Find Your Name Black Bean Sensory Bin

I am very excited to be working with a little boy in my daughter's kindergarten class who needs some extra attention.  The teacher told me that he has had some trouble recognizing his name so she asked me to work on that with him.  I've come up with some ideas that would be fun all while learning. Last week I used cars to help learn his name with our Car Name Game.  This week I'm sharing a new fun way to learn/recognize a child's name.

I had a black bean bin already set up that I had used with my daughter with different projects and thought I could use this for some name recognition fun.  I added some bright colored balloon stickers with letters on them that looked great against the black beans.  I put all the letters of the boys name along with some other letters not in his name and also some blank ones.

I was thrilled to see him dig right in and really enjoy the sensory part of this activity.  I asked him to find the balloon stickers and to put all the letters of his name in a pile separate from the letters not in his name.  As for the blank balloon stickers he put those in another pile.

We use a laminated sheet with his name on it when we do our name activities so that he has that as a reference when learning to recognize his name.

Once all the stickers were sorted I asked him to stick the stickers on a piece of paper spelling out his name, he did great!  I then asked him to write the letters of his name on the blank balloon stickers and stick those onto paper too.

He was so proud of himself as was I!  The black beans and bright colored balloon stickers was a real hit in helping this little boy learn the letters in his name!

More to come on name activities....stay tuned!

Sight Word Heart Flowers

My daughter is in full blown sight word mode at school.  Recently, I came across a fantastic and fun way to learn sight words from Growing book by Book.

My daughter had a great time finding the hearts, reading them and delivering them to their appropriate envelopes.  To get all the details of the game visit Growing Book by Book and read about the Valentine Sight Word Activity.

Once we finished, I had the idea of turning our sight word hearts into sight word flowers!  I simply took the sight words, and glued everything to a popsicle stick.  It turned into a sight word activity AND craft!

All you need to make sight word flowers is:

Construction paper 

Popsicle sticks

Glue

Cut hearts from construction paper, write on your sight words and glue your hearts to the popsicle stick!

A fun way to learn sight words with a Valentine/flower

theme!

Mitten Craft

Finally the cold weather has hit us!  A couple of months ago I picked up a package of foam mittens in the dollar section of Target and now seemed like the appropriate time to craft with them.

We are expecting some significant snow this upcoming weekend which will be our first snow storm of the season and the kids are beyond excited.  This craft was the perfect way to kick off the upcoming snow event!!

Here's what you'll need:
Foam mittens (or cut some out from paper)
Construction paper
Glue stick
Buttons, stickers or anything else to decorate your mittens
Glitter
Cotton

My 5 year old started off by gluing the mittens onto construction paper.  She used cotton and stars to decorate the mittens. Next, added more glue and poured on the glitter!  Voila, mitten craft complete!

You could hang it on the fridge, or like we did, use a suction cup and hang it on the back door!

Here are 2 other mitten crafts to try.....Bird Seed Mitten Tree paired with The Mitten Tree book.
And a lacing activity with mittens paired with the book, "The Mitten" by Jan Brett.

Car Name Game - Name Identification

I have been helping out in my daughter's kindergarten class with a little boy who is about 2 years behind the others.  Right now we are working on identifying his name.  In an effort to try and make learning fun I thought we would use cars because what boy doesn't love cars!  It really was a hit and now every time I go in to work with him he asks to play with the cars!

This is a simple set up and reaps the rewards when it comes to identifying a child's name.

Here's what you'll need:

• Large black poster board
• White crayon
• Post it notes or plain paper
• Cars

Across the top of your poster board write the letters of the child's name with white crayon. Then with your crayon simply draw lines that look like street lines.  Finally, write the letter of the child's name on the post it note or plain paper and stick to the top of the cars. I used post it notes because they are already sticky.  If you use plain paper you will have to use tape to adhere the letters to the cars.

Here's the fun part! Ask your child to drive or park the car in the correct parking spaces across the top. This will help your child recognize each letter in their name and they will have so much fun zooming their cars to find the correct letters!

This is a simple activity for the adult to prepare and fun for the child to learn and play!!

Valentine's Day Float

This is a cute and fun drink to share with the kids on Valentine's Day.  Super easy to make and really yummy!

All you need is:

Cranberry Ginger Ale
Vanilla ice-cream (or sherbert)
Decorative straw

That's it, folks!  Grab a glass, add these 2 ingredients, a fun straw and may you enjoy a Valentine Float!