Education resources for parents and teachers
Valentine's Day spelling game This game is very much like my winter spelling game. Here's how to play: You'll need: the gameboard (I laminate mine for durability, but you wouldn't have to) spelling word cards -- with a spelling word printed on each card Valentine word cards playing pieces a die for VERSION TWO: a large pile of candy hearts or counters Here's how to play VERSION ONE: 1. Put your playing piece on ... Read More
I've been doing a Letter Exploration with my preschoolers, and along with our other learning we do a variety of fine motor activities related to each letter of the alphabet. We always do a dot sticker page - since I've learned that these round office stickers are a favorite with my kids. Today's free printable is for Letter Y. (This post contains affiliate links.) Letter Y - Sticker page for ... Read More
If you follow my blog, you know that I think preschoolers should start with many different hands-on ways to write the alphabet. They can create a letter with small manipulatives, write it with a finger in food or shaving cream, and have many other creative experiences. Eventually, though, it's time to move to pencil and paper -- or at our house, marker and paper. Today I'm sharing these free handwriting worksheets ... Read More
Over the past year I've been sharing short vowel word family houses -- now you can get them all in one place. It's a GIANT set of 34 free short vowel word family houses! (This post contains affiliate links.) If you've been following my blog for a while, you know all about our word family houses. I've been using them to teach my Four (now my Five) to learn to read. We began doing these when he first showed the ... Read More
Have you see our free letter book collection? We're moving through the alphabet and sharing a collection of six rhymes and songs for each letter - perfect for your toddler and preschooler. I hope you enjoy this free letter book! Letter Y Rhymes & Songs - free letter book! Okay - letter Y was pretty tough. There isn't exactly a huge repertoire of songs about yo-yo's and yaks. Many of these ... Read More
What to do for a sensory activity with Y? Somehow I didn't think my kids would get too excited about a box of yarn. We're pretty limited with letter Y.... hey, how about yuck? I searched Pinterest and found a lot of fun ideas for yucky sensory play. Finally I narrowed it down to this timeless activity that many moms do at home and that I did in my classroom as a science lesson. I have ... Read More
Did you know that we collect math ideas for each letter of the alphabet? Some are simple -- it was fun to create transportation printables for the letter T. But the letter Y... what were we going to do, count yaks? Thankfully I realized that yarn can be a great math manipulative -- for measuring, of course. So today I'm sharing a few ways to teach measurement to kids using yarn. I decided to do this lesson after ... Read More
It's absolutely frigid here in the Midwest, so I thought that a winter spelling activity would be just the thing. The best part? You can adapt this game to any word list! To play, you'll need: the gameboard (I laminate mine for durability, but you wouldn't have to) spelling word cards -- with a spelling word printed on each card winter playing cards playing pieces a die Here's how to play: 1. Put your playing ... Read More
My three-year-old is moving right along with his beginning sounds - and this learning center has really helped him along! These picture mats and letter cards have been just the thing to help him master those tricky sounds. (This post contains affiliate links.) This is Set Three in my series of Beginning Sound Match Mats. If your child already knows a lot of his letter sounds, use the sets in whatever order ... Read More
Before we can expect our new readers to sound out words with confidence and success, they need to have a strong handle on beginning sounds. Some kids pick these up with little or no effort from us. Reading to my oldest two kids (now ages 6 and 5) , singing alphabet songs, and talking about the sounds letters make was all I needed to do . Their next sibling (now age 3 1/2) hasn't picked them up as easily. He has ... Read More
