Word Families on a Budget

    To us, a huge part of the learning process is making sure it's fun, which usually means allowing my preschooler to interact as much as possible with what he's learning.  It's very easy to head to the teacher store and buy a ready-made learning game but I've notice that if our son is involved in making his own out of everyday items, he is much more motivated during the learning process.  In learning word families we decided to use paper cups from the dollar store.  He loved it so much that he asks to do the same type of activity when we do our math number studies.

 

The Letter H

It always amazes me how much fun preschoolers have with the letter H.  Something about making the H sounds makes them silly.  From eating "H"ershey kisses to visiting the zoo to see the "H"ippos, we thoroughly enjoyed learning about the letter H.  It's always fun walking through the zoo singing the "I see a Hippopotamus" song while wearing hippo ears.  On the ride home we had a letter find contest.  Whoever could find ten H's on signs that we passed, got to eat 1/2 a "H"ershey Bar. 

Word Stretching

  We have recently been working on phonemic awareness (becoming aware of each sound in words) in our home.  This is a prerequisite to successful reading.  My four year old is very hands-on so to solidify this concept we have been working with rubber worms to "stretch out" the sounds in words.  He had so much fun while he learned.  Watch as we stretch out single vowel words such as DOG, ROCK, and FISH.
                                                                                                
                                                                                                 

DOG

D

O

G

                                                

Name Writing Practice

We found this awesome dry erase envelope in the $1 section at Target. 

We've been using it for writing practice. 

Cookie Decorating Christmas Party

    One of the benefits of having a preschooler is that you are required to participate in almost every activity with them, which in this case really worked out well for me.  Having to "demonstrate" how to decorate the cookies put me in the perfect position to "demonstrate" how to eat them too.  :o) In our family, Christmas and Easter are the two most celebrated holidays.  What better way to celebrate Christmas than to have a Birthday Party For Jesus?

Our Nativity Diorama

Letter E Activities

Letter Ee

Going On A Letter  Hunt
We used our letter box to go on a letter Ee scavenger hunt around the house.

We keep a journal to introduce each letter, which we often use to trace the letter with our finger or with items.

After talking about the letter we sometimes use our Hooked on Phonics Letter Cards to play CONCENTRATION and build the letter with large items we have around the house. 

Our Letter Ee Snack

We also used window markers to write the letter Ee on our sliding glass door. 

We studied the letter Ee sound and cut out items beginning with Ee.  Before using our regular curriculum, we used sticker dots to cover the letter. 

Letter E Prewriting

Coffee Filter Flowers

    Last spring, someone gave us several bags of coffee filters that were too large for our coffee pot.  We decided to make flowers out of them.  Here's what we did:

• Placed water with food coloring in a few tin pie pans
• Dipped the ends of each filter into the colored water to soak up the color. 
• Layed them out openned to dry