Help with LETTERS

Help with LETTERS

Belinda @ Kids Matter

Instead of throwing your hands up in despair, how about searching for fun ways to teach, those precious little ones, the letters of the alphabet? We have to remember that what works for one child, may not work for another. Children are like snowflakes; none of them identical. Sometimes teaching is more about the teacher learning, instead of the child. We always have to be willing to improve our teaching skills and that requires us to continually search for new, and better, methods. Below are some fun things to try with your child. Remember, patience is a wonderful virtue!

Hands on as We Grow – 50 great activities to try.

No Time for Flash Cards – 25 alphabet activities for kids.

Just Mommies – 10 creative ways to teach your child the alphabet.

Teach Mama - 10 fun ways of helping kids learn the abc’s.

I Can Teach My Child - 35+ Alphabet Activities for Toddlers & Preschoolers.

Your Child Learns – Alphabet adventures.

Fun-A-Day – Teaching children about letters.

Spoonful – 26 alphabet activities for kids.

My Life in Verbs - 21 ideas to help your child learn letters and letter sounds.

Ready-Set-Read - 14 ways to explore the letters in your child's name.

Make learning fun, not only for the child, but the teacher as well. There is plenty of time for worry, stress, and rush, later on in life. Brighten a child’s day by spending time teaching and playing with them.

Teaching Soft and Hard Skills

Teaching Soft and Hard Skills

Belinda @ Kids Matter

I recently read an interesting article on soft skills verses hard skills. I have to say, I’m a little disturbed by the thought that both can’t be taught simultaneously. Are we so closed minded to learning new things and new ways that we are impacting the workforce? I would like to believe that we are constantly growing and learning as a society. So, why not broaden our horizons and start teaching both soft and hard skills starting with the alphabet?

Soft skills, as defined by Investopedia are, “The character traits and interpersonal skills that characterize a person's relationships with other people. In the workplace, soft skills are considered a complement to hard skills, which refer to a person's knowledge and occupational skills.” Soft skills include being adaptable, business minded, confidant, dedicated, effective… etc. Do you see what I did there? A, B, C, D, E… etc! Bear with me as I explain.

Hard skills, as defined by SearchCIO are, “specific, teachable abilities that may be required in a given context, such as a job or university application.” Hard skills include profitability, quickness, reading, security, typing, utilization, volubility, writing … etc. And, there it is again… P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, and W.

So how does the alphabet relate to soft and hard skills that are required for employment and life in general? Easy, everything starts with the alphabet. Learning the alphabet is just opening the door to the rest of the world and our lives. That letter C is for way more than Cow! What if you were to throw in C is for Creative or Counting?

Both soft and hard skills can be taught. We aren’t born being committed and determined. We get there through lessons. Employers must understand that people need both types of skills to be successful in employment. If parents and teachers open the door to expanding lesson plans to incorporate both types of skills, it will open greater doors to success. My idea is to take current lesson plans and expand on them. Teach your children to think outside the box. You are only limited by your own imagination, and that can easily be expanded with a little creative thinking and research. Make it a challenge to find new and creative ways of teaching the alphabet. Use themes and carry them throughout the day or week. Make learning fun and exciting. Most importantly… when you point out C for Cow, remember to add more C words including those used in soft and hard skills.  Don’t be afraid to start them out with small definitions… expand their vocabulary and watch a whole new world unfold for them.

Below are a few sites with good ideas. It’s up to you to make them better and include those soft and hard skills they will need later on in life. Feel free to share your ideas with us.

Discovery Education – Unique idea of teaching the alphabet using animals.

CanTeach – Amazing ideas for using different mediums to make art while teaching the alphabet.

First-school.ws – Wonderful site for pulling alphabet themed lesson plans including free printables and activities.

Getting Excited About the Alphabet

More powerful than all poetry, more pervasive than all science, more profound than all philosophy are the letters of the alphabet, twenty-six pillars of strength upon which our culture rests.” Anonymous

If ever there was anything to get excited about it would have to be teaching your child the alphabet. Sadly, the importance of the alphabet seems to get lost in the day to day grind. And unfortunately, it is a task we leave to the characters of Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer and her fun filled cohorts.

It is the 26 letters of the alphabet that are the foundation of our education. It is the learning of each letter; the sound, the sight, and the words associated with the letter, that inspires us. The good news is that in just 26 short days you can, not only spend quality time with your child, but get them excited about the alphabet too!

Make a game of it. The first day of the month introduce your child to the letter A, but not just an A… an exciting A. Draw an “A” that is appealing to the eye, be creative, colorful, and artistic. Paint an “A” with your child, get out a box of noodles and paste them in the shape of an “A” then spend the rest of the day pointing out things that start with the letter “A”. The letter “A” is not only for Apple or Alligator.  The more excited you are about the alphabet the more excited your child will be. Enthusiasm is a powerful tool.

Get healthy with it. Fall back on that old “A is for Apple” and have an apple tasting party. Buy several different types of apples and taste the letter “A”. What does it taste like? Try different nutritional foods with different letters of the alphabet. The grocery is now your child’s classroom.

Get active with it. “F” is for fitness, “A” is for athlete, and “E” is for exercise so go on and get moving with your child. Teach and get fit all at the same time. Pull out that assorted bag of balls gathering dust in your garage, shoot some hoops, kick a field goal, jump rope, or zoom across the yard.

There is no limit to the fun and excitement in the alphabet. Every action, spoken or unspoken word, and every object in our world is made of letters of the alphabet. Each letter is far more than a one word association. That “A” not only stands for apple but for the appetite that makes you want to eat it. Now that I've got you thinking and motivated, what exciting things will you do to teach your child the alphabet?

Belinda @ Kids Matter

Tuesday Teachings - Learning the Letters

When a child is learning the alphabet, it is not enough to merely show them the alphabet and expect them to learn it. A child has to be shown something in several different contexts in order to retain it. Before you can even teach them the alphabet, you should teach them the sounds of lettes. This lets the child understand that letters make sounds, sounds make words, words make sentences and sentences make stories. It is a natural transition. When you move onto naming letters, be sure to restate the sound each letter makes.

They need to see it, feel it, taste it, explore it. That can be intimidating for parents but there is no reason to worry. Just be sure to teach your child in a variety of ways. Don't panic, there are several ways to teach letters that are inexpensive and not overly time consuming.

First, you can show them a printed letter. Do not just show a flashcard, show them the printed letter in a variety of ways. Some examples, the aforementioned flashcard, a magazine, a street sign, etc.

Next, let them write the letter using hand over hand. If you have an easel, this is a great way to work on the letter. Put the chalk into your child's hand and then put your hand over their hand, now write your letter. If you have the easel chalkboard, this is great to work on wrist strength and an important skill for your child. After writing on the easel, you can also practice writing on a pad of paper on a table. This works the child's muscles differently and is also important to their development.

Now, pull out the play dough. Teach him how to roll out a "snake" and then work on forming the letter with your play dough snake. At my house, we have the "Roll-A-Dough Letters" from Handwriting Without Tears. This is a great product and we love it, but it is not necessary. This can easily be done at home. Our kit involves a tray, letter cards and dough. My favorite thing about the kit is that it shows you with an arrow, where to start making your letter. My least favorite thing about the kit is that the dough crumbles when you try to make it into a snake. We usually just use regular play dough.

Another tool that we use frequently is our Sandpaper Letters. You can purchase these online for around $30-$40 or you can check out Momtessori for directions on making your own sandpaper letters. She uses foam board for her background and then uses a die cut machine to cut the letters out of sandpaper. I have also seen them made with sand sprinkled over glue and with glitter glue or puffy paint. The thing I love about our Sandpaper letters is that there is a hole punched in the sandpaper to show you where to start tracing your letter. This can be done when you make them at home, or you could draw arrows with numbers, showing the direction to trace/write.

We also use our alphabet cookie cutters a lot. I do not bake a lot of cookies, but I use the cutters for anything. If my son wants cheese and sandwich meat (think homemade Lunchables), then I use cookie cutters to cut out the food. I also use them for cutting fruit or anything else. Cookies cutters are not just for cookies!

Another fun thing that we did is go around the house and take pictures of people and/or toys for each letter of the alphabet. I then assembled the pictures in an album and put the first letter of each word in the sleeve with each picture. This helps with the phonological awareness, as he already knows how to pronounce all of the items that I have taken pictures of.

Tuesday Teachings - Candy Corn Learning

I love Fall and especially Halloween! It is my favorite time of the year as the colors are beautiful and there are lots of opportunities for learning.

I put together a little Candy Corn math puzzle for us to use this week. It was easy to make. I just drew a pattern on a piece of card stock. It was just a triangle with rounded edges, anyone can draw that. Next I cut my pattern into three sections.

The bottom section was traced onto Orange paper and cut out. The middle section was traced onto yellow paper and the top section was traced onto white paper. Once these were all cut out, I decided to use mine for number skills. I wrote the number word on the orange sections, the number on the yellow sections and then drew number dots on the white sections.

Next I set these out for my son to put together the puzzles. My son is only 4, so I only put out 5 full candy corn pieces at a time. Keep in mind that each puzzle is three pieces so it may be intimidating to a child to see lots of pieces on the table.

There are several other examples online of people making candy corn puzzles for education. Here are just a few:

Mrs. Freshwater's Class (free printable, letter recognition)

Mrs. Schmelzer's 1st Grade (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant words)

Have fun learning with your Candy Corn activities!

Tuesday Teachings - Name Rockets

We did a great activity this week to clarify the letters in our name and also the difference between upper and lowercase letters.

My son's name has 5 letters in it so I cut 10 small squares of construction paper. One square for each upper and lowercase letter of his name. I used two colors so that we could also get in a little pattern sequence. If he got stuck picking a letter, I asked him which color came next in the pattern.

In addition to the squares, I cut out two triangles to be the top of our rocket ships. The letters were written in the squares and then I sorted the squares by color. He did a great job and we currently have it framed and hanging on his bedroom door.

Since we wanted to hang this up, once he had shown me how to spell his name on both the uppercase rocket and the lowercase rocket, we glued down all of the pieces.

Lima Bean Literacy

I had a bag of dried large Lima beans in my pantry for quite sometime and I knew they would never get used. I am the only one in the family that eats Lima beans so I was trying to figure out what to do with them when I thought - Alphabet! Doesn't everyone look at Lima beans as a learning opportunity?

The only supplies you need are beans and a permanent marker. You can also use a sealer if you think the beans will be used frequently but I did not bother since they are quick and easy to make. I took 26 beans and wrote one capital letter per bean. I then took another 26 beans and wrote one lowercase letter per bean.

We reviewed our letters with the beans and then we started playing. The first game we played is a version of Memory. We flipped all of the capital beans over and mixed them up. We also mixed up the lowercase letters but left them face up. As he picked up a capital letter he would name the letter and then find the matching lowercase letter and put them to the side.

Next we worked on spelling, using upper and lowercase letters. Once you start spelling you will have to make multiples of your bean letters but like I said, it is quick and easy.

Tuesday Teachings - Encouraging Early Literacy

There are many ways to encourage early literacy skills for your child during her normal play time. You do not have to sit down with your child and force her to complete a worksheet for you.

During the day there are numerous times to "fit in" literacy. If your children are playing and she says "Let's play restaurant. I'll be the waitress." This is a great opportunity! Suggest that she write the "order" down on a notebook and hand her the notebook and a pencil. This is a huge learning activity for her. She has to stay in character, write down what you ordered to eat, go get the food, recall what she wrote down and then return to you with the food. When she returns to you, tell her that she needs to tell you what everything is as she sets it on the table.

Do you have picture books in your house? We sit down a few times a week with a picture book and my son will look at the pictures and then make up a story to go along. Sometimes the stories are closely related, other times he can look at the same book 3 days in a row and the story will be different each day. In addition to understanding that the pictures have meanings, he is also recalling his friends and past activities as they often make appearances in his stories. These stories are a building block to strong literacy skills.

Does your child love to paint or color with crayons? They are learning the tripod grip that is vital for writing skills, but they are doing much more than that. As they are painting, they have an image in their head that they are trying to re-create. Once a masterpiece is complete, ask your child to tell you all about it. I will frequently write down these stories that my son tells me so that we have a memento of the moment.

Doing worksheets and memorizing letters are an important part of every one's education, but it does not have to be the only part. There are many ways to learn and as parents and teachers, we need to offer a variety of ways for our children.

Tape Resist

We worked on a tape resist project this week using watercolors. It was easy and quite pretty.

Supplies:
Watercolor paper
Blue painter's tape
watercolor paints
water

We started by using the blue painter's tape to make an initial on the piece of paper. Typically I would just tear this tape but since I wanted straight edges I cut the tape for this project.

We put the tape down on the paper and started filling in around the initial with our watercolors. Our paper was quite large and my son began losing interest in the project so I painted a blue border around ours and he just filled in to the border.

This is an easy and fun project. The only thing you need to keep in mind is that the only white you want on the paper is underneath the tape so be sure to fill in all of the other areas with paint. Do not leave any little spots of white. I did not do a great job of getting the tape sealed well so some of our paint bled under the tape, but we still love the picture!

Tuesday Teaching - Letter Search

It is important to review letters with young children on a daily basis to keep them fresh. As school is getting closer it is time to really step up those efforts. I have created a letter search for you to use.

This covers the letters A, B, C, D and E in both upper and lower case. We use this sheet with a dot marker. I ask my son to find all of the letter As on the page. He marks the upper case A with one color and the lower case a with another color. This verifies to me that he knows the letters, and he knows the upper and lowercase versions. Once that is complete, we move on to the letter B, then C, D, and E.

Feel free to download your copy.


I will work on getting all of the other letters completed also and may move on to the numbers.

In addition to doing this worksheet, take every opportunity to have your child point out letters to you. We point out letters on street signs, on vehicles, on mailboxes and everywhere else we can find them.

Salt Box

I have seen these in shops for $20 or more but decided I could make one inexpensively at home. The theory is to give the child a sensory activity to go along with writing a word. I know that the more activities that I do with my son, the more he retains the information.

I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a cheap little wooden box with a sliding top for just a couple of dollars. Once I got home, I painted the inside of the box with a flat black craft paint and the outside of the box was painted in an apple green color. Once it all dried, I just poured in a layer of salt. You do not want too much salt or it is too difficult to clear a path and see the black contrast on the bottom of the box.

Now ask your child to use their finger to draw letters or shapes in the salt layer. This is a great resource for teaching but trust me when I say you want to watch your child using this. Trust me on this, salt is hard to clean up and gets everywhere if you do not watch them. Also trust me that just because it has a lid, it is not spill proof! If your child is not proficient with letters yet, you can write the letters on index cards for them to look at as they "write".

I was able to make this activity, even purchasing the paint for less than $5.00.

Have fun learning!

Snowman Names

We had another snow day in my house so I worked with my son on recognizing the letters of his name. I got this great idea from the blog Musings of Me. If you have not checked out Michelle's amazing blog yet, please do. She has some of the best free downloads that I have found online.

Anyway, back to the project. I cut out 6 snowballs from white sticky backed foam. One snowman was the head so I used markers to draw on a face. The other five were for my son's name, one letter per snowball. I then wrote my son's name vertically on an index card. I went ahead and stuck the snowman head on a piece of blue paper (actually two pieces taped together to be long enough). I then gave the snowballs to my son in no particular order and the index card with his name on it. I asked him to put his name in order just like the index card.

He did an amazing job and then we stuck the snowballs onto the blue paper and glued a hat and scarf cut from foam onto the snowman. This is hanging on his bedroom door and he likes to show it off all the time and as he goes into his room he always stops at the door to read his name.

Tuesday Teachings - The Letter U

As you can imagine, the letter U was a little harder to think of activities to go along with. Not to mention that my child brought home a cold last week so he was not in much of a mood for crafting or learning. Some weeks are easier than others.

You can download your letter U here.

Words that start with letter U: unload, unlock, umbrella, unicorn, unhappy, uncle & unicycle.

For our crafts this week we focused on Undersea and Umpire.

First up, we colored a background page and added fish and bubble stickers to is. This was then cut out and taped to the back of the letter U to resemble a fish tank. For those wondering about the texture of the colored U, I bought an inexpensive sheet of plastic canvas at the craft store and I use it for my son to do rubbings on. He enjoys the texture and the feel of the plastic canvas under the pressure of his crayons.

Next, we cut out a letter U and made black lines on it like an Umpire's shirt. For the face we cut a circle out of craft foam and used crayons draw the face.

Foods that start with U: Ugli Fruit, Udon Noodles, Unsalted butter & Upside down cake.

We did not make a snack this week due to the illness in our household but we were going to make Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes from Family Fun Magazine.

Monday Meanderings - I Love to Write

In honor of I love to Write Day, we are going to cover some writing ideas for kids.

Before we get to the links though, let's talk about pre-writing. It can be very difficult for a child that does not have enough strength in her hands to try to hold a pencil for a long time. In addition, it can be difficult to old a full size pencil. Imagine if you as an adult tried to hold a long carnival style pencil and write for very long. Your hand would cramp up and the writing will probably be illegible. This also applies to a child. With my own child, we try to use golf pencils. They are smaller, about the size of a crayon and he is better able to control the pencil.

Demonstrate  to your child how to properly grip the pencil between the thumb and pointer finger, letting the pencil rest on the middle finger. This is called the Tripod Grip. This will take awhile to teach. Be patient and if your child seems uninterested, come back to it later. You want your child to enjoy writing and if they are pressured constantly they will never enjoy it. To help your child relax, have her shake her hands, make drawings in the air or in a salt box (see below), or roll a piece of clay between her hands.

Our first link is PB & J Preschool discussing how to set up a Preschool Writing Center. She has some great ideas. I really like the thought of doing a Journal with my child to track his improvements over time.

Next up is Mama Jenn with the directions on making a homemade salt box for the kids to practice writing in. I love this idea! It is very sensory aimed and will give the children an opportunity to feel the letters.

Have you seen Sandpaper Letters? I bought some and they set me back about $30.00. Wish I had found Beautiful Sun Montessori prior to my purchase. She has a step by step tutorial on making your own letters. These have been great for working with my son on the letter sounds.

So we have covered pre-writing activities, let's move to some thoughts on writing. Here are some things you could have your child write:

1) Thank you notes for all gifts. If the writing is illegible, you can write something to the recipient also to let them know about the thank you.
2) Grocery lists. Cut out pictures of items you need then let your child glue them to a page and then write the names beside them. Your child can then also do a scavenger hunt (see our blog post of 6/10/10).
3) Their name. I have a small chalkboard that I painted my child's name on and he practices writing his name below it. I made the chalkboard with a piece of cardboard and chalkboard contact paper. There will be a blog post soon for all of the uses of chalkboard contact paper.

Tuesday Teachings - The Letter T

Another week, another letter. This week we are learning about the letter T.

You can download your letter T here.

Words that start with the letter T: Tell, Tale, Tip, Tongue, Toes, Top, Train, Track, Tree, Trip and Tumble.

For our crafts we focused on Tiger, Turkey and Time.

Our first craft was the Tiger. We colored the letter T with the orange marker then made black lines on it. Next we cut out a tiger tail and ears from orange craft foam and glued them on.

Our second craft was a Turkey. We colored the letter T with brown marker, drew on the face and glued feathers along the top of the T.

Since daylight savings time was this past weekend, I decided for our last craft we would focus on Time. I could then explain daylight savings to my son and teach him about the letter T. I found some clip art which you can print here.

Foods that start with T: Tuna, Toast, Taco, Tamale, Turnip, Tomatoes & Tangerines. For our snack, we focused on Turkey.

We made the cutest Turkey cookies. I am not sure who to credit these too as I have seen them all over the web. We used sugar cookies as the base/body and attached candy corn tail feathers and Reese Pieces eyes with chocolate icing. We then used red gel icing for the legs and black gel icing for the eye pupils.

We had lots of fun making these cookies and plan on making them again for an upcoming bake sale.

Have fun with the letter T.

Tuesday Teachings - The Letter S

This week's letter was lots of fun but a bit of a challenge to think of an activity to do that I do not see all over blog world already.

Download your letter S here.

Words that start with the letter S: Sun, Sand, Sail, Sailboat, Splatter, Spill, Speak, Sing, Song, Steamboat and Stars.

For our crafts we focused on Snake, Sponge and Snow.

I know, I know, everyone does a snake for the letter S but he is so cool looking and the perfect shape so we made a snake also. We used markers to color the letter S, then we cut it out and glued a red tongue to the back.

Our next craft was Snow. We used a pencil eraser dipped in white paint to make the snow on the blue paper and the blue S. My son really enjoyed this as he never gets to use that end of the pencil!

We will probably follow this up later in the week by making a snowman activity.

Lastly, we did some Sponge painting. This was by far the most fun in our house. I used a regular kitchen sponge and cut a strip from the short end. I then cut that strip into thirds and picked out three clothespins to use as the handles. We clipped the sponges into the clothespins (good fine motor practice).

We then dipped the sponge into paint and painted the letter S. This was a double activity as the sponge side that was dipped was a Square so we discussed squares versus other shapes. My son loved this and every time the sponge touched the paper he screamed, Bop, Bop, Bop! We will definitely be doing this more!

Foods that start with S: Squid, Sausage, Smoked Sausage, Sandwich, Salt, Salmon, Sponge Cake, Spaghetti and Stuffing.

For our food we made a Snake Stromboli. It was quite tasty. I used a store bought pizza crust, put some pizza sauce, cheese and pepperoni down the middle and then we folded over the sides. Once the sides were pulled over, seal the seams and lay the Stromboli, seam side down.

Next we put a little milk in two separate bowls and I mixed blue food coloring in one bowl and red food coloring in the other. We used pastry brushes to paint red and blue stripes in the "Snake". Once we completed the stripes, we mixed the red and blue together to get purple. I made two indentions in the head of the snake with the end of the pastry brush and we put some purple in each indention for the eyes.

We then baked as directed on the pizza crust. This was delicious and my son loves to help in the kitchen. When we sat down to eat he kept saying, "I do, I do".

Math with the Letter R

I decided that we needed more math skills in our home so as a way to continue the letter R lesson, I made us a Rabbit game.

Supplies:
Die
Construction Paper
Glue
Laminator (optional)

I cut out a large circle for the rabbits head and then I cut out pieces for the eyes, nose, mouth and ears. When I made the ears, I glued pink inside the white ears. I have regular dice in our home but they are a little small for my three year old. I decided to make a die that was a little bigger for him. We have some cube manipulatives that I purchased in the Target Dollar Spot so I used one of the cubes and a black marker to make the dots on the sides.

The last thing I made for the game was a sheet showing the die values next to the rabbit part that you get to put on for the game.

Now to play the game. Lay the rabbit's head on the table and Then child rolls the die. The child then counts the number that came up on the die and finds the same number on the sheet and then puts on the corresponding face part.

My son loved this game and we have played it numerous times. I am even going to make some more games up with different faces.

Tuesday Teachings - The Letter R

Another week, another fun letter of the alphabet. This week we will focus on the letter R. You can download the letter R here.

Words that start with R: Run, Race, Read, Racket, Robin, Rose, Rip, Rice and Road

For our activities we focused on Rose, Rabbit and Red.

First, we went out and picked some of the last miniature Roses off of our rose bush and glued them onto a letter R.

Next, we colored a letter R Red and then we glued it to a Red piece of construction paper.

Our last craft was my favorite. We turned the letter R upside down and turned it into a Rabbit by gluing ears, a nose and an eye to it.

For our snack we decided to follow the Rabbit theme and make Rabbit cookies.

We used a roll of sugar cookie dough and cut it into slices about 1/2" thick.

The slice was then cut into half. We then took one of those slices and cut it onto half also. We now have three sections for each slice.

The biggest section was rolled into a ball to use as the Rabbit's head and then each of the smaller sections were rolled into ear shapes. We baked the cookies based on the package directions.

Once they were removed from the oven, we put chocolate chips on the head for eyes and a nose. The cookies spread more than I thought they would but they still resemble Rabbits and they were tasty.

Have a great week.