Learning ideas, games, activities, books, and concepts for the child too young for school!
Good Night, Gorilla by Peggy Rathman is a simple but favorite book. In the book, a zookeeper says goodnight to the animals, but the sneaky gorilla grabs the keys and lets himself out. He helps the other animals out as well, and they follow the zookeeper to his home. For our activity, we practiced being
Teachers and homeschool parents: Imagine taking your task cards with you on a tablet or computer. Your student(s) work independently, getting instant feedback on their work, whether correct or incorrect. They even take their spelling test right there in the app! When you get a chance, you check their progress on their digital task cards. At
Strawberry loves to make a musical band in our play room. Reading Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb by Al Perkins prompted her to create her own drum as well. Making music and especially drumming was a fun action and rhythm activity for an active preschooler.
Homeschool moms have their hands full! The good news is it is easy to introduce your littlest ones, your toddlers and preschoolers to literacy concepts in just minutes and moments a day by conversing and observing with them.
The car is a blessing and a curse. Because we are blessed with a vehicle, we can get to all sorts of opportunities. We can access resources otherwise closed to us. But driving takes so much time out of our days, to and fro. The good news is it is super easy to nurture literacy
Today, “A is for Alligator” as we used tweezers and tongs to “eat” treats. Tongs are the perfect alligator-shaped mouth, and using them helps strengthen hand muscles for fine motor skills development. Alligator fine motor skills play was “school in disguise.”
Before a child is ready to jump into learning to read, it’s important to review basic phonemic principles, such as hearing the parts of words. Rhyming is a fun activity that is ideal for kids preparing to read or just starting out. After reading a favorite picture book, we played a “Dusty” Rhyming Game to practice making
It’s so much fun to incorporate alphabet learning activities into our every day reading and activities. Every day items and even garbage materials can easily be re-purposed into engaging hands on activities for my toddler and preschooler! Alphabet learning is the most important pre-literacy skill to introduce to them.
My daughter was so disappointed when I told her that we would be doing preschool at home this year. She loved her year at preschooler, and she wanted to return. But I reassured her that we’d have plenty of preschool fun. I was surprised, then, to find her completely resistant to the idea of a
The Caldecott Award-winning book The House in the Night is illustrated with scratch art as it tells a story with the feel of “This is the House That Jack Built.” As we poured over the textured images, we were impressed with the ways that lines created texture to look like birds’ wings or tree leaves. After
One subject keeps my preschooler interested right now, and that is princesses. She loves Sofia the First. She loves the other Disney princesses. She loves ponies with long shimmering hair. She loves dressing like a princess and acting like a princess. If I can add princesses into school time, then I’ll get her attention. This week
Everything about the book Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine by Allison Wortche and pictures by Patrice Barton is Spring-y, from the names of the children to the plants the children grow with their teacher. Overall, it is a book about selflessness and overcoming jealousy. As we read the book, five-year-old Strawberry and I discussed the feelings we
