10 Ways to Explore and Learn with Letters

We have really enjoyed doing our letter of the week and now that we have completed all 26 letters I'm highlighting a few of our favorites.  In addition, I am sharing letter activities from other bloggers who show how many fun ways their are to explore with letters!

Letter V: Came upon us during spring so we turned a couple of popsicle sticks into a letter V vase.

Here's what you'll need for this craft:

2 Popsicle sticks

Glue

Green pipecleaners 

Flower stickers

Construction paper

This was an easy, fun and springy craft. If you don't have flower stickers or pipecleaners your child  can draw the flower stems and flowers. Or you could choose to paint your letter V vase.

Letter N: Write the letter N on a piece of paper, and either you or your child depending on age, can trace the letter with glue.  Next, take some noodles and line them up along the glue.  We chose to dye our noodles but that's completely optional.

Here's what you'll need for this craft:
Noodles
Glue
Construction paper
Pencil/Marker
Food coloring (optional)

Sugar Aunts shares her letter N craft by making an adorable Napkin Newt




Mama's Happy Hive shares the fun they had with Montessori Inspired letter B activities.

What an adorable letter B Bumblebee!




Golden Reflections Blog shares their A-Z's of Sensory Play  with 26 different ways to enjoy sensory activities with letters.  This list is truly amazing and one that will certainly serve as a great resource.




Here are some more great letter activities:

B is for Butterfly from Crystal & Co. - tis the season for butterflies and this craft is so pretty!

M is for Moose from A Little Pinch of Perfect adorable moose craft and 2 letter M activities

W is for Watermelon from Dabbling Momma - crafts and learns with Watermelon

X is for X-ray from Dabbling Momma - craft and learn about the human body

Z is for Zebra from Crystal & Co. - cute Zebra craft and a song, rhyme and book to pair with it


Learning letters never has to be boring!  I hope this round up shows that learning letters can be a ton of fun!

Think Outside the Box with Store Bought Games

Store bought games can be fun but we don't always have to play by the rules!  Take for example our Elefun game which we love and which has been enjoyed by both of my kids.  

We have been learning CVC words for awhile now and the last thing I want is for it to become boring.  I thought using this game, that my daughter already really enjoys, would help keep her interest. Here's how we changed the rules:

We took out the butterflies that come with Elefun and I replaced them with cut pieces of party streamers.  Shortly before we played this game we celebrated my husband's birthday, and instead of tossing the streamers I gave them a second life with this game.  I wrote a CVC word on each cut piece of streamer, which would now act as the 'butterflies.'  I decided to only use animal CVC words which I also wrote on a piece of paper and later laminated. The point of the new game was when one of the pieces of paper were caught my daughter would have to do two things:

1. Sound out the word 

 2. Act out the word

 

Once all the 'butterflies' were caught she matched the word  to the word on the paper and wrote either her first name letter or mine in the box next to the word. This showed which one of us caught that word, and whoever filled up all the CVC words first won the game.  

Catching......

Sounding.......

Writing......

Here's what we learned playing by the new rules:

1. Recognizing and Sounding out CVC words

2. Acting out/identifying with animals and animal sounds

3. Writing skills

4. Counting

5. Hand/eye coordination

Take a peek at your games and see how you can think outside the box and change the rules in a way that will help your child learn while having fun!  

Learning While Pretending

Pretend play is important for building many different developmental skills such as language, thinking, social and emotional skills.  The best part is they are learning while pretending and imagining!

Recently, while cleaning out one of our kitchen cabinets I had a bunch of food boxes and instead of tossing them I used them for a pretend play grocery store.

Here's what I used to set up our grocery store pretend play:

Paper
Pen
Play money
Toy cash register
Empty food boxes/containers
Toy carriage
Plastic grocery bags
Toy purse/wallet

I began by setting up the empty food boxes and containers around the house.  I wrote a grocery list but because my 4 year old can not read yet, I told her what the word on the list was.  As she 'shopped' she had to match the word on the list to the word/letters on the item.  Some of the items she simply remembered from our own 'real' trips to the grocery store.

As she shopped she crossed off items from her list just like Mommy does!  Once she found all the things on the list it was time to check out.  I set up her toy cash register had some plastic grocery bags ready and gave her some play money.  After I rang up all the items I told my daughter how much money she owed.  At this point I had her count out how many dollars she needed so that she could pay for her groceries.

Finally, she was ready to load up her carriage with all her goodies and off she went........"thanks for shopping - come again!!"

Their are many ways to share pretend play with your child.  Most times you don't have to 'set up' anything.  Children tend to pretend play and use their imaginations on their own.  However, here are some other ideas to encourage pretend play with your child:

Dress up clothes
Stuffed animals
Dolls
Books
Cardboard box
Blankets
Paper
Envelopes
Stickers
Crayons

How does your child pretend play?  Share with us in the comments below or visit us on our Facebook page.

What's In The Egg Game?

Just because Easter is over doesn't mean you have to put away all the plastic Easter eggs you've probably collected.  I usually keep them out for about a month or so after Easter before finally putting them away for the season.

Last Easter my daughter got the book The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown.  This is such a sweet book about a bunny who was alone and found an egg.  He had know idea what was in the egg so he tried different things like pushing it, shaking it, jumping on it to try and figure out what was hiding inside. The bunny was so sleepy that he fell asleep and it was then that the egg cracked open to reveal his new friend!

I decided to pair this sweet book with a game I called, "What's in the Egg?"  This game is super simple to set up just grab some plastic Easter eggs and some things from around the house to hide inside of them.

I showed my daughter the things I was going to hide inside the eggs before I hid them.  I wanted to give her a little hint otherwise I think she would have been totally stumped and frustrated.

Here are the things I hid inside the eggs:

Bells
Penny
Chips
Noodles
Squinky toys
Bear counters

Even though my preschooler had seen the items before I hid them she still had some challenge, which was a good thing!  She mostly shook the eggs to try and figure out what was inside.  But when she got stumped I suggested she roll the egg like the bunny did in the book or hold it up to the light to see if she could see through the egg.

I love this picture....reminds of the part in the book where the bunny sits very still next to the egg

After my daughter was finished she asked to hide things for me to figure out.  The only difference was she randomly picked things and I had NO clue ahead of time what she was hiding (little stinker!)

We both had alot of fun with this game and it was a fun way to get some extra use from our Easter eggs.  It's a good game to work on memory and listening skills too!

Fruit Smoothie Ice Pops

Recently my daughter was not feeling well and running a fever so I made a fruit smoothie and stuck it in the freezer!  It was a nice treat to help keep her cool with the fever while also providing some vitamin C and other vitamins and nutrients from the fruit!

Ingredients:

Strawberries and blueberries (you can use any fruits you like!)

4oz blueberry yogurt (again can use any flavor you like) 

1/2 C Orange juice

2 TBSP Honey

Pinch or so of Flax Seed

Crushed ice

Water (just a little bit)

I'll be honest I don't usually measure.  I just add what I think I'll like and have always been happy with the outcome.  When I make smoothies for myself I usually don't add the juice but instead just add water.  Since these are for my kids I use the juice for the extra taste!

These fruit smoothie ice pops are so good, so easy to make and super healthy! Also perfect for those hot summer days which will be here before we know it!