Sensory Play-Pom Poms

A few weeks ago we had some sensory play with pom poms.  I originally got them (a while ago!) to make sensory bottles, but in the move I wasn't sure where my glue gun went.  So I figured we'd just play with the pom poms on their own.

At first I just gave her a muffin tin and a bowl of pom poms and waited to see what she would do.

At first she took them out one at a time, inspected them, and then began making a circle around her.

This was no surprise to me, since both of her parents are lovers of organization and order. :)

I tried to show her about putting one in the muffin tin, but she wasn't interested.  She just kept taking them out of the bowl, laying them on the ground, and every once in a while putting one back in the bowl.

Then she started sharing with me.

Next, I filled up the tin with pom poms and handed her a spoon.

After a little fun with the spoon, I tried to give her a scoop.  This only lasted for a few minutes and then she went back to using the spoon.

This activity lasted over a half hour.  She probably would have kept playing and exploring, but she started pulling the sparkly tinsel out of the pom poms and that was game over for me. :)

PSA: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

As an early elementary teacher, I love children's books.  I woulds say I have at least 500 books.  My kids won't need to go to the library from ages 4 to 6! :)  There are so many good ones... cute ones... funny ones.  Love!  When I was teaching, I had an author of the month.  Each day (usually after lunch recess to calm down) we would read a book from the same author.  We would talk about what an author is and what an illustrator is.  I would tell the kids that they can go to the library and ask the librarian how to find books by an authors name and the librarian could help them.  Think--if there are 5 days in a school week and about 4 weeks in a month, each author had to have 20 books (minimum).  I have 20+ Franklin books, 20+ Arthur books, 20+ Berenstain Bear books, and on and on.  One author that both the children and I loved was Eric Carle.  He has lots of popular books, but the most popular is The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  Right now, Kohl's has select Eric Carle books and stuffed animals on sale for $5 each as part of their Kohl's Cares program.  I have tons of his books (including some hardcovers and TVHC), and we registered for a board book of The Very Hungry Caterpillar for Olivia.  When I saw the stuffed caterpillar I had to have it.

Seriously.  How cute is it?  I love it!

There are a few others to choose from.

If you have a little one, I strongly encourage you to go and pick up these books if you don't have them.  $5 for a hard covered book is an amazing deal... and to have it be an Eric Carle book is just a huge bonus!

Alphie the Robot

Little Man turned 5 on Monday.  I can't believe it.  I love looking back at old pictures and videos of him.  He's changed and grown so much!  So of course I had to get him a birthday present.  He has more toys than any child could ever possibly play with.  I knew I did not want to get him any more Star Wars toys.  I also knew that he would be getting a ton of dinosuar things since it's his new kick.  I can't really not get him a toy.  First of all, he has tons of clothes too.  Second, what else would I get a five year old?  So I always resort to getting something that is educational.  Let's be honest--I pretty much do that with all kids gifts, whether they have "everything" or not.  It's the teacher in me.  Plus, everyone else likes to buy all the fun/cutesy/popular toys.  So while wandering the aisles of Target, I stumbled upon this.......

It's Alphie!!

Do you remember Alphie?  He was around when I was little!

He looked more like this

I can't remember if I had one, or if I just played with ones my cousins had (Sonja? Melissa? remember?), but I definitely remember playing with him.  I also remember thinking it was super cool.  (Of course, a talking light up robot was a little more unique 25 years ago, but still.)

Michael was shopping with me and he thought it was pretty cool too.  So that's what we got.... along with a book about dinosaurs.  Michael said something about hoping LM likes it or hoping he plays with it.  I said, "I'm the nanny.  I will make him play with it!"  I thought that the fact it was a robot was on our side, but it's true...it's no star wars toy or dinosaur.

We went bowling on Saturday night and had a little mini party for LM, so he opened it then.  He was way more into his dinosaur toy from the TV show Dinosaur Train.  However, I came into work on Monday morning and saw Alphie was out of the box and on the table.  I told Little Man he'd have to show me how it worked.  G said he played with it all day Sunday.  Yay!  Educational toys can still win! :)

I highly recommend you getting this for a little one--either your own, or as a gift.  I paid $40 at Target.  I'm not sure if you can get it cheaper online or not.  Also, they have card booster packs for $10 each.  It comes with the robot, cards that are easily stored in the back, and batteries.  It says ages 3 and up.  Some of the stuff is a little easy for Little Man, but others aren't.  I also like that some of the things that he already knows are asked in a different way than he is use to (hello standardized testing!?!).  It makes him think about it!  I would say this is ideal for children ages 3 to 5--before Kindergarten.  It depends on the kid though.  A smart 2 year old could catch on to some of things, where as a slower learning 5 or 6 year old could still benefit from it.  The booster packs may be harder too.  I'm not sure.  One is specifically about letters and one is specifically about numbers.

Things the box says the cards can teach:

letter-sound recognition
phonemic awareness
print awareness
letter shapes
helping with numeral and shape recognition
working with patterns
matching and sorting
spacial reasoning
introducing multiple-step thinking patterns
cause and effect
compare and contrast
categorization
introduction to music
vocabulary development
color recognition
directionality

Word Family Books and activity

Alright, so if you don't know, I am all about phonics.  I learned how to read using phonics, and I taught first graders how to read for six years using phonics.  I know that pendulum keeps swinging back and forth and a lot of schools are leaning more towards the whole language approach currently, but I am still a lover of all things phonics.  I don't think that will ever change.

So when it came time to teach Little Man how to read, I've just been taking a slow and systematic approach.  As I explained earlier, I have no set age where I want him to read.  I want him to learn how to read properly and to love it in the process.  I don't want to force anything on him.  Or have him "reading" at age 5, but by the time he gets to second grade he doesn't really have a good foundation and falls apart.  (That has happened to a number of students in the past, because they were just sight reading.)

Sooooooo.... I started out (long ago) teaching letter recognition.  From there we went to learning the letter sounds.  He has had that down for quite some time now, but has had no interest in putting those sounds together.  Until now! :)  I decided that I would start with having him try to read/sound out three letter short vowel words.  This is a common approach to learning to read.  While looking at the library for books to help me (that he could "read"), I came across a set that I think are awesome!

They apparently come in a box set (for anywhere from $59 to $65 online), but at the library you can check them out individually.  I think teaching word families is great in general, so using books that teach word families was exciting to me.  For those of you non-teachers who may not remember what a word family is--it's words that end in the same two or three letters.  Essentially they rhyme.  But it is taught that they are all part of a "family".  For example, if it's the "IN" family, they would all end in "IN".  Then you can teach that if you know how to spell/read "IN", then you can also spell/read "tin"... and if you know how to spell/read "tin", then you know how to spell/read "fin".  You get the point.

I picked up a few of the easier or more common word family books, broke out the magnetic letters and cookie sheet, and got to work teaching Little Man how to read. :)

First, I explained word families.  He's good at rhyming, and we often play word games like "if you took the b off the front and put a t there then what word would it be".  So he sort of had a basis.

Whatever the word family was that we were reading, I put on the magnetic board.  Then I put letters on top that could be switched out to make sense.  It's ok to make nonsensical words when first learning this concept, but I wanted it to make sense to him.

Then I would have him move a letter in front and read the word for me.

The first time didn't go so great, but after that he got it.  Now he speeds through them.

After we do the activity that matches the book we are about to read, I read and stop at all the words that are a part of the word family we just practiced.  Then Little Man "reads" them.  There are times he just guesses a word, because he looked at the picture and thinks that's what it's suppose to say.  For the most part, though, he's been doing great.  He's even sounded out some four letter words.

I highly recommend picking these up at your library if they are available.

Cool Kid Find

Alright, I realize this is super late in the day and some of you might not check back until tomorrow morning... that's because I wasn't going to post.  I've had yet another busy week and am about to have a busy weekend.  However, I happened to be browsing through the blogs that I follow and came across something I thought was pretty cool.  I know I have a lot of young mom's (at least my cousins) that might appreciate this. 

It's a bumpy name label.  I'm sorry, but I think this is genius!  It's a stretchy plastic band that slides over bottles, sippy cups, etc.  It comes in a variety of different  colors and your child's name is engraved on it.  I'm thinking this would be awesome for kids that go to a daycare or are even dropped off in a church nursery.  It's dishwasher safe, and from what I've heard are super durable and useful.

It's also suppose to be easy for small hands to grip.

Stocking stuffers anyone?

Color Words

One of our current goals is for Little Man to recognize and be able to "read" color words.  He has known his colors for a looooooooooong time, but he doesn't know color words.  Really, this is more of a Kindergarten or First Grade skill.  I think it will be helpful though, when doing some of our workbook pages.  Then he can read what color he is suppose to use.

There are a lot of color recognition pages in our workbooks, but I knew we'd have to do something else as well.

So I made some flashcards

I purposely wrote them out in the color that they represent.  He thinks he's a color reading genius!

I'm going to use these for a while.  He'll think he knows what's going on, but while easily "reading" the colors they will start to stick in his mind.  Then eventually I will rewrite them all in black and see how much he's picked up.

Also, we are using other methods such as reading books like this

I make him "read" the  color

He made this book in school and is IN. LOVE. with it.

Again, he "reads" the colors.

We'll get there... BEFORE Kindergarten! :)

Tactile Learning--Candy!

Last week I shared with you about tactile learning.  We are still working on forming our letters correctly, and we are still spicing it up with multiple ways to learn this skill.  The latest thing we did was use candy corn.  Hey, go with the season and have fun with it!

 I just told Little Man random letters to make and he made them.

He had lots of fun and kept running his hands through the pile to feel them.  Needless to say, they did not get added back into the candy dish! 

Again, you could change this up for your needs.  You could practice making shapes or numbers.  You don't have to use candy corn either.  You could use whatever you have on hand--M&M's, skittles, raisins, marshmellows, etc.  The options are limitless.

Ahh... isn't learning fun!?

Workbooks for Kiddos

I have another workbook to share with you guys.  K bought this one a while back, and it's great. 

There are many types of books like this.  We just happen to have the Preschool one.  I've seen them at Target for $10, but if you are making an Amazon purchase any time soon, they are $7.91 on there.  (That's only worth it if you are spending $25 or more and getting free shipping!)

This book really is "Big".

It covers a ton too!

It starts with mazes ... then it goes into tracing lines.  Good pre-writing skills.

Then it goes into writing letters and numbers.  We haven't done this section yet.  I am using other books that have more tracing letters for now.

It also covers shapes and colors

It also has MANY different ways to practice beginning sounds and ending sounds

Then there is a whole section with a variety of activities-same, different, opposites, what belongs, what doesn't belong, and more!

This book says it's for ages 3 to 5.  We have actually been using it since Little Man was 3 and he is seriously about to turn 5!  It's that big!  I skipped around to do the things that I thought he could do for the age he was.  My goal is to finish it before he starts Kindergarten. :)

Tactile Learning--Shaving Cream!

There are different ways we all learn.  You may have heard of this before.  It's generally referred to as "learning styles".  We all can learn from various learning styles, but generally one style stands out more than the other.  The three main learning styles are visual, auditory and tactile/kinesthetic.  I'm sure you understand visual and auditory learning.  It's pretty self explanatory.  Visual learners (Oh me! Pick me!) learn best by seeing.  Auditory learners learn best by hearing.  Kinesthetic learners learn best by doing.

Kinesthetic is the form that is most usually stated.  It has to do with moving the body or doing a physical activity to reinforce what is being taught.  Tactile is linked along with it.  It also has to do with learning by doing, but it has more to do with touch and using fine motor skills.  Hands on learning is key for a child who learns best with this learning style.

All learning styles should be used in the classroom, and I feel it is important for me to use all with Little Man as well.  Right now we are learning to write our letters.  He really has no interest in this.  I think it has to do with wanting to do things right and not being a risk taker.  He isn't confident in how to write them, so if we are journaling and I ask him to write his letters he says "I don't know how".  He does well at tracing, but I want him to be able to do it all by himself!  Bring in THE SHAVING CREAM! :)

I sprayed some shaving cream on the counter and had Little Man rub it into a big circle.

Then I told him to a letter to make and he had to draw it out with his finger.

Look at that perfect H!

Then you just rub it away when you're done.

It's a perfect time to make a mistake too.

You can see he made his "C" backwards.  I just had him erase it and we made another.

You may notice my hand in the bottom right.  I had my own mini circle of shaving cream.  When we got to a tricky letter... or one he may have made a mistake on... I (visually!!) showed him how to do it step by step.  Then I made him do it on his.

I also had these letters out and he could look at them and use them as a reference.

It also helped us keep track of what letters we had already done and which ones needed to be practiced.  (Also the paper towels near by were necessary!)

I was a little nervous about this.  Little Man does NOT like getting his hand dirty.  He hates using glue and wants his fingers/hands wiped the minute he gets a dot of paint on them during arts and crafts time.

Luckily, he LOVED it and thought it was the coolest thing ever!!!

We will definitely be doing it again.  He did a much better job doing it in the shaving cream than he does on paper, it's great practice, and it's a great way to build up his confidence.

A few tips...

Don't use super cheap/old man smelling shaving cream.  You'll be smelling it all day!  I use to do this activity in my classroom (with spelling words or word wall review).  Once, someone donated some of the cheap-o stuff.  Of course, being the resourceful teacher I am/was, I put it to use.  Unfortunately, people were asking all day long, "What's that smell" and "What's going on in your classroom today?".  The bonus is, it's an easy way to get your desks cleaned! :p

Also, you could use this activity for multiple lessons.  It doesn't have to just be writing letters.  It could be for drawing shapes, writing ones name, practicing spelling words, writing numbers, and so much more.  Go ahead... break out the shaving cream.  It's great fun!

More tactile learning ideas coming your way soon....

Kids and Reading

Quite often I am asked "When should a kid read?".  I am asked this question by friends with and without kids, from moms on play dates (that know I was a teacher), and by other nannies.  I am asked by "fellow moms" at places like The Little Gym while we watch our children play.  I figured since I am asked so often, I thought I would share my opinion.

I stress that this is my opinion, because I am sure there are many other thoughts on this issue.  The thing is... there really is no right answer.  Just know this--your kid better be reading by first grade or before they leave first grade.  That would be about age 6.  I guess we would also need to discuss what we mean by "reading".  I do not mean sounding out a few short vowel words.  I mean reading sentences at a fluent and rather fast pace.

Personally, I do not believe in forcing a young child into reading just for the sake of being able to say they can read.  I find that we have somehow shifted to a society where people pin, "my kid could read at 3" on their chest and walk around in pride like they have a genius.  It's not about when your kid can read.  It's about how well they can read, if they can comprehend what they read, that they understand the rules for reading, and that they enjoy reading.

I have heard of kids reading at 3.  I have also heard of kids reading at 4.  That is fine---IF the kid is interested and picking it up, then by all means go for it!  MOST kids start to read around 5.  That is also perfectly acceptable.  A child can go to Kindergarten not knowing how to read.  This is actually quite common.  They start to learn to read in Kindergarten and then really strengthen those skills in first grade.

Here's a myth I would like to debunk: The age at which a child reads will show and/or determine their intelligence.  WRONG!  A child that reads at 3 can still struggle in life with school.  A child that doesn't learn to read until they are 5 or 6 can still be a 4.0 student the rest of their life.  I think parents tend to think that the earlier their child reaches a benchmark or cognitive skill is a direct relation to their future and intelligence.  This is just not the case.  Some kids develop slower than others.  Some kids are not interested right away.  Unless your kid is in 2nd grade and not reading--don't push them!  That doesn't mean not to work on skills or not to introduce them to the concepts.  It's just not going to help to sit them down and twist their arm until they start to produce.  You will all be frustrated.

Bottom line: Kids learn to read anywhere from 3 to 6 and none is better than the other.  As long as they are being engaged and being introduced to the concepts and building the process up, it will be OK.

Flashcard Shuffle

Flashcards can have many functions.  You may remember from last October that we played Hide and Seek with the flashcards.  This was a great way for Little Man to practice his letter recognition.

Well, he's got letter recognition and sounds down, but it's always good to practice.  We are also trying to learn to recognize numbers past 10.  So I decided to do a little flashcard shuffle.

First, I laid out the flashcards in a random order and had Little Man put them in the right order.  This is the beginning stages of alphabetic order and he did great.  We started out with half the alphabet.  He did so good at it, so we went with the entire alphabet. Again, he did great.

So we moved on to numbers.

We did 1 through 15 and he did great at it.

I started out easy, but my goal is to use games like this to get him to be counting to higher numbers AND to be able to recognize them when he sees them.

This is a good way to step away from the workbooks and make a game out of learning.