Letter of the Week: Bb {Monday}

We started a new week full of activities about the letter Bb!  Here's what we did on Monday.

1.  I introduced the letter Bb poster and word cards.  You'll notice that these are the same style as the letter Aa.  We also talked about the sound for B and the first sound in the words "ball" and "bus".  Miss E knows the sound for B already, but it's always good to practice!

2.  Miss E traced B and b on the letter book page.

3. Miss E colored the letter Bb coloring page.

4.  We sang "The Wheels on the Bus".  We also read the book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!  This is one of our all-time favorite books!

5.  We used these excellent lacing cards by Melissa and Doug. (Here are some similar ones.) Miss E used to get pretty frustrated with these, but with some gentle encouragement and help, she's getting the hang of them.  I say, "Poke the string through the hole, flip it over, and pull it through."  We turned it into a little song and had some fun!

6.  Finally, we did a "dot-to-dot" page that I made after seeing this post.  I modeled how to draw the lines to connect the dots using green crayon.  Miss E had more fun drawing circles and random lines, which is totally fine!

Stay tuned for Tuesday's activities!

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Letter of the Week: Aa {Thursday and Friday}

Here's the wrap-up of our week about the letter A!  We ended up not doing school on Friday because we had errands and other things going on.  So, here's what we did Thursday!

1. We reviewed the letter and sound for Aa with the poster.  We talked about our word cards "apple" and "alligator".  She's really good at saying the first sound in those words!

2.  We traced the letter on our tracing book page.  Remember, I'll hole-punch that page and we'll gradually make a letter tracing book to review with each week.

3.  We reread our letter Aa book.

4.  We did some fun art!  I made an art book for Miss E with a blank book I bought in the dollar section at Target.  I put stickers for each letter of the alphabet on each page of the book.  Each week, we'll do a letter-related art activity on each page.  I can't wait to see what it looks like when we finish it!  

For the letter A, we stamped with an apple!  Miss E thought this was funny.  I cut an apple in half and then cut a handle into one half.  Miss E stamped a few times in her art book and then stamped on some paper.

5. We did a letter shark activity.  Somehow I didn't take a picture of it, but I made a shark similar to this post.  Miss E LOVED it!  Our shark ripped, however, so I'll have to reinforce him with some tape before we do this activity again.

My next post is about the letter Bb!

Letter of the Week: Aa {Wednesday}

Our third day learning about the letter Aa was great!  Here's what we did today:

1. Show the letter poster and word cards for Aa, just like every other day.  Emphasize that there's an uppercase A and lowercase a, and review the sound.  With the word cards, Miss E automatically said, "Apple, /a/ /a/ /a/" and the same for alligator.  She's definitely able to associate those words with the sound for A!

2. Miss E traced the letters A and a with her finger.

3.  We reread the letter book we made yesterday.  

4. Miss E did a rainbow tracing page.  She didn't spend much time on it.  I think she "gets" how to write the letter Aa and was ready to move on since she knew we were going to play with her rice sensory tub. :)

5. On Wednesdays, I'm going to do a Sensory Tub Letter Sort.  Miss E has had a rainbow rice sensory tub for a long time.  I took out the funnels and scoops and replaced them with letters!  

As a former kindergarten teacher, I'm lucky to have a wide assortment of magnetic and foam letters that I've bought at garage sales over the years.  I think it's important to have uppercase and lowercase versions of the letters, since your child will need to know both eventually!  Here are some uppercase letter magnets and lowercase letter magnets that I own and highly recommend!  I also have an assortment of craft foam letters that I use.

I organize the letter magnets and foam letters in individually-labeled baggies and put them in baskets, like this one:

Then, before today's school time, I put all of the "A's" in the rice sensory tub, along with some random other letters.
  

I showed Miss E how to sort the letters she found.  If she found an A or an a, she put it under the first column.  If it wasn't, she put it under the sad face. She caught on very quickly, with just a little help!

6.  We did a color-sorting activity with some bears I bought for my first year teaching. Here are some similar ones.I bought this cheap veggie tray in the Target dollar section a few years ago.  I demonstrated how to sort the bears by color, and Miss E did very nicely.

7.  Last, we did a number search.  This was a HIT!  I wrote the numbers 0-10 on apple post-it notes.  I happened to have some and they correspond with the letter A theme for this week, but regular post-its work great, too!  I hid them around the living room while Miss E was playing in the kitchen.  I had her go around and find the numbers.  I had her bring me the numbers as she found them and had her tell me what number it was.  She was giggling and running the whole time!  After we did it once, she hid them again for her some of her toys to find.  

See you tomorrow!

*This post contains affiliate links.  All opinions are my own.  

Letter of the Week: Aa {Tuesday}

We had another great day of school!  Miss E (31 months) and I did more activities about the letter and sound for Aa today, plus a fun color sorting activity!

Like I said yesterday, Miss E already knows her letters and most sounds consistently.  However, it's still relevant to do letter of the week with her for many reasons.  I'm solidifying her knowledge of Aa and the short vowel sound.  She's beginning to understand how to isolate the first sound in a word and correspond it with the letter that makes that sound (letter-sound correspondence).  For example, when we talk about the word cards "apple" and "alligator", I strongly emphasize the beginning sound so she associates the beginning sound with the letter A.

A strong focus of our letter of the week activities is letter formation.  Like I said yesterday, this is an advanced skill and you shouldn't expect perfect letter formation at this age.  That being said, using tactile activities to practice forming letters is a great activity for this age!  Every day, Miss E uses her "magic finger" (pointer finger on dominant hand) to trace the letter.  I also give her the opportunity to trace the letter with a crayon.  You may be amazed at how well the finger tracing helps them learn to write the letters.  I'm already amazed at Miss E's letter writing with crayons, and I know the finger tracing helps!

Anyway, here are Tuesday's activities:

1. Show the letter poster for Aa and the word/picture cards (same as yesterday). She immediately said, "A, /a/ /a/ /a/, apple!", with /a/ meaning she said the short vowel sound for A.

2. Miss E traced the letter Aa in the tracing book with her finger.  On Friday, I'll hole-punch this laminated page and we'll begin making a tracing book.

3. Then, we made the letter Aa book.  This is a short, three-page book that I made for all 26 letters.  I had Miss E spell her name orally so I could write it on the front cover.  We "read" through it together.  For example, on the apple page, I said, "A is for apple."  Then, I gave Miss E the chance to color the book.  Look at the smiley face she made on the apple!  Ha!  Aren't kids amazing? And, look at how well she traced the A and a.  Pretty proud mama here!

4. We did the letter Aa dot page.

5.  For an extra activity today, I had Miss E sort pom-poms by color into these egg-dyeing cups.  I started out having her use some large plastic tweezers, but she became frustrated.  So, I gave her a 1/2 tablespoon measuring spoon instead and she loved it!

Of course, part of life with a toddler is flexibility.  Miss E's train friends joined us for school today.  I'm sure they had a blast!

Stay tuned for Wednesday's letter of the week activities!

Letter of the Week: Aa {Monday}

Today, Miss E and I started the "toddler school" that I'm working on creating!  It's essentially a letter-of-the-week curriculum with additional activities.  I have plans for working on that week's letter each day of the week, including letter recognition, letter sounds, and letter tracing.  Then, I'm doing 2 or 3 "supplemental" activities in the areas of counting, number recognition, fine motor, art, pre-writing, patterns, size/shape, colors, name recognition, and more!

As a former teacher, I work best when I have a written-down plan that I can follow.  When I taught, I had a template that I filled in each week since we followed the same schedule.  Since that's how I work best, I've done something very similar for toddler school.  I'll finalize my plan template and post it when it's done!

This week's letter is Aa.  Miss E already knows all uppercase and lowercase letters and most of the sounds. She's 31 months old.  The purpose of the toddler school alphabet activities are reinforcing letter and sound knowledge so I can begin teaching her to read!

Here are Monday's activities:

* Introduce the letter and sound for Aa with a letter poster and word/picture cards

* Trace the letter Aa with your finger.  Model this for them first, then help hold your child's finger as they trace, and then finally, let them do it alone.  Encourage all efforts, and don't be too particular.  This is an advanced skill for 2 and 3 year-olds!

* Color the letter Aa coloring page.  I've done tracing and rainbow writing activities with my daughter before, so she naturally traced the letter Aa without me asking her!  She did a really good job, too!

* Other activities:  We did an apple pattern activity (I forgot to take a picture!) and then we made pasta bracelets.  We used dry dyed pasta and pipe cleaners.  

I'm REALLY excited about our new plan for toddler school!  I'll keep posting our activities!