Can We PLEASE Practice Writing?

(4 Years)

Ummmm (can it possibly be this easy?  Thank you Montessori technique!)....  
     Me- "Yes, you can!  What would you like to use?"
     Little Miss - "How aboouuuut (pause, with a sly look in her eye) the writing slates?"

I love the Handwriting Without Tears Slates!  They remind me of The Little House on the Prairie slate boards- ahhh, nostalgia.  More importantly, they remind my kids of Professor Quimby in Leap Frog's Letter Factory.  When the kids were little they must have watched that movie at least three dozen times!  We sang the letter songs in the car, during our walks, while putting together puzzles, in the bath - you get the picture (see here).   I completely credit the talented folks at Leap Frog for teaching my kidabunks their letter sounds.

Anyway, back to the slate boards.  In the Leap Frog movie, Professor Quimby writes each letter on a slate board that is almost an exact replica of the Handwriting Without Tears version.  When I gave the kids their slate boards, they immediately said, "It's just like Professor Quimby's!" They were instantly  hooked on using the boards.  Yay!

The process is so simple.  You (parent, teacher, caregiver) models how to write a letter.  The child uses the tiny sponge to erase the letter, using the same strokes that you did to write the letter.  The child next uses the tiny cloth to dry the wet areas, using the same strokes that she/he just did to erase the letter.  The child now gets to write the letter using the half piece of chalk.

We alternate choosing letters to practice.  When we were first learning how to write letters, we followed the Kumon Uppercase Letter Writing Plan (L T H I F E X V Y N Z A K M W D P B R J U C G S O Q).  It's a logical way of learning to write the letters.  Can you see why?  Look at the first six letters, they are made up of only straight horizontal and vertical lines.  Brilliant!

By the way if you like using the slate board, there's an app for that.  There is also a free trial for app so that you can see if your little one likes it.   

Do you notice that stern look on Little Miss's face?  She wasn't happy that her line did not perfectly end on the corner of the board.  My little perfectionist.  It's amazing, I have one child that tries to make the lines perfectly and the other who rushes his work!  If they weren't in my belly at the same time, I would never believe they are twins.  Have a great weekend everyone!

Blah, blah, blah.  All comments are my own, blah, blah.  I have not been compensated for this post, blah, blah.  It's just me, sharing what works with you.

Monthly Journals

(44 Months)

We began monthly journals last month, when we started our homeschool preschool year.  My plan is to have Little Miss and Wild One repeat the same format each month so that we can show their progress (and it can be a cute keepsake for when they are older).

We're working on drawing a self-portrait, writing their name and practicing tracing the six letters that only have horizontal and vertical lines (according to Kumon they are supposed to be the easiest to master):  E F H I L T.

Sadly, this hasn't been their favorite part of homeschool.  In fact, they reluctantly come to the table to work on journals.  I thought they would really enjoy this process.  Since they don't, we only spend a few minutes on it and then move on.

They do get a lot of practice writing letters on the iPad (see here for our favorite apps).  I was looking forward to some good old fashioned pencil and paper practice.  Maybe next month they will want to work in their journals.  We're going to go play with play dough now.  Have a fun day!

Our Favorite Preschool Apps

(43 Months)

We use our iPad as part of our quiet time activities (when Wild One doesn't nap or when Little Miss wakes up very early from a nap) and while I'm cooking dinner.  I am so happy with these apps, they keep the kiddos fully engaged, while learning- and I get to complete some never-ending housework.

The kids love using the iPad to do "work".  All of these games are fantastic learning tools, they don't even realize they are practicing - heh heh heh (evil laugh).  I've spent hours searching and playing with numerous learning apps.  These are the ones that the kids and I really like and decided to keep.

Handwriting
Letter School
Letter Quiz
Dora's ABC's
Wet Dry Try - Handwriting Without Tears

Math: Problem Solving, Puzzles, Matching, Sorting, Counting
Snake Tangrams
Amazing Shape Puzzles
Jurassic Jr. (Dinosaur Train)
Phonics Island
Candy Count
Teach Me (Toddler)
Countalicious

Reading and Spelling
Super Why
Phonics Island
BOB Books Lite
Sight Words
Word Family
Fun Rhyming

What are your favorite learning apps?

Favorite Puzzles

(30 Months)

Last week our Tangeos Jr. arrived.  If you have a toddler, this is a perfect puzzle for her (ignore the ages 4+ label).  When we opened the box, Little Miss and Wild One were so excited.  I didn't even get a chance to explain how to complete the puzzle before Little Miss started working on it, correctly!  She placed piece after piece in the right spot while I just stared at her dumbfounded.  When she finished, she proudly exclaimed, "I did it!"  Then, she started putting each piece back in the travel case (that's right, she put her pieces away).  After she put the last piece away, she chose a new puzzle and began working again.  She repeated this process again and again and again.  After the fifth puzzle, we tried level 2, but it was too challenging without the piece guidelines.  Little Miss tried several times, but then flipped the card over and started working on level 1.  "I like this one better Mommy."  Now, what about Wild One?  Well, he didn't get a chance to work on the new puzzle by himself.  She tried to let Wild One work on the puzzle by himself, but if he didn't place the puzzle piece fast enough, she would quickly point out where the piece belonged.  When I would tell her to let her brother work on it, she would reply, "Momma, he needs my help."  This is from a two year old.  Thank goodness for technology.   I quickly did a search on my phone for tangram toddler puzzles and came across Tangams Lite.  Wild One loves this one.  He especially likes "the boy" puzzle.  Finally, Wild One got a real turn using the Tangeos puzzle (Little Miss kept saying, "look Momma, we're sharing"  I'm so proud of her). He quickly found the cat puzzle and began working on it.  At one point when he needed to flip the piece over, he said that the piece was broken (how cute).  Then, he put the piece back and took it out again and "Mommy, it's fixed now."

Another puzzle that Little Miss has liked playing with is her knobbed cylinders.  This is a classic Montessori tool that encourages problem solving, spatial reasoning and develops the pincer muscles for fine motor development.  I love watching her solve this puzzle.  We place two or three of the blocks on the table at the same time (with the pieces already removed and mixed together).  She'll then work piece-by-piece identifying where each cylinder should go.  Wild One prefers working on them first thing in the morning, after that he's too awake to sit still and finish the puzzles (he has so much energy- he barely sits still even when he's eating).

 

I was going to put this shape puzzle away, since she completes it so quickly- I felt it wasn't offering a challenge.  However, I found her playing with it again and again, so on the shelf it will stay.  Months ago, we used it to sort pom poms by color.  I'm planning on trying that again, except instead of the kidabunks using tongs, they'll use their new chopsticks.  These are fantastic!  They have three little rings to hold the three fingers properly in place.  Plus, they even make it for left-handed tots like my daughter!

Our Top Ten App List (Mostly Free)

(29 Months)

I was so surprised when I first got my iPhone to see how many wonderful, and user friendly, educational apps there were for my little ones (the under three group).  I spent hours downloading free apps and then trying them to see which ones we liked, and which ones would be deleted.

As of the past two months, these are our Top 10 (out of the 25 that we kept).  They are all free except for Letter Quiz and Dora's Skywriting Adventure (my incredible cousin Catie, gave us a free app code for this app).

1. Letter Quiz (we first tried out the free lite version, but then purchased this version)- this app has four games: flash cards, match the upper to the lowercase letter, touch the "A", letter tracing (their absolute favorite- it has bumpers on the letters to help keep the lines on the letters)
2. Count-a-licious- there are three fun games on this app: number show that tells and shows the number, a counting game and a number tracing game
3. Bob Magic Lite- from the makers of BOB books, this app has levels of difficulty for placing letters in order (mostly cvc words)
4. Magic Piano- teaches the child timing and finger coordination along with beautiful music
5. Teach Me Toddler- quizes and provides a score cards for numbers, letters, shapes, colors, phonics and counting.  Offers sticker rewards after the players gets three answers right in a row
6. First Words Sampler- shows a picture (of a cat) then has three tile letters for the player to place in order, it has a safety net that will not allow the player to misplace a letter
7. Tozzle Light- a shape puzzle that reinforces sounds and names of animals
8. Dora's Skywriting Adventure- similar to the Letter Quiz
9. Little Writer- another tracing game, this one is for capital and lowercase letters, numbers, shapes and words
10. MeMe Tales- reads aloud wonderful online stories

Letter A Week

(29 Months)

This week we played with the letter A.  Our first activity was placing smily face stickers inside the outline of the letter A.  Peeling and placing stickers is an excellent exercise for developing fine motor skills.  To make it easier for the kidabunks to peel the stickers off of the page, I remove the backing sticker first.

I was so impressed that they both stayed inside the lines.  Wild One spaced his stickers sporadically throughout the letter A.  Little Miss was more meticulous about placing her stickers in a line.  After she finished placing her stickers, she decided to color in the letter.  I love how they create their own work!

They love pom poms, especially magnetic pom poms (to make them magnetic, I hot glued magnetic craft dots onto the pom poms while the kids were napping).  We placed these fantastic bubble sheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler onto a cookie sheet and then let the kids go straight to work. Once they finished their letter A worksheet, they asked to work on "another one please Mommy".  I hope they are always this eager to do their work, I know that's naive of me- but, I'm hopeful.  Little Miss then began practicing her counting with the magnetic pom poms (thank you again Ericka for a beautifully artistic and fun activity sheet).

We practiced tracing letters on Letter Quiz.  They love this app!  It allows them to achieve success in tracing letters by providing bumpers alongside the outlines (almost like how bumper bowling allows you always to knock down pins).   It's definitely on their Top Ten List (post to follow shortly).

Grandpa and Little Miss practiced connecting the dots to form capital A's on easel paper.  Little Miss watched as Grandpa used his marker to make little dots in the formation of an A.  She then tried to duplicate the A with dots, and Grandpa had to show her to connect the dots.  I love my Dad!  She's been asking me to draw dots ever since.

We haven't created too many pasting projects.  For some reason we gravitate towards the messier play of markers, paint, stamps and shaving cream to cutting and glue sticks.  Which is a shame, because scissor practice and glue stick practice are excellent for continuing to develop those fine motor skills.  For their letter art project I came up with The Matching Apple Tree.  This activity is so simple and relatively quick to put together.

To my surprise they matched the letters quite effortlessly.  Although, with only three apples left, Wild One got up and started hopping on tile letters instead of finishing his tree.  It took several minutes of coaxing to get him to finally finish his three apples (the winning ticket, once you're all done then you can show it to daddy and hang it on the door).  Meanwhile, Little Miss would pick up a letter as she was scanning the tree to find the corresponding upper or lowercase match.  She completed all of the uppercase letters first and then worked on the lowercase, she's so methodical.

 

AND...We are also going to practice with our letter A printable, our matching upper to lowercase letter shoe box, and our sun bleached letter puzzle.  

That's all folks!