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...]
Peekapak Review
Disclosure: I received this product for free and was compensated for my time reviewing it. All opinions expressed are my own. What do you get when you combine literacy + crafts and it's all set up for you? You get the Peekapak! I'm excited to share with you our experience with a Peekapak today. If you've been reading my blog for some time, you'll know that I love hands-on learning activities. I believe kids learn best when activities are hands-on and engaging. Well, that's what you get with … [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...]
10 Picture Books Every Child Should Read
Today I'm sharing with you 10 picture books I think every child should read. I'm sure I could share more than 10 books, but these are 10 of our favorite books. It was hard to narrow it down! 1. Love You Forever- a very sweet story about a parent's unconditional love 2. Goodnight Moon- a classic bedtime story that any child will enjoy 3. Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?- a fun, patterned book that toddlers love 4. The Little Engine that Could- a great story about not giving … [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 … [Read more...]