Spelling: See, Trace, Make

I first found these activities as part of the valentines unit at musings of me.  The activity consists of a sheet divided into three sections:

See - the word and the picture
trace - with your finger or a pencil/pen to learn the pattern of the word
make - make the word with magnetic letters, foam letters, bottle tops, letters cut from magazines or newspapers, whatever you have

e.g

Here are links to some of the activities we have found so far and a few of our own although we will also be adding more as we make them.
Valentine themed cards (p20-26 inc of a 154 page pdf to download)
Numbers 1-20
Reindeer card on p6 of the pdf
ladybird
winter themed words p11-20 inc. of the pdf

3 part cards -a montessori style resource

3 part cards are a way of introducing vocabulary and sight words to young children.
For each word you want to introduce you have:
a card with a relevant picture and the word underneath- this is the master card
a card with just the picture
a card with just the word

The idea is that the child finds the matching picture and word cards to recreate the master card.
For a more accurate description of use in a classroom setting go here for the expert ;)
For older kids the picture part of the 3 part card system can be replaced by a written definition.
Here are some of the sets we have found around the web;

Butterfly lifecycle
Herbs and Spices
Penguins
land,air,water and fire
Fruit
Dinosaurs
Continents
Vegetables
Living and non-living
Artists
Valentine themed cards (p 27 and 28 of a 154 page pdf from musings of me)
In due course I am hoping to create my own sets which I will be adding to the resources label on this blog as we go. If you know of any others that can be shared let me know.

Cutting and Sticking: mosiac

One nice thing about moving into a new house is it gives you the opportunity to rediscover all those books and toys which had been pushed to the back of the cupboard.  One such set was a "Crafty History" group of books that I bought in a sale a few years back, put into the cupboard and then overlooked completely.
R re-discovered them in our new house and was immediately taken by the Roman history one where they make their own mosaic with cut up bits of paper.
Ours is a group effort using coloured paper from our craft stash and the side of one of the bigger cardboard boxes from the move as the base.
First I drew a simple daisy's pattern and then the kids and I filled it in (R deserves the prize for most of the work).
We didn't have black paper for the bumblebee stripes so we used black paint and improvised a square stamp but it didn't really work too well so we switched to a brush and decided to use paint for the sky and grass as well.

Letter r: r is for rabbit: Magnet Page

Our own lowercase r magnet page in honour of the start of the Year of the Rabbit. Download the pdf from here.
If you would prefer an upper case one then get it from here courtesy of the Home Grown Hearts preschool letter R page.

Using Magnet Pages

One of the things I have been using a lot with B has been magnet pages, even to the extent of creating some of our own for lower case letters where we couldn't find others on the web.  My OH, who keeps up with what his children are doing whilst he is at work by reading the blog, sat there the other day and said "What is a magnet page?"  I don't know who first came up with the idea but I first came across magnet pages on the Make Learning Fun website when I was looking at colouring pages for the alphabet last year for B.  From there you know how it goes, once you see it for the first time you start seeing them everywhere!
Magnet pages are pictures of letters, numbers, or shapes that have circular blank spaces.

e.g.
The idea is that the child can fill in these blanks.  The original idea (and why they are called magnet pages) was to use a cookie sheet under the paper and the round magnets that you get for magnetic memo boards like the ones in the Amazon ad to the left but here are the things we have used with them:

• circular magnets (I have to admit ours were from a much cheaper source; Euroland!)
• fridge magnets
• paint dauber
• paint and brush
• pom poms
• plastic bottle tops
• coins
• small stickers
• sequins and beads (glued on)
• counters

Basically anything that is small enough to fit in the circle works, the idea is to introduce your child to the shape of the letter/number/shape without actually writing it.  One of the cutest things I have seen used with them is magnetic pom poms.  These were invented by Erin over on Home Grown Hearts- a fantastic blog which seems to have died a death as it has not been updated since last summer.  Whilst I would love a set of these for B I know that A, even though he is 7, would put them in his mouth as he does everything else; so not a good idea unless your little one is over this stage.  If you would like to see which magnet pages I have created or used check out the label on the right - it gets updated often!

stArt - Oscar and the Moth- KS1 Science

Oscar and the Moth by Geoff Waring

Oscar is a kitten who meets various animals who teach him about the world in this science story series for young kids by Walker Books specially designed to support the ideas introduced for KS1 Science (4-7 year olds).  In Oscar and the Moth he meets a moth who teaches him about why we have night and day, how some creatures make their own light and how we make shadows by blocking light.  Luckily for us the IPC (International Primary Curriculum) unit that A is doing at school at the moment is "Day and Night" so he was able to take it into school to share with the whole class.

Here are some of the things we did to support the book:

• Some animals like the moth are nocturnal others are diurnal.  We did an animal sort and stuck the pictures on the day background or the night background.  We also used the colouring pages on the Nocturnal Animals listing at Enchanted Learning, each page has a lot of extra information about the animals for older students.
• We made our own constellations on black paper using stamps and paint

• We went on a light hunt.  Arm yourself with a digital camera and go for a evening walk whilst the nights are dark. This is one we actually did last year when A was in Senior Kindergarten - we were able to go to the Christmas Market in Stuttgart and look at the the lights on the stalls but there should be other things to look at that make light even around your own home.
• We did a treasure hunt in the dark. Make your room as dark as you can find a favourite teddy or stuffed toy using a torch to see by.
• Shadow puppets.  Retell a favourite story or make up your own using shadow puppets.  Any silhouette cut from card and mounted on a straw works. 
• Nocturnal animal wordsearch for the older kids- here's one I made earlier
• Online match the dinosaur shadows game.
• shadow match game on a back to school theme - sorry don't know who this is by since it is on a free file sharing site - if you know pass it on so we can give due credit.

So there is what we have been up to this week.  For other arty projects linked to books don't forget to check out

  

Letter H: H is for Horse: Magnet Pages

download the pdf from here