Monday, February 9, 2015

Mama Monday: Working on those ABCs

Happy Monday, Mamas!

Originally I planned to blog today about my tot school lesson last week, but we weren't the only house that nasty bug hit and it ended up getting cancelled.
Instead, I thought I'd share a little about Em and her ABCs. We try and work with her a little bit every day, trying to help her learn them. She hasn't quite grasped them yet, but I think she's making progress! At the very least, she does get excited to do her "lesson." I just keep telling myself that repetition is key and hopefully something is sinking in.
We start with an alphabet theme book. We have a couple but lately we have been reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.
Her favorite part is singing along on the last page as she points to each letter.
Then we do her sensory bin. There are wooden magnetic letters buried in the rice. She love to search them out...
And stick them to this cookie sheet!
"U...." It's a messy activity, especially when she starts grabbing handfuls of rice and dropping them on the floor. But there is just something about digging through rice that she just can't get enough of.
She has coloring pages for each letter - today she sat here saying "egg... egg!" the whole time.
To be honest, we haven't done much with the flashcards yet. Occasionally, we will go through them together and she will repeat each letter after me. But most of the time she doesn't want to, she just likes looking through them on her own. I'm surprised how entertained she is by that.
We also have foam letters in the bath tub. Those are so fun! Again, we don't really do much with them, but she will hold them up for us to tell us what letter it is.

And, if you couldn't tell from the video, we sing the alphabet song a kazillion times per day. Her version pretty much just sounds like a minion, but at least she's got the melody down!

I have plans to add a few more activities to our list, like this cute "feed the monster" activity I found on Pinterest. And I really want to add a mat to the cookie sheet so that she can match the magnet to the right place. I'm sure I'll get to them by the time she goes to college :) And if you have any other great activities for teaching the alphabet, please let me know! I can always add to my list.

Materials list:
  • Melissa and Doug wooden magnet letters - came in a set with numbers. I found it at Target a couple months ago, but I can't find them anywhere now.
  • Cookie sheet - I bought the the cheapest one I could find at Target. I bet the dollar store would be a good option, too! Mine is 11x17 and that's a good size to fit all the magnets.
  • Plastic bin
  • Rice
  • Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
  • ABC coloring pages from Mr. Printables
  • ABC flash cards - from the dollar spot at Target (Can you tell that I'm a Target-a-holic?)

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