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...]
7 Early Literacy Games You Can Play Anywhere
My kids love games! A lot of times when we are out and about or even at home, I make up games to sneak in some extra time to work on early literacy skills. Early literacy skills refers to what children know about reading and writing before they learn to read or write. Today I'm sharing 7 games we play that promote early literacy skills. The games I'm sharing here focus on letter knowledge and phonological awareness. 1. Rhyme Machine My oldest (who is 5) is super into rhyming these days. … [Read more...]
Ten Apples Up On Top Counting Activity
Last week, Wes and I started doing preschool at home. The letter we started learning about is 'A' and we are doing lots of activities with apples. One of my favorite apple books is Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss. I was inspired to do this activity after reading this idea from Buggy and Buddy. We put our own twist on the activity and it was a lot of fun! In this book, there is a lot of counting. The characters in the story are adding apples to the top of their head throughout the story. … [Read more...]
The Ultimate List of Eric Carle Activities (nearly 100 ideas!)
Today is Eric Carle’s birthday! In case you don’t know who I’m talking about, he is the author of many beloved children’s books. In honor of his birthday (and to provide you with an awesome resource!) I am sharing nearly 100 activities to go along with Eric Carle’s books! There are so many neat ideas here, so stay awhile and check out these fabulous ideas! The Very Hungry Caterpillar Caterpillar & Butterfly Crafts from Teaching Mama Caterpillar Necklace from Buggy & Buddy Toe … [Read more...]
Cat In the Hat Rhyming Hat
Dr. Seuss' Birthday is coming up on March 2nd. In honor of his birthday and Read Across America day, we did a Cat in the Hat rhyming activity. Rhyming is such an important activity to work on with preschoolers and kindergartners. Some kids get the skill quickly and some need a lot more work with it. We chose to do rhyming with the -at word family because we love the book The Cat in the Hat and -at words are a good family to start with for beginning readers. To start, we made our own Cat in … [Read more...]
The Very Clumsy Click Beetle Activity
Another one of our favorite Eric Carle books is The Very Clumsy Click Beetle. If you haven't read this book, you should!! It's so cute. It starts out with a young beetle who tries to climb up a tree, but got tired, fell to the ground, and landed on its back. He couldn't figure out how to get back up! A wise old click beetle teaches him how to flip through the air the next day, but the clumsy beetle keeps trying to show off to all the other creatures that walk by and flips too much and lands … [Read more...]
Toddler Tuesday: The Very Hungry Caterpillar
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is an all-time favorite book of my boys. I've read this book to them many, many times. There are a lot of kid activities, birthday party themes, and baby shower themes centered on this book. Today, I'm sharing a simple toddler activity you can do with your little one. Book Summary: This story shows the life cycle from a caterpillar to a butterfly. After the baby caterpillar hatches from the egg, he is quite hungry. He looks for food and eats 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 … [Read more...]
The Very Quiet Cricket {Preschool Activity}
This week we are continuing our unit on bugs and using Eric Carle's books for our activities. I just love his books. Kids gravitate to them because of the neat pictures and catchy stories. Today I'm sharing a preschool activity that goes along with the book, The Very Quiet Cricket. This book is about a baby cricket trying to greet others with a chirp, but cannot. He runs into lots of other insects, and they all can do something special, but this cricket doesn't think he can do anything. It's … [Read more...]