and Drums
- Note reading: quarter note and eighth note, getting a beat
pum pa dum dum

Happy Eating, Reading and Singing everyone!