Showing posts with label homeschool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeschool. Show all posts

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Learning Fun with the Alphabet Hop Game!

alphabet hop game

             Hey folks! Have I mentioned that trying to do homeschool preschool with my 4 year old has not been easy?! I would be lying if I said I haven't been second-guessing the whole thing or am disappointed that it's not been more “fun” like I envision preschool should be because Myka is so stubborn! But, I'm not giving in yet and am still going to cross my fingers that it's just partially due to her age and the fact that she learns like her father and not me.
             One of our (my?) obstacles has been that she learns best by getting her whole body involved. I guess you could say she's a kinesthetic learner. Makes sense for small children as all kids like to move around, right? But it makes learning certain things difficult. With that being said, I've been looking up ways I can help her learn what she really needs to work on: the alphabet.
             I found a few ideas on Pinterest, of course, that I thought she might like, but most of them are more geared towards warmer weather as they're activities that should really be done outdoors. She kept telling me she wanted to do a “jumping game”, so I got the idea for this game below from one of the lessons/games on her Reading Eggs program.
             I thought I was pretty clever for thinking of this because you can tailor it to whatever you want or need your child to work on: letters, numbers, letter sounds, colors, etc. etc. Added bonus: Even if your child isn't a “full body learner”, they are getting some gross motor practice and working on their coordination as well!

What You'll Need:

-post-it notes or index cards
-a pen
-tape (optional)
-an open floor space

*Pick one number, letter, consonant sound, etc. and write it on 6 (or however many you want depending on how big you want to make the game) post-it notes.

*Also write out at least two more words, letters, etc. for each row. You can see what I mean in the pictures. :)

alphabet game close up
 She was having some trouble with the "at" sound, finding the word "mat", in particular, on one of the games on Reading Eggs, so that's what we started off with this day.

*Make sure you mix them up, of course, so your child can hop around and have fun too!

*Once your “game area” is set up, tell your child how the game works. Start at one end and hop from “S”, for example, to the “S” in the next row and so forth until they reach the other side! To make it a little more fun, I like to tell Myka that it is a pond and the post-it notes are lillypads. :)

4 year old playing alphabet hop
 Is not wearing pants when you're 4, like, a thing?

             What kind of games or fun activities do/did you use to help your kids learn the alphabet?

This Is How We Roll Thursday Party

ethannevelyn.com

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Homeschool Preschool Update: Birds & Bugs, Oh My!

             Hey folks! It's been a long time since I've done a school update for two reasons. 1) I was really slacking there for awhile, but hey. This was kind of my trial year for the real deal coming sooner than I will know it. 2) Other than the alphabet learning stuff I print from various homeschooling blogs I follow and some other workbook-type things I have at home, I mostly use the “A Child's World” curriculum. (You can learn more and order this curriculum for yourself HERE.) Obviously, I didn't want to give everything away about it before so people would purchase it for themselves and help a fellow blogger out, but now that I'm a program ambassador I can! (Well, not everything. ;) )
             I finally got smart and have been letting Myka choose from two or three of the themes which one is most interesting to her when we are getting ready to start a new one. She's really into birds lately, so I wasn't surprised that she chose that one the time before this. Here are some highlights (read: Activities I actually got pictures of!) from the bird theme below.


Myka loves “beading” so the Cheerio “caterpillar” bird treats were a big hit. The birds didn't seem to notice them or enjoy them all that much. Perhaps they don't like Honey Nut Cheerios, which is all we had. Lol


We also practiced numbers 1-5 with this bird egg and “nest” activity. We kind of ran with this one. First, I asked her to put the corresponding egg in the correct numbered nest. Then we practiced some more by putting the correct amount of beads in each egg...Then we put the correct number of beads directly into the “nests”. And so on and so forth. Ha ha She was really into and I try to expand upon things when she's extra interested, especially because her attention span still isn't great, to say the least. I really think the math activities in the curriculum have helped her get a lot better with numbers lately because they make it fun to learn them, plus that's one of the main things she's been interested in learning-wise lately: counting.


We've taken a few nature walks lately, but not nearly enough. We actually got to play in the creek for a decent amount of time this day because it wasn't as buggy! Daddy found some really cool geode rocks, one of which he cracked open, that I forgot to include in today's pictures. We saw our fair share of bugs, too, including lots of damselflies (which are similar to dragonflies), which was good because we started the...


Bug theme next! A lot of people in the old Facebook group for this theme did bugs back in the fall, but I decided to wait until the spring/summer when the “nice bugs” were out. Lol Plus I wanted the weather to be nice so we could release our butterflies after studying them. This was just a swallowtail we found on the way back from playing in the creek. I can't believe it let me get that close! I wasn't zoomed in or anything!


Speaking of butterflies, we got our caterpillars last week and I think I was just as excited about them as Myka was! Lol They take about 5-10 days to make their chysallides and we've had them for 6, so we're eagerly awaiting that. (Btw, it's hard to get a 3 year old to understand that we can't pick the cup up and move it around a bunch so the caterpillars will do their thing and turn into butterflies. You've been warned. Lol)


We did a little flyswatter painting one day, which was entertaining. Two words of advice: 1) Making smacking noises while swatting the flyswatters makes it more fun, evidently. 2) Do yourself a favor and get a 3 pack of flyswatters at the Dollar Store for a buck!

             I was kind of surprised to find our library had a plethora of books on bugs. (Plus it's summer reading program time. Bonus!) I've been trying to get better about reading more in general to the kids. When all else fails, I'll read to Ripley and that usually gets the Jelly Monster interested. Ha ha Whatever works, right? But yah. I also found some fun bug related books that we already have at home, including The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They're actually reading that at our storytime tomorrow too, so hopefully she'll remember and maybe pay better attention too!
             Other than that, we've worked on letter “Q” a little bit more with dot marker pages, colored a caterpillar and ladybug coloring page, and did some scissor practice sheets as well...And we're only about halfway done with all of the bug-related stuff we have! I have more insect learning activities and workbook-type sheets than I can shake a stick bug at! Needless to say, we probably won't do all of them, and that's ok. There will always be more things we can expand upon next year!

             What have your homeschoolers been up to lately? Are you taking a summer break?

You can find this post on Tot School Gathering Place and
This Is How We Roll Thursday Party
ethannevelyn
Thinking Outside The Pot