Reading & Writing Archives – The Pinterested Parent

Puzzle Pieces For Teaching Sight Words

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One of our favorite learning tools in our home has always been puzzles. Picture puzzles of course are fabulous for teaching them problem solving & matching up their shapes & colors, but many puzzles have an extra layer of learning to them. Puzzles have taught our daughter her US. States, a good portion of her countries & all of her planets.

We have puzzles everywhere, board puzzles, jig saw puzzles & large floor puzzles that clutter up our whole house.

The benefits have outweighed the mess.

We have been working on sight words & writing lately. Mai recognizes & can write & spell her name now. We have been trying to work on the other basics as well.

We used a blank puzzle that we have had lying around for a long time. You can purchase a blank puzzle for about a dollar at a craft store or you can just flip over your old puzzle & work on the back or paint over the front & let dry before adding in your sight words. As with most families of a small child, I am sure that you have several puzzles that are missing pieces.

Puzzle Piece Sight Words

Write out your sight word using magic markers or paint. Make a design across the pieces that you will be using to have a color & shape reference to join them back together. Make a small picture scribble of your sight word on the connecting pieces to help them understand what the word is. Mai knew right away that this was supposed to be her mama.

“Who is that Mai?”

“It’s Mama.”

“How do you spell mom?”

“M. O. M.”

We made an assortment of different words. We put each together & spelled them together. We also found another fun craft project with our extra puzzle pieces in the process. Stay tuned for our cute puzzle piece craft.

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http://dabblingmomma.blogspot.com/2015/02/dr-seuss-cvc-words.html

http://tinytotsadventure.com/2015/03/20-name-activities-and-crafts-for-toddlers-and-preschoolers/

Fri
29 ^th

“ABC Soup” Water Play

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It makes me laugh to think that in a house full of fancy toys & play sets, it is always the simplest things that hold on to our children’s attention the most.

Our daughter loves to paint & draw, so we got her an easel. She prefers to draw at the kitchen counter. She loves building and stacking, so we got her building blocks & Legos. She still is piling up Play-Doh containers & paint bottles.

She loves to cook, so when her cousin gave her a beautiful play kitchen filled with fake food and pots & pans, we thought she would be ecstatic. Instead of cooking up plastic chicken drumsticks & Velcro vegetables, Mai was more interested in mixing up a pot of alphabet magnets.

Here she is cooking up something delicious in our rice cooker.

After dinner last night, Mai was a little bit antsy & mommy was tired. I needed something to keep her occupied for a little while. I asked her if she wanted to play with some water. I already knew what the answer would be, because she loves water play. I filled up our ice bucket with some water & went to get her some measuring spoons and scoops to use with the water. When I came back she had poured all of her ABC magnets in the bucket & was whirling them around with her hand. We traded in our measuring spoon for a ladle & a handled sieve instead. Mai would use the ladle or sieve to fish out the letters. “I making soup.” Yes you are. It looks delicious.

We made a little game out of it.

“Mai, can you find me the “P””?

“Right there!”

“P is for penguin.”

“Yes it is. Great job.”

Like I said, it really is the simple things. She played happily up until bath time, while I got a chance to sit down for a bit & just enjoy watching our happy little girl.

Thu
27 ^th

Phonics Muffins – Phonics Lessons With Muffin Tins & ABC Magnets

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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.

What’s Your Favorite Children’s Book?

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Like most parents, my husband & I don’t always see eye to eye in our opinions on how to raise our daughter. There are differences in opinions on meal choices, routines & even what she wears. One thing we both have agreed on from the start, was that we wanted to make sure that we read to her & encouraged her to read at an early age.

Our daughter loves books and we read to her everyday. It is interesting to me that even at such a young age, she has certain book preferences, some that are even surprising.

I found this list on Pinterest of the top ten children’s books…

It got me thinking about Mai’s favorite books. Did any of these books make the cut?

Not really. Which books did?

HERE ARE MAI’S TOP TEN

1. As an infant, it wasn’t Eric Carle’s ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ that we read to Mai while rocking her to sleep it was Carle’s ‘Brown Bear, Brown Bear’

2.While all of Mai’s friends were grabbing for ‘Goodnight Moon’, it was the

‘Goodnight Gorilla’ that Mai would reach for.

3.And it wasn’t Dr Seuss’s ‘Green Eggs & Ham’ that Mai chose for her mealtime story, it was the Dr’s

‘One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish’

4. ‘ I Like It When’

This is an adorable board book. Mai loved this one & used to act out the actions as we read them. My favorite was “I like it when you hug me tight.” Mommy would receive a wonderful hug complete with an “awwwwwww” from my darling girl.

5 .‘If You Give A Mouse A Cookie’

This was a favorite of our munchkin. She also liked the similar tale ‘If You Give A Moose A Muffin’

6. ‘Owl Moon’

A lovely book with beautiful illustrations. The story of a father and daughter that go owling. My daughter loved the illustrations in this one. She would squeal and point out all the snowy animals.

7. ‘The Berenstain Bears He Bear She Bear’

Great book that shows the reader that they can do or be anything they want to be and it doesn’t matter if they are a he or she.

8. ‘Ten Little Ladybugs’

This is a cute book to teach counting with..as the ladybugs disappear one by one & reappear home at the end

9. ‘The Napping House’

This is a cute and silly tale with a repetitive style about a house where everyone is napping on top of one another. .a dozing dog on a dreaming boy on a snoring granny.

10. OK! So, I guess one of these did make the cut after all…

‘Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs’

Story of a town that rains food.

Do you see your favorite’s here? Please share your toddler’s favorites.

Up next…Fun Food Art

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Reading & Writing