Tag

reading

Mixed Media Bookmarks

This post is sponsored by Reading Eggs. All opinions are my own. Please read our Disclosure for information on sponsored posts.

If you have a reader and crafter at home, these mixed media bookmarks are a great idea.

I have been reading to my little girl since the day that she was born. Reading is an important part of my life and I wanted to make sure that it was the same for my daughter. I tried teaching her to read as soon as I thought that she was ready. She loved books, but it was no easy feat. She was resistant and would get frustrated easily. This year, she started Kindergarten and it became even more important for us to work on her reading together. Still, she did not like working with mommy and then we were introduced to Reading Eggs.


Mixed Media Bookmarks for kids sponsored by Reading Eggs. Arts and crafts for young readers and book lovers.

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Craft Stick Trolls Bookmarks

Trolls lovers will love these simple Trolls bookmarks made out of Popsicle sticks.

Like so many kids these days, my daughter is in love with the movie Trolls (affiliate link). Even if you have not seen the movie yet, I am sure you are still familiar with the bright and cheery Princess Poppy and her grumpy travel companion Branch. The movie is just bursting with color, glitter and song and dance. It is no wonder why children love them so much. These simple Trolls bookmarks are a great idea for your little Trolls fans. Poppy and Branch Popsicle stick bookmarks inspired by characters from the movie Trolls. Kid's arts and crafts

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Alphabet Pancakes

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I love to eat breakfast & I love to make it, pancakes, french toast, omelettes. I love making them all.

Alphabet Pancakes - easy pancake art for kid's breakfast -fun food ideas

*This post contains affiliate links*

Pancakes are definitely my favorite. I have a lot of fun with pancake art.

Stained Glass Butterfly Pancake - the kids will love these colorful springtime - pancakes made with rainbow color sprinkles ballerina tutu pancakes - pancake art for fun kid's breakfast princess castle pancakes - pancake art for fun kid's breakfast

My daughter will put in special requests & mommy will try her best to make them. We have been working on reading & writing with our daughter. She has been trying to use her letters & form words. She puts letters together just to sound them out, even if they do not form an actual word. She has been working so hard that this weekend we made a special pancake treat to celebrate all the progress she has made. The great thing about these pancakes is that you do not need any artist skill to make them, you just need to be able to write your alphabet.

We mixed up our pancakes.

Ingredients:

1 cup of flour

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp of salt

1 cup of milk

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp unsweetened or sweetened cocoa powder

1 egg white

Directions: Mix all the ingredients together. Use a blender to mix the batter to get out any clumps. Mix well. Add more milk if needed.

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Use a funnel to funnel the batter into a condiment squeeze bottle.

Use the bottle to squeeze out the letters.  Let bubble as usual before flipping. Remember that some of the letters will need to be written mirrored so that when they flip they are not backwards. If the bottle clogs, just squeeze it off to the side. If it keeps clogging, it needs to be blended more.

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Alphabet Pancakes - easy pancake art for kid's breakfast -fun food ideas

As always, they were a big hit with my pancake loving girl. She spelled out her name, dog & then our dog’s name, Duke.

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Thank you as always for stopping by. Please follow us on Facebook as well.

 

Puzzle Pieces For Teaching Sight Words

Puzzle Piece Sight Words

 

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.

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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.

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“Who is that Mai?”

“It’s Mama.”

“How do you spell mom?”

“M. O. M.”

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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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Puzzle piece sight words - this would be  agreat way to use recycled puzzles

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Related Posts:

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/

Alphabet Block Bookcase

Blocksbookcase.jpgOur home is no longer an adult’s house. It is a toddler’s house that has a couple of adults living in it. There is not one room in our house that is not filled with Mai’s toys, clothes, artwork or books. I can hardly remember what is was like to have a tidy house.

We read a lot in our home. My daughter loves being read to and now is at the point that she knows most of her books so well that she can recite them to us. Her books are everywhere. We have two baskets of books in our living room, a pile on her floor in her room, a stack on our night stand in our room and a shelf of them in the kitchen. I had read a suggestion regarding rotating your books out as you do with your toys, that your toddlers only need a few books out at a time. The thing is my daughter reads them all. I boxed up a few of the less popular books in her collection and she knew that they were not there. We have book picnics in our living room, where we will lay about 15 books out with snacks and pillows and we will go through them all.

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I wanted to organize her books better and at a little cuteness to her space as well. This was a simple project using wooden storage cubes.

ALPHABET BLOCK BOOKCASE

What you will need:

Wooden storage blocks
Acrylic paints
Alphabet stencils
Paint brush
Tape
Ruler

Directions:

Lay down newspaper and gather all your supplies. Position your first block for painting.

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Place your stencil in the center of your block.  Measure around all four sides to make sure that you are centered. Tape the stencil in place.

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Using the color of your choice paint within the stencil.

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Using a ruler or anything with a hard edge, paint a straight thick line about an inch thick around all four edges.

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Let dry and then repeat all steps with how ever many cubes you choose to use. For your bottom cubes, paint so that the openings are opposite of one another so that you may get books easily.

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Secure with gorilla glue, nails or screws to secure the blocks in place.

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Related Topics:

http://ylumcps.wordpress.com/2014/05/03/read-a-thon-for-new-library-books-2/

http://doctoringparenting.wordpress.com/2014/05/03/pat-the-cat-by-edith-kunhardt/

Learning to Read

Learning to read with magnets & clipartMy 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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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Who Needs Toys – Playtime Made Easy

047You always hear people joke that you don’t need to buy young children expensive toys because all they end up wanting to play with is the box. This is no joke. There is no truer statement. Toddlers are easy; they can find the fun in anything. Their little spongy minds are absorbing and exploring everything. Things as simple as the box, are still new and fascinating territory for them. At 2 years old, my daughter is past the excitement of the box, but still has a taste for the simpler things in life.
We have more toys in this house than we know what to do with. Between the play kitchen, Little People Villages & Twisty Tracks, she should have enough to keep her occupied until she is in her teens, but as kids tend to do, she gets bored of these things very quickly. There are many things that you can do to occupy your child’s day without the use of fancy toys.

Here are some simple and fun things for your child to do.

Water play

It doesn’t get much simpler than this. This is one of my favorite activities to give my daughter while I am cooking or doing dishes. Lay out a towel & fill a large container half way with water and add some measuring cups & spoons. Here my daughter told me she is making coffee.

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Chick Peas, Beans & Rice

Similar to above, I have a container of chickpeas & colored rice set aside just for play. It is amazing how long my daughter will play with them. She will count them out & transfer them from cup to cup.

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Couch Cushion Fun

My daughter has a lot of energy. She loves to jump & is always throwing herself on the ground for some odd reason. Take your couch cushions off the couch & place them on the floor & let your child roll around on the pile of pillows.

Stringing Pasta

Pasta necklaces are an old classic. This requires a little bit of hand – eye coordination. Mai strung up the 3 shown below & told me that it was the mama pasta, daddy pasta & baby pasta.

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Read, read & read some more

We spend about a half hour before bed reading books every night, but books are not just for bedtime. We often read to our daughter while she is eating to keep her firmly planted in her chair during her meal. Many times even if my daughter insists that she does not want a story, if I just start reading she will eventually jump up on my lap.

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Bubble Wrap

We order from Amazon a lot, I mean a lot. Bubble wrap comes with most of these packages. I think that bubble wrap is fun for small children and adults alike. Who doesn’t love popping that stuff?

Blanket forts

Being that mommy is always cold, even in the summer, we have blankets all over the house. Mai loves it when we make forts over the couch. “Mommy, play in the fort toooooooo?” Definitely! Here she is reading with a flashlight under her fort.

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Song & Dance

My daughter loves music. She has been dancing as long as she has been walking. She also loves to sing songs with mommy & daddy. Don’t underestimate the power of music.

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Red Light, Green Light & other games

My daughter loves running around our house in circles. I had to teach her Red light, Green light just to catch my breath in between chases. Pheeew! Also try Simon Says or Hide and Seek.

Get outside

If your toddler is like mine, then he or she loves to run free. Take them outside, weather permitting & let them run & jump and play. Here is Mai walking the track at the Relay for Life in memory of her grandmother & namesake.

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Color & Draw

I have an unlimited supply of poster board in our home. My daughter loves to doodle & color. She also loves when we draw for her too. She & I will lie on the floor and she will ask me to draw pictures of caterpillars & horses. She has a vivid imagination. She creates different scenarios for these pictures. Here Mai asked Mama to draw a mama & dada spider. She said that they were both sick & needed medicine.

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Stacking boxes

I love stacking boxes & have quite a few sets strewn all over the house. My daughter shares my love for them. She likes piling them up & placing them inside of one another.

Styrofoam & Yarn

Seriously! Yarn sticks to styrofoam. If you are like me & have styrofoam cones laying around this is a great busy activity.

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What easy & simple activities do you have for you & your toddler. I would love to hear.

Phonics Muffins – Phonics Lessons With Muffin Tins & ABC Magnets

Phonics muffins

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.

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  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.

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Gather your magnets.

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

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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.

Related Topics:

http://littlehousecharming.com/2014/02/26/6-toys-approved-by-my-toddler-and-me/

http://raisingkidswithlove.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/tools-of-the-trade-for-literacy/

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…

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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’

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

‘Goodnight Gorilla’ that Mai would reach for.

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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’

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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.

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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’

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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

Up next…Fun Food Art

Related Topics:

httphttp://www.hollilong.com/2014/01/31/10-favorite-books-for-little-farmers-truck-drivers-engineers-and-builders/

://mommychroniclesblog.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/ladybugs-favorite-books/

http://www.mommyonlyhas2hands.org/2013/12/childrens-book-review-candy-and.html