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PSPKK12311 Comments

Teach short a with sensory play!

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Teaching short vowel sounds can be tricky — which is why I decided to teach short a with sensory play.  My toddler could join in the fun, and both my Three and Five were challenged.  A win-win-win!

teach short a with sensory play - the measured mom

  teach short a with sensory play (1) - the measured mom

First, we got out our materials.

  • Dry oats.  I bought these at a low price from our discount grocery store.  (And since I pack them up after we’re done for future sensory play, we get a lot of use out of them.)  If you have just one or two kids playing, you won’t need three giant canisters. But I have three busy boys.
  • Funnels and scoops for pouring.  As it turned out the oatmeal got stuck in the funnels.  But the scoops were perfect.  As they played, my Five got out a hand-held sieve and my Three found some measuring spoons.
  • Letter A’s on blocks and magnets.  These were for repeated exposure to the letter — since my Three and Five have a good handle on their alphabet, this was for the sake of my One. I admit I didn’t call attention to it, because he’s not interested in the alphabet yet.  But if he were ready, I’d ask him to find the A’s.
  • Printed picture cards, apple numbers, and words.  I designed these cards to be used with siblings of different ages and levels – after reading an awesome post about multi-age sensory bins from The Educators’ Spin on It.  

a picture cards snip

I created a set of 10 picture cards: each has a picture of something that begins with the short a sound — starting with one item and going all the way up to ten.

a apple cards snip

I also made a set of ten numbered apple cards.

a word cards

Finally, I printed a set of word cards to go with each picture card.

teach short a with sensory play (3) - the measured mom

After we removed our scoops and funnels, the boys each got to dump a canister of oats onto the letters and cards.

teach short a with sensory play (4) - the measured mom

Then they dug right in!

teach short a with sensory play (5) - the measured mom

The boys didn’t even look at the printed cards for the first forty-five minutes.  That’s what I love about a good sensory bin: it may lead to a mess, but it keeps kids happy and busy for a long time.  I was able to put my feet up (a luxury as I was 7 1/2 months pregnant when we did this activity).

And I did something I almost never do since I began blogging… I read a good book!  (It was The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon — the latest in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.  You haven’t read them?!  Ack! Reserve the first book at your library right now!  They’re my absolute favorites!)

teach short a with sensory play (7) - the measured mom

It was so fun to see my toddler (22 months) get into this.  He transferred oats with his hands, poured, dumped, and dug.  After about 45 minutes he also started throwing handfuls of oats across the floor — at which time I scooped him up and declared it snack time.

teach short a with sensory play (8) - the measured mom

My Five, who always finds something interesting to do, grabbed a sieve from the drawer and crushed oats with his hands to make oat flour.  After quite a lot of work he was pleased to have made about three tablespoons of fine flour. 🙂

teach short a with sensory play (9) - the measured mom

When my toddler started snacking – and the big boys were starting to lose interest – I said it was time to start digging for all the picture, number, and word cards.  I helped them see how each picture started with the short a sound.

My Three needs work at counting objects, so the math part of this was great review for him.  My Five, who is a beginning reader, was able to identify most of the words.  

teach short a with sensory play (10) - the measured mom

And there you have it!  A fun way to learn the sound of short a – with some sensory play and math practice thrown in.  It was a hit!

Get your free sensory printables!

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Alphabet Curriculum for Preschool

$29.00

Our curriculum includes lessons for teaching both upper and lowercase letter names and sounds. You’ll get three lessons per letter, built-in review, simple handwriting practice, rhyming, syllable counting, phonemic awareness, and a whole lot more!

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Filed Under: General Tagged With: counting, preschool, first grade, kindergarten, sensory play, Pre-K

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Reader Interactions

11 Comments

  1. Hillary

    February 16, 2021 at 2:56 am

    Looks great! Wasn’t able tp download the sensory printables.

    Reply to this comment
    • Heather Groth, Customer Support

      February 16, 2021 at 10:32 pm

      Thanks for letting us know, Hillary. The link is fixed now!

      Reply to this comment
  2. Meghan

    June 29, 2014 at 10:08 am

    Getting ready to start up a letter of the week with my 2.5 year old (and my 4 year old will be joining along as well for review and fun!) and your site was, of course, the first place I checked out. I seriously love all your ideas am so so grateful for people like you sharing all your hard work (your creative ideas and actual tangible things like worksheets and games). Your site is such an inspiration to me when it comes to teaching my kids!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      July 6, 2014 at 8:55 am

      Thank you so much, Meghan! Your comment was so encouraging. I’m so glad my site is helping you do more creative learning with your kids!

      Reply to this comment
  3. Sarah Micheel

    February 25, 2014 at 1:04 pm

    We did a sensory play the other day with elbow macaroni, three different sized bowls, and three different sized spoons. Instant 3 Bears reenactment!

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      February 28, 2014 at 8:54 am

      Sounds like fun, Sarah! So great to see you popping over here 🙂

      Reply to this comment
  4. Renae

    February 25, 2014 at 12:52 pm

    Great ideas here. I love activities that require the kids to “search” for things. Such important sensory input. Great job.

    Renae

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      February 28, 2014 at 8:54 am

      Thank you, Renae! It’s great to see you in KBN.

      Reply to this comment
  5. jeannine: waddleeahchaa

    February 20, 2014 at 4:53 pm

    Sensory can be messy but you really can’t beat it. Kids love hands-on learning. As in getting their hands tactile and messy.

    Hope you get more opportunities to put up your feet.

    Reply to this comment
    • Anna Geiger

      February 20, 2014 at 8:41 pm

      Yes, sensory play is so important — I should set a goal of pulling it out more often. My feet aren’t up too much these days, so I’m extra thankful our baby has a sweet temperament!

      Reply to this comment

Trackbacks

  1. Brooklyn’s Preschool – A Life Just As Boring As Yours says:
    August 29, 2020 at 12:21 am

    […] Lincoln Logs and made A’s out of the logs.  After that I thought I’d be cool and do a sensory play thing I found on another site.  This mom had made these little cards with pictures of words that start […]

    Reply to this comment

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