Phonics Seeking Game

This simple phonics matching game was a hit with both girls today, Bubble because she is very 'into' letters and Squeak because she loved racing around the house grabbing things!
This game could easily be adapted for a scavenger game where each player draws out a certain number of letters and has to find corresponding objects around the house/classroom.

WE USED:

* letter flashcards
(we made some by cutting speech cards in half and writing letters with a marker)
* objects from around the house

First we mixed up our letter cards so they were out of order, then flipped them face down in a pile.

Bubble turned the cards over one at a time revealing a different letter each time. We would practice the phonic sound/s for the letter and have to race each other to find something in the house that began with that sound.

Some examples:

For Y Bubble found a yellow cheese and I found a yolk.

A = apple and ambulance.

O = oranges and oval.

B = bee and book.

C = cup and carrot.

Playdough Printing - Easter Sight Words

We played this fun game as a variant of our usual sight word activity this week, using Easter words instead.

WE USED:

* play dough
* speech cards
* marker/pen
* alphabet blocks
(if you don't have any alphabet blocks you could make some bottle lid stamps to use instead).

We brainstormed some Easter words and I wrote them on speech cards for Bubble to use as prompts.
Our alphabet blocks are upper case so I deliberately wrote her word cards in lower case so she could practice her upper/lower case letters at the same time.

Bubble rolled out a big sheet of play dough ready to stamp on.

She found each matching letter block to create her words and stamped them into the dough.

Some of the letters printed back to front of course, but the blocks were used to spell out our words as we went.

Bubble loved this activity and spent quite awhile working her way through each word card.

“Come over to play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

'G' is for Grapes

We are just recently home from another trip interstate so craft time has been a bit limited while we get the house back in order and get our flow going again. Today we did a simple 'finger painting' activity to fit with our letter G theme, Bubble enjoyed it so much I'm going to try and think up other pictures we can make with fingerprints.

WE USED:

* paint (we used purple)
* paint pad (we used a foam tray and wet cotton pads)
* paper
* coloured pencils/felt
* glue

Paint pads made with a foam tray, cotton pads, water and paint.

I cut a stem and some leaves from felt and Bubble glued them to the page. I then drew a grape stalk with brown pencil and we chatted about the different parts before Bubble added the 'grapes' to her picture.

Bubble used the paint pad and her thumb to make prints along the stalks.

Bubbles finished painting of a bunch of purple grapes. She was very particular about where each one went and didnt want to add any more because aparently then they 'would just all fall off!" :-D

'G' is for Garden - Celery Prints

It's been awhile since we did a letter on our phonics wall so today we picked up where we left off - with the letter 'G'. Bubble enjoyed doing some vegetable printing and there was a lot of fine motor practice involved putting our little rose garden together.

WE USED:

* paint and brush
* whole celery cut close to the base
* paper
* scissors
* mini skewers
* green ribbon
* tray (we used a foam tray from some fresh produce)
* playdough
* blutack

Cut a bunch of celery close to the base so that you are left with a flower shape for printing with (and eat celery stalks, of course :-D).

We started out doing sponge printing but it didnt work very well, so we used a brush to paint the ends instead.

The celery leaves a great print which looks a lot like a rose.
Once the prints were dry we cut them out so we could create a garden with them.

Bubble preparing our 'garden bed', she really enjoyed pushing the playdough into the corners, making it flat and then 'digging holes for the flowers' with her fingers.
We made a similar type of playdough garden a little while ago ; Sensory Garden.

To create leaves on our flowers we tied short lengths of green ribbon around some mini skewers. Bubble can't quite tie knots by herself yet but she had fun trying! I did the crossover and then tuck under bit with her, then she would pull each one tight. Won't be long and she'll be tying up her own shoes :-)

Bubble put some blutack on the back of each of her flowers.

Then carefully secured them to the top of her mini skewer flower stems.

Bubble planting her little rose garden.

Plastacine Writing Tray

I remember in primary school having a plastacine tray that we practiced writing in, and I tried to recreate one today for Bubble to use but it didn't turn out so good. If anyone knows the 'right' way to make these can you please let me know as I'd love to make one.
The one we had at school had brightly coloured plastacine underneath and a layer of black plastacine over the top, we would then use popsticks to practice our letters and the colours would show through the black (kind of like these black crayon scratch pictures but with plastacine). Then you just smoothed over the black plastacine and started again.
Bubble still really enjoyed the tray I made for her and played with it quite happily, it worked in that it showed up her marks and lines when she drew but the colours underneath didn't show through at all (maybe the black layer was too thick?).

WE USED:

* shallow tray/dish
* plastacine
* mini skewer or chopstick

It was a disaster to begin with lol, I ran out of black so had to use the next darkest colour to finish the top layer - brown :-D

Bubble's drawings still showed up well, just not in rainbow like I was expecting!

Eventually we flipped our plastacine over and drew on the colourful side as well, which worked pretty nicely too.

Word Match

This is a basic matching game with a bit of a twist, we used sight words but you can easily adapt it to teach any concept (letters, numbers, shapes).

WE USED:

* whiteboard marker
* puzzle board
* paper
* texta/pen

Choose a puzzle board with the same number of pieces as you have flashcards that you want to use. Using paper and markers make up two sets of matching flashcards.

Spread one of the sets of flashcards out across the floor and place a puzzle piece below each card. I used whiteboard marker to write directly onto our tiles instead of using a second set of flashcards (it wipes straight off), if you're going to do this please test a small area first though and make sure your tiles are sealed :-)

Give your child the second set of flashcards one at a time. Bubble loved spelling out each of her sight words letter by letter :-)

Bubble matching her sight word card to the words spread across the floor. Once your child has found the correct match they get to take the puzzle piece to put in the puzzle board.
You could use a lot of different rewards with this game depending on what your child is interested in; set up train tracks and put one train with each flashcard for them to add to the tracks one by one, make a posting box by cutting a slit in the top of a shoebox so your child can 'post' the cards once they are matched, or maybe cut up a sheet of stickers and use those as rewards with each flashcard.

Bubble filling up her puzzle board piece by piece.

Our sightwords all matched up :-)

Sightword Spotlight

WE USED:

* simple 'one word' style childrens book
* paper
* scissors
* markers
* blutack
* torch

This game is great for teaching children sightwords and letter sounds. I cut 3 sheets of paper into 12, then wrote words from a one word/letter alphabet book on each piece. I tried to choose words that looked distinct or could be sounded out easily (like 'balloon' or 'fish'), you might want to do more or less words depending on the age of your child. Using blutack I stuck the words around Bubble's bedroom and we turned out the lights. We read the book together and when we came across a word that was on the wall Bubble would spell out the letters and then go on a hunt around her room with her torch to find it.

Some of our sightwords stuck up on the wall. I soread them out and put them at different levels on different walls so the hunt was more fun.

Reading our book by torchlight :-)

Sounding out the letters.

Bubble spotting words with her torch.