Friday, February 20, 2009

Rhyming and counting and more

C and R had fun making potato print Valentines!


Valentines have filled our house, but now that the holiday is over we are back to basics. I know that rhyming is an important step in learning to read so we have been doing a lot of rhyming lately. One of C's favorite things to do is read rhyming books (Dr. Seuss is great). I will read the first line, emphasizing the last word. Then I read the second line and leave out the last word for C to fill in with the appropriate rhyming word. We also do this with nursery rhymes. For example, I will say, "Jack and Jill went up the ___________" and C or R will fill in the blank. Then we will talk about how Jill and hill have the same ending sound and try to think of other words that also rhyme.




I recently introduced 1 to 100 counting by 1s mazes to C. This is helping him learn how to count to 100 and I am very impressed with his progress. I found some great mazes at http://www.printactivities.com/.




R is working on matching lowercase and uppercase letters with clothespins and a cardboard box. She loves squeezing the clips and I love that this activity has peaked her interest in this skill.


C and R cannot get enough of the book, Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. They both love to play I Spy and this book is perfectly challenging for both of them. Some of the I Spy books we have read in the past have been too difficult, but this book is just right.
We are still on the letter J because Valentine's Day interrupted letter work for a while. I found a Jack and Jill puzzle at Marshall's for $2.00 so we will do that over the next few days. I plan on moving on to our next letter early next week. We don't go in order; I let their interests guide our alphabet journey.

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