phonics Archives – The Pinterested Parent

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phonics

Thu
03 ^rd

Phonics Lessons

Posted by Pinparent — 10 Comments

I know I have told you many times about what a difficult infant my daughter was. From the moment she was born, she gave me a run for my money. She cried all the time, all the time. I remember my first day with her in the hospital, when she first started and did not seem to stop. In a panic I started singing the first song that came to mind, the ABC song. It miraculously quieted her cries as she stared up at me taking in my song as I named off each letter. She listened so intently, her eyes fixed on my mouth as I sang. This became my go to song to soothe my daughter.

Now here it is 2 1/2 years later & it is still a favorite. Mai sings her ABC’s all the time. Many mornings we are awaken by the sounds of her sweet voice reciting her alphabet. We have been working on sounding out our letters for quite some time now. We do many activities and lessons to practice. At random, I will start pointing out objects and sounding them out for her. “Look Mai, hat. “H” hhhhhhhh. “A” aaaaaaaaaaaa. “T” ttttttttt, hat” We read, work on her ABC puzzles & she watches me write the letters out on her chalkboard.

One of my daughter’s favorite phonics games to play is a simple one. We like to have living room picnics, so we usually lay down a blanket and sit on the floor. We use her ABC magnets & put them in a pile on the floor. We grab them one by one and Mai will tell me the letter and a word that the letter begins with. As you can see from her video, she is very enthusiastic about this game. She is very proud when she gets them all and so is mommy. Sometimes it is the simplest of things that have the greatest effect. What is wonderful is we play this often and she comes out with new words each time. Sometimes she even says some that mommy doesn’t know. The other day, she told me “Q” was for quoll. I had to ask her a couple of times to repeat it. “Are you saying quoll?” “Yes, the quoll is sooooooo cute.” I had to Google it. A quoll is a little animal that kind of looks like a mouse. She was right they are pretty cute. I discovered later that one of her ABC Mouse activities featured a quoll. My little smarty is already smarter than mommy.

Mon
07 ^th

Learning to Read

Posted by Pinparent — 12 Comments

My husband and I both love to read. On the evening of our first date while riding in his car, I happened to glance in his back seat and noticed a book sitting there. After closer observation, I realized that he was reading the same book that was at that time residing on my night stand. I knew at once that it had to have been a sign.

Before we had our daughter we agreed that we would read to her often and encourage her to love books as much as we did. We kept that promise & continue to. With a lot of help from her Nana, my hubby & I have bred a fellow book lover.

Over the weekend, we pulled out two bags of books that we have not read yet and had a reading picnic on our living room floor. We put down a blanket, some pillows, spread out all our books and put out a few snacks.

We devoured book after book. Mommy would read to her & Mai would point out what she was seeing on the pages and narrate the story based on the pictures.

Mai’s has such a great grasp of the alphabet and is able to distinguish the first letter of many common words. It is common practice for her to sit in her crib in the morning and practice her phonics. “A ahhh ahhh ahhh, apple”. We have done a number of phonics lessons with her and she has done wonderfully with them. We wanted to start some reading lessons with her too.

One of my favorite tools for making easy learning materials is to create simple lessons using Microsoft Word or Paint. For this lesson, we created a page with a clip art picture and the word that describes that picture minus it’s first letter. Here is an example of one of the pages.

I used a printed copy of the page I created & hung it up on a magnetic easel. You can also use the refrigerator. I gave my daughter a bag of alphabet magnets and let her go.

Mai did a great job and was very proud of herself when she was finished. She clapped her hands and said “Mama, I did it.” Yes you did!

Thu
27 ^th

Phonics Muffins – Phonics Lessons With Muffin Tins & ABC Magnets

Posted by Pinparent — 20 Comments

Toddlers are incredible. The amount of information that they take in, learn and retain on a daily basis is astounding. I am fascinated by my daughter & also often surprised by her as well. From the time she was an infant, we surrounded her with the alphabet. I sang the Abc’s to her when she would cry, which was all the time. We also had a few visual aids…

Mai’s Nanna made this beautiful ABC quilt for her. It hangs on the fence in her playroom.

With all of the alphabet jammed down her throat, it was no wonder that she learned her Abcs early. She has been sounding out her letters for some time now. She will play with her refrigerator magnets often while I am cooking. “B! Bbb bbb boy” You are right baby, B is for boy. She is growing up so fast that I can hardly believe it. With Mai sounding out her letters so much, I came up with a game that could hopefully challenge her phonics learning and entertain her.

This was a cheap and easy to make activity for my toddler. Just line muffin tins with pictures of different animals & objects and let her match up the alphabet magnet to the coordinating word. For example, matching the A to apple or B to banana.

What you will need:

2 muffins tins

Printouts of clip art objects to cover every letter of the alphabet (There are only 24 spots in the tins but you can switch out the other 2)

Alphabet magnets

Using the muffin tin as a stencil, outline the clipart & cut to fit inside of the tin.

Gather your magnets.

Watch your little one with pride as they pick up the letters and place them on the correct pictures. “M! Mmmm mm m monkey.”

I was overcome with pride watching my daughter do this activity. I have to admit that my eyes watered a little as she completed the tins. I could tell she was proud too. Next step…reading.