Disclosure: I received a complimentary book from The Innovation Press in exchange for my honest review. As always, my reviews are 100% from me! I'm so excited to share with you a NEW chapter book series! The Zoey and Sassafrass books are perfect for young readers. We read the first book in the series called Dragons and Marshmallows and my 1st grader and preschooler were captivated with the story right away. Let Me Tell You About This Book... Zoey is a sweet little girl, who is always … [Read more...]
Rhyme Time Packet for Preschoolers
Rhyming is a very important skill for beginning readers to practice. It’s a phonemic awareness skill that helps kids hear sounds within words. It’s also a lot of fun! We love to play a game where we say a word and try to come up with as many words as we can to rhyme with it. It's something simple we do while driving in the car or waiting at the doctor's office. Rhyming can be fun and silly, but it’s a great way for kids to practice hearing the sounds in words. Today I'm sharing with you my … [Read more...]
Preschool Literacy 101
I love talking about teaching literacy. In fact, I love it so much that I minored in literacy in college. I talk to lots of moms teaching preschool at home and a lot of them want to know what children need to know before they head off to Kindergarten. This Preschool Literacy 101 post will go into the basics of teaching preschool literacy. Let's start with defining literacy. Literacy is teaching reading, writing, and oral skills. Beginning literacy is the knowledge and skills that precede … [Read more...]
Awesome Reading App for Kids + Giveaway!
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Speakaboos. All opinions are my own. I'm really excited to share with you an awesome reading app for kids that we just discovered! Speakaboos is the reading app for kids ages 2-6 that turns screen time into reading time. If your kids are like mine, they LOVE screen time. We limit screen time at our house, but I do let them play educational games. This app is one that I feel great about because it encourages my children to read! Have you heard of … [Read more...]
Apple Tree Game with Sight Words
I love September...it is quite possibly my favorite time of the year! Since apples themes are everywhere right now, I thought I'd share with you a sight words apple tree game I created for my Preschooler and Kindergartener. They are both learning how to read, so this game is a great way to introduce sight words to them! For this game, children don't have to know how to read yet, because they will be looking at the letters in the words and looking for the same ones on the apple tree. If … [Read more...]
100 Picture Books to Read This Summer
Earlier this week I sent out the challenge for families to read 100 books together. The boys are so excited about this and are already adding plenty of stickers to our chart. Today I'm sharing with you 100 picture books to read this summer. I've personally looked through all these books and I've either read them or would read them in the future with my boys. This list contains affiliate links. See my disclosure for details. These books are great for preschool and early elementary … [Read more...]
Can You Read 100 Books? Summer Reading Challenge!
Summer is just about here! While we take a break from our school routine here, we do a lot of reading! I wanted to create a fun way to challenge my little ones to read, so I came up with the challenge to read 100 books together this summer. I also created a chart to track the books we read. On this chart, there are 100 colored circles. After we read a book together, we will either put a sticker on the circle, mark it with an 'X', or stamp it with a Do-a-Dot marker. I also created a … [Read more...]
Teaching Preschoolers How to Pick Out Books Independently
This is an all too familiar scene for us...we are at the library and I tell the kiddos to pick out books. My two preschoolers head over to the book section and grab a handful of 5 books and toss them in a pile and head somewhere else. Great. They hardly looked at them before dumping them in our book pile! Since I'm usually busy keeping my baby happy, I only get a quick glance at what they picked out. We check them out and when we get home to read the books we sometimes find that the books are … [Read more...]
Free Vowel Cards
Vowels are a great concept to teach after a child knows the alphabet. Learning vowels can be tricky, so today I'm sharing with you a free vowel cards to help teach this to your child. When you introduce vowels to your child, it is important to explain that vowels give words their volume! Ask your child to tell you the sounds in the word 'wish'. If he can segment, he will tell you /w/-/i/-/sh/ are the sounds. Ask him to tell you which sound is the vowel in the word. If he cannot, then … [Read more...]
8 Things to Teach After the Alphabet
Have you ever felt stuck on what to teach your child after the alphabet? Your child knows the letters and sounds, but what comes next? How do they go from the ABCs to reading? I get asked this question frequently, so today, I'm sharing 8 things to teach after your child knows the alphabet. To know if your child is ready to move on from the alphabet, you can do a quick assessment. Mix up alphabet letters and point to one. Have your child recite the letter name sound. It's one thing for a … [Read more...]