Learning letters and phonics-MGT

I have always believed that learning should be fun....

And Mother Goose Time is on board with me.  This is one reason I love their curriculum so much.

This months letters are Rr, Aa, and Oo.

Two of the fun ways that we learned these letters this month were with board games.

The first game is called Pick one off your tree

This game we rolled the dice identified the letter on it and then said its phonetic sound. Then we got to move to that space on the board.

 and the second is called Orchard race

This game matched the FIRST sound of a word picture and then placed it on our tree. If we spun the pick one from your tree then we had to take one off.
The first to fill up their tree won.

Being able to identify the beginning sounds of words is important for reading. 

My child loved playing these games with her family and friends.

Yup, learning and playing go hand in hand.

What games does your child play to learn?

Want to create your own letter game board?
Here is a blank board, just for you....

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A thief in the night/MGT

There is an animal that some refer to as , 'The thief in the night".

And why do they call it this? Because it is and some times in the day time, also.

What is this animal, you ask?

Why the sneaky raccoon of course.

Bandit-masked raccoons look like they are wearing a mask!

These animals may be on the small side but don't underestimate them. They are quite smart and sneaky. They love anything that sparkles or shines. And love to find free food in peoples trash cans.

You can find raccoons living in forests, marshes, prairies, and even cities. They are adaptable. 

They use their dexterous front paws and long fingers to find and feast on a wide variety of food.

Our family will never forget a camping trip in the mountains with our extended family.

A large raccoon keep coming in to camp and trying to sneak away with things. The funniest thing it tried to take was a bottle of cooking oil. 

My nephew even fought the raccoon for it. But the silly thing kept coming back to take it again.

We caught it trying to open a plastic container filled with craft beads.  We finally decided that everything needed to be put in a tent with the door closed.

We all went on a hike and when we got back the silly raccoon stuck it's head out of the tent. Who knew that they could manipulate zippers!

We then moved anything that we thought that it could carry off into vehicles. They can't open car doors-or can they? No, I hope not.

That night a half loaf of bread was left out on a picnic table, yup, in the morning it was gone.

With the help of Mother Goose Time Curriculum we made ourselves into these sneaky critters. 

Art projects are always fun.

R is for raccoon

Being able to identify the first sound of a word is a great way to learn to read. Learning phonics games are included in every month's curriculum. This month it is a fun game to play with others. And includes the theme "In the orchard".

This month's focus letters are Rr, Aa, Oo

We had fun playing it and learning at the same time.


mother goose time

In the Orchard coloring

Are you learning about Orchards, Trees, or what lives in trees?

Here are some fun coloring pages


In the Orchard

They are bilingual -how fun.

What's in a book?-MGT

What's in a book?

The whole world and more...

How many times have you read a book, or had one read to you, and then went to see the movie?

You were then disappointed because somehow the movie just wasn't what you thought it was going to be like.

This is because your imagination is greater than anything someone else can put on film.

Reading books takes us to places we can only dream of. Books and reading are a wonderful thing.

Helping a young child to love books and the importances of reading can be quite a challenge for some.  Making it fun should be on the top of our priority list.

For little readers find easy to read books that your child can help read and learn to identify sight words.

How I do this...

I let my daughter choose one of the word cards that go along with the book.  Then each time we come across the word in the book, we clap our hands.  We repeat this with each word.  By the end of the week my daughter has the book memorized and knows each sight word.

Teach your child about the book...

Cover

front of the book

back of the book

how to open it

which page to read first

how the words go from left to right

You might be laughing right now, thinking, anyone knows that.

But guess what, children don't.

Help your child understand what you (or they)  have just read read by having them retell the story in their own words.

Use story cards that go with the story and have your child put them in order. These may be cards with just pictures or pictures with words.

This is called story sequencing.

Reading longer books to your child helps your child's imagination flow. It helps them learn to sit and listen.

You can ask questions during the book like,

Do you think this is book is fiction or non fiction?

What do you think will happen next?

Do you think that was a good idea?

Let the child answer!

You come up with questions to ask as you read the book..

This keeps your child on their toes an wondering what comes next.

Was there answer right?

Do you like how the book ended, could it have ended differently?

Reading also helps with comprehending the spoken language and to speak in sentences, helps build vocabulary with new words, and identify rhyming words.

We love the other activities in the More Literacy book by Mother Goose.

One of this month's  activities was Growing words. 

It helped my daughter identify words and build her own sentences.

Of course she put words together that didn't make sense and we laughed. Just part of the learning experience.

If we make reading fun, then our child will learn to love reading.

Reading is all around us. Even in math. If we can't read, then the world around us is difficult and hard to understand.

Give your child a great beginning, read to them. And then teach them to read!

Mother goose time

What do leaves have to do with the letter "A"?

October's theme is.. in the orchard

What do leaves have to do with the letter "A", you ask?

It has to do with fun!

We discussed what an orchid is and what grows there...

We then went on a leaf hunt around the neighborhood and collected fallen leaves.

And picked some right off of the trees.

Today, we talked about the letter "Aa" the sound it makes and what it looks like.

I then put all of the leaves in a container along with some paper apples with the letter "A a "on them.

My daughter went on a "finding the letter adventure in the leaves".

 Every time she found an apple she would say the sound of the letter "A".

I was impressed that she sorted the leaves and the letters as she went along.

This is what leaves have to do with the letter"A"!

Of course, you can't talk about apples without eating one.

To expound our learning of the letter "A", we talked about words that start with the letter...

Big A, little a, what begins with A?

Apple

Airplane

Ant

Ambulance

Apricot

Annie

were a few things that we came up with.

We then read the book of the month-

Johnny

by Leslie Falconer

We also read the book

A visit to the apple orchard

by Patricia J. Murphy


Some additional learning fun...

Apples        
(click to go to link)

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