Mama and Baby Matching

Today we did a little more matching. This time we used Counting Coconut's Mama and Baby Cards. Again, I printed these last year and reused them for this month's activities. These cards are great for so many different reasons; you can obviously match the mama and baby, you can discuss the name of the animals and babies, and you can discuss how the mama and baby look the same and different.

We started by matching them, that was the easy part. Funny though, last year it was like pulling teeth to get Jacob to do this activity and this year he is so into it! This is an important reminder not to push your child to do too much Structured Play time but rather do some but wait until they are ready for more. It will come!

This time around we spent a lot of time talking about the baby's name. He does not know the names of many of the baby animals. We talked about how the names were funny in some cases, (goat/kid) and looked carefully at the similarities and differences. These cards are great for all ages. Counting Coconuts is an amazing resource with many more printables check them out!

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Play to Write- Week 3

We participating in a Wednesday Play Group called Play to Write over at Cherrios and Lattes . This is week 3- Write/Spell Your Name. We started this week's practice with some name tracing. Cherrios and Lattes provides the printable for some dotted letters. She suggested doing rainbow writing with this sheet. I showed Jacob but he was more interested in writing all the Jacobs. I started by modeling on the first name. Then I held his hand and we did it together. Finally I let him do the last three on his own with only my verbal prompts. He took this very seriously and was very proud of himself! I was surprised at how much he liked doing this activity. He has a long way to go but he did pretty well! One thing I had to repeat was not to go around the o and a more than once. He wanted to go around and around. This is an activity that I think he will want to do again! The next activity was Missing Letter Name Practice. We started by singing a little song I sing fo...

Name Writing Practice

Jacob did a little name writing practice today. He was asked to trace the dotted lines to write letters for his name. This is good practice with spelling as well. I had him say each letter as he wrote the letter. As you can see he is very choppy and not exactly on the dotted lines. His motor skills are not quite sharp enough yet to be able to hold the crayon and he especially loses control as he works on towards the end. We also did a Missing Letter Name Practice. Both of these ideas came from Cherrios and Lattes ' Play to Write, Write to Read. These are good ways to practice names and writing. He gets very angry if he thinks he made a mistake. See the scribbling. I have to reinforce that it is ok to make a mistake and that everyone makes mistakes but we just keep trying. Practice is the only way to get better. When this happens I cannot help but think of my former students that did the very same thing and proceeded to throw fits and give up. I hope to help Jacob ge...

Building Good Readers

"Your boys are such good readers! I wish mine loved to read like yours do! How did you do that?" Can parents build good readers? How do parents build good readers? This might seem like a daunting question, a task too difficult to tackle. But truly, it does not have to be. As our children grow and become readers on their own accord they often feel that they do not need or want parents to read to them. It is very common for this to happen, but as their parents, it is our job to push back. Readers are not born, they are made. We must find times to read to our children. That might mean reading aloud looks different as they get older. Maybe instead of before bed; you are reading at the dinner table, as they are playing, or during snack time. The point is to share books that will pique their interest and hold their attention. You might have to choose books you might not otherwise choose. The key to reading aloud is to m odel reading for them and to sho...

Structured Play

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