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Letter of the Week A- Day 5

A is for Ants
Today we started by listening to Black and Red Ants on the computer. This is a story by Sam Thorn. I sometimes pretend that technology is not relevant to a two year old but who am I fooling? Jacob loves computers, I-pads, I-phones or whatever he can get his hands on. I decided I really wanted to make sure that he stays engaged in our Letter of the Week activities since it will be daily for 26 weeks! Jacob loved seeing a book on the computer! The story was found on Reading is Fundamental website but more great books can be found on We Give Books.
We listened to the book numerous times and after a few times we started pointing out the As in the text, as the text was on the screen during the reading. Next, we made a red and black ant using an egg carton. Jake chose to paint his black, his favorite color! I made the red. We painted the egg carton and then added googly eyes and feelers. 
After making and playing with the ants we moved on to the informal assessment activity for A. I wanted to do something small just to see what he was taking away from a week of A activities. 
I filled a shoe box with some items. Some of the items start with an A others did not. The idea is for him to pull out the items that start with an A and leave the others.
He did remarkably well! He quickly pulled out airplane, ambulance, apple, ape, and astronaut. He was able to tell me the name of each item he pulled out, as well. After he pulled out everything he knew he started looking carefully at the other items. He would pick one up, look at it carefully and then hold it up to me with a questioning look. I would say the name of the item and ask if it started with an A. He was then able to tell me no. We then played a game of I-Spy with the items inside the box. 
He really impressed me this week and I feel he enjoyed taking the ABCs a step further! I will take a picture of the items in the box and use it to create an I-Spy ABC Book. We will then be able to use it to review the letters and a great activity when we are on the go! On to the letter B! 
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Comments

  1. RebeccaFebruary 6, 2012 at 9:06 PM

    Neat! How many months is he? My daughter is almost 27 months, but I think she would need more time before being able to recognize these discreet sounds in words, what do you think?

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    Replies
    1. Jess-February 6, 2012 at 9:10 PM

      Hi Rebecca,
      Jacob is just about 30 months. Girls usually are slightly more advanced than boys so it is worth a try! I made sure that the only sound was the Long A sound and that it was just at the beginning of the word. Also, all the items we talked about this week so it was more about a review of what we did than an assessment of the letter A sound. Couldn't hurt to try! Thanks for the comment!

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