Oh exciting things are happening in this house of ours — Sammy is starting to read. As a teacher, I just love this stage of child development. He knows all his sounds and blends and he is starting to sound out words all on his own. He is so excited about it, he is ready…
Popcorn Snowman Counting
We have been working on counting activities for preschoolers lately. Yesterday morning I announced to my little ones, “Wash your hands! We are going to do a fun activity!” To which one of my little ones responded, “Wash them because it is a delicate activity, or an eating one?” When I announced it was an…
Name Activities for Preschoolers
What’s in a name? Usually letters. Probably Always. Important ones too. Those little letters that make up our names are OURS. We own those ones. They are special! At least they are when we are little. When starting to teach children their letters it is a fabulous idea to begin with their name letters. Once…
Nancy Number Face
A photo on Friday. Happy Friday! The kids and I had so much fun with this number math art. It is as simple as it looks, we just cut out numbers and turned them into eyes, ears, hair, and noses. It was a great chance for my little ones to look at numbers closely, compare…
Teach your child to read using any Simple Story!
Can I tell you a secret? You know those dry, mundane, ‘The cat is brown. The dog is black.’ stories? I LOVE THEM. Yes, the storyline leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, the words and pictures are so predictable it can be a little (more than a little) painful. But these books can…
Crossing the Midline and bridging the Great Divide!
Crossing the midline activities for kids. What on earth are those? Sometimes in the educational world we start speaking a slightly different language than ‘normal’ people. Not that teachers aren’t normal … though … you do need to be a little insane to work with small children all day long, don’t you? Anyways. I had…
Count-ing Syl-la-bles through play!
Do you remember how we are working through my Beyond the Alphabet: Play into Reading Readiness eBook? Remember how we are playing with one of the seven phonemic awareness activities each week? Remember how I forgot to share one with you last week? Whoops. Sorry friends. Lofty goals I have!! I just really needed to…
A different kind of name puzzle
I love name puzzles for preschoolers. I love how name puzzles involve not only learning a name, but also learning about letter shapes and proportions and math concepts too. I have shared with you a few different name puzzles before – in fact, I have shared one for every season! And yet, here I am…
Rhyming is fun and easy! Except when it’s not …
Does it make me geeky to admit that I love rhyming activities? I do. And at a recent family gathering, a certain sister brought to my attention that I was, in fact, quite geeky. I truly had no idea. Isn’t that funny? I have always thought of myself as more natural living and free-spirited. This…
Deleting Sounds to Learn to Read
Do you know what I love? When I witness little ones overcome something that was once tricky. We all have challenges and things that don’t come easily for us. But that moment when we can once do what we hadn’t been able to do before – that is a magic moment. I just so happen…