Flash Card Games

We play a number of different flashcard games to teach letters, numbers, and sight words.  Here are some of the games my daughter has really enjoyed.  All the pictures and videos are of sight words because that is what we are currently working on but all of these games can be played to learn letters, numbers, colors and shapes as well.

Jump To-
I make a circle of mats on the floor and my daughter stands in the middle on a mat.  I tape one flash card to each mat.  We are currently working on sight words so I put down four she knows and two new ones or ones she is having difficulty remembering.  Then I call out a word and an action. Examples- "There, Jump" "Little, Sit" "Up, Spin"  My daughter loves doing the different actions and now yells out the action she wants to do after I say the word.  I love this activity because it is a fun and active way to get her learning, playing and it uses up some of that energy.  I love learning games that also work gross motor skills.

Add on- Have your child sit in the middle with some toys.  Tell them to put a toy on each word as you call it out.


Pathways-
Beginners- Lay 3-6 cards in a straight line on the floor and tell your child to stand on the word (letter, number, shape, etc.) when you call it out.

Intermediate- Create a path of words (etc.) across the room and add a couple forks that lead in different directions.  Call out the word and have your child step on it.  Guide them across the room on one path and then have them start over and take them on a different path.

Advanced- Help your child set up the path across the room like above but instead of calling out words for your child let them call out words for you to follow.  This builds recognition of the words (etc.) you are working on but also builds critical thinking skills as they plan how to get you down the path they want you to follow.

Spelling version- Make pathways out of letter cards that spell out that weeks spelling words.  Have the child start at the beginning and say a spelling word out loud then step on each letter of the word as they spell it out loud.  When they get to the end have them say the word again.

Add-on- You can add things like jumping to, swimming to, crab walking to (etc.)

Bonuses-
~Works gross motor skills. 
~ Encourages your child to follow/give directions

Label Game-

Make flash cards naming objects around your house (bed, door, TV, table, toys, etc.).  Attach a small piece of Velcro to the back of the card and to each object.  Collect all cards and then work with your child to read each card and then encourage them to attach the card to the correct object.  At beginning your child will need a lot of help reading words, identifying objects, and learning how to attach the cards to the objects.  With practice and age your child will learn to attach the cards and eventually will recognize and read the cards. 

I love this game because we could play it as soon as she was able to run around.  It encourages learning the names of household objects that you are already trying to teach toddlers.  For the older child it encourages learning to sound out and read common words.

Add on- My daughter likes to play this game using a timer.  She tries to see how many objects she can label before the time goes off.  Bonus- she is practicing counting and is starting to learn about length of time (I did 5 words in 3 minutes but 12 words in 8 minutes because it's longer- in the future I see this becoming a fun simple math add-on).

Just Flash Cards-

Some kids, like my daughter, enjoy flash cards and will just flip through the cards for practice.  I know that most kids will not find this kind of thing fun so follow your child's lead.  If simply flipping through flash cards does not hold their attention try the more active games.

I used a cork board and thumb tacks to make a flash card holder for the wall.  My daughter and I make sentences and she practices reading.

Sensory Boxes

Most sensory boxes help build fine motor skills while your child learns about different textures and senses.  I have a number of sensory boxes.  Some I let my two-year-old have easy access too and others I keep out of reach so that she has to ask for them (these ones contain items that I feel she still needs to be supervised while using, such as scissors).  I love these boxes because when I am busy (or still exhausted from her waking up an hour earlier than usual) I can just tell her to go pick out a box and she can entertain herself.  I make an effort to change out the sensory boxes occasionally but I do not do that as often as I should.    I will add photos and descriptions of my sensory boxes as we play with them over the next couple weeks.  I am always looking for great ideas for sensory/discovery boxes so please share links and ideas.

Okay when I say sensory box I usually do not mean "box" literally.  I use what ever I have handy that fits in the spot I plan to store it. 

The above "box" is currently my daughter's favorite and it is super cheap and easy.  Baking pan, pompoms, ice cream scope, measuring cup, teaspoon, spatula, large plastic spoon, and a watermelon baller.  Not pictured are two ice cube trays, one cube and one cylinders. 

I have seen her use every utensil to scoop up pompoms and pour them into the trays or back into the container.  I have seen her sort the pompoms based on size and color (without any prompting).  I have also seen her grab handfuls of pompoms and throw them in the air and giggle as they rained down around her. 

This photo is of the first day we did this activity.  I just grabbed the cup full of pipe cleaners from her art table and a plastic strainer that I had purchased from the Dollar Store.  Since then I have actually just stored a handful of pipe cleaners in the bowl of the strainer and now store it in the living room so she can pull it out when she wants.  Cheap and fun fine motor practice.  Plus it almost always becomes a fun hat sometime during the creation process.

This small plastic box holds a few pipe cleaners and a small plastic jars of pony beads.  I have tied a knot at the end of half of the pipe cleaners so that my daughter can thread the beads on without worrying about them staying.  The other half I left straight so that she has to use her own critical thinking skills to figure out ways to keep the beads from falling off.  I've seen her try a number of different things such as, holding the end with one hand and using the other hand to lace the beads, holding the end against the carpet, bending the end or shaping the pipe cleaner, I have even seen her run to the kitchen and grab a chip clip to place on the end.

This is one of the "boxes" I keep out of reach.  And I do so only because it can become really messy.

The photo is from the first time we did this activity and I have since made improvements.  Originally I stored two magnetic containers on a baking sheet.  The containers are full of tiny beads.  I loved that I could store the entire sensory box vertically on her bookshelf but I had to change that because the baking sheet did not do a good job of containing the beads during play.  My daughter is pretty good about not making messes (at least not intentionally) so I thought that the baking sheet would be a good enough container (I did place it on top of a dry erase board as you can see in the picture to help keep beads out of the carpet in case of a spill).

I am amazed by just how far these tiny beads can bounce even when poured out close to the tray.  My daughter gave me a "Oh O" look as we watched the beads bounce from the baking sheet to the dry erase board to the carpet.  Lesson learned!  Now the bead containers are stored in a shoe box and are played with in areas that do not have thick carpet.  Along with the beads, the show box has a small jar and a infant formula scoop so she can practice scooping and pouring.

This is our color sorting box.  I added four color flash cards to use as collecting spots and grabbed a bunch of small items around her room that matched the flash card colors.  Ideas for items- Crayons, Markers, Rocks, Pom Poms, Feathers, Magnets, Pipe Cleaners, Beads, Cookie Cutters, and Clothes Pins.

Dirt, Rocks, Plants, Fun

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Art Room

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Patio Art Room

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House Painting becomes Early Writing Activity

 

My husband brought home a large box and cut a door and windows in it.  After a few weeks my daughter asked if she could paint her house and of course I said yes.  I put down a drop cloth,  filled up an egg carton with six different colors of paint and I handed her an assortment of brushes.  She started out my painting a little bit of color on every side.  Then she started drawing lines.  She looked at me and said "Look mommy, I did H".  She went on to make an I and then a bunch of O's (Who doesn't want a house covered in O's?).  She was having so much fun painting her house that I was able to encourage her early writing attempts. Examples- "That's a nice O can you make a Q?" "That's a long line, can you make it look like a T?" 

 

After a while she got tired of painting letters and decided it was time to paint her hands and feet (none of my daughter's painting sessions are complete until she had managed to paint at least one body part).  After the house was dry (and she took a bath) I gave her a couple sheets of stickers to stick all over.  This was great for working her fine motor skills.

Recommended Videos and Television Shows

Television viewing for children can have negative effects, especially if it is not monitored my parents or the child spends hours in front of the television every day.  However, some programs and videos can be beneficial and educational.  The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry website has an article that provides ideas on how to create positive television viewing experience.  Here is a summary and the link.

1- Watch shows with your child.  Interact with the program accordingly and encourage your young child to do the same.  With older children discuss the story line, the conflict, how it was resolved, and what the characters learned.
2- Choose appropriate programs.  Just because a show is educational does not mean that it is developmentally appropriate for your child’s age group.  If the show is too advanced or too easy for you child than it does not count as developmentally appropriate.
3- Decide on a time limit.  Both parents need to come to an agreement on this time limit.  You can set limits such as 10 hours a week which allows for an hour of television viewing a day and still allows time for a family movie once a week.
4- Turn the television off during meals.  Meals should be treated as family time and used to discuss the days activities and reconnect with each other.
http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_watching_tv


Videos-

All of the Baby Einstein videos are good and the age recommendations listed on the front provide a good guide to follow when deciding what is developmental appropriate for your child.  They offer baby, toddler, and kid videos.  The baby and toddler videos focus mostly on entertaining objects or puppets with classical music.  The kid videos focus on a number of different topics from animals to musical instruments.  There is sure to be at least one of these videos that your child will love.


“The Your Baby Can Read!” series really captures the attention of a wide range of children.  I have seen 5 month old children all the way up to five year old children watch one of the videos.   My daughter loves these videos and watched them often (not the program recommended twice a day every day but fairly often).  Though I do not believe that my daughter would have learned to read solely by watching the videos I do think they have some benefits. First, my daughter loves watching them.  Second, she has a larger vocabulary than I suspect she would have had without viewing them.  Third, she has learned that not only does every object have a name but that name can be portrayed as a written word made up of letters.  And fourth, through out the videos are a number of fun songs that she loves to sing and listen too.  Some of the songs have hand motions that the she tries to follow along with.  So my two year old cannot read (big surprise) but overall I think she has gained so much joy and knowledge from these videos that I recommend them even though they have not done what they specifically advertised.


Great combo buy- Learning DVD Set from Leap Frog . 
~The Letter Factory is geared towards 3-6 year-olds and the other two are for slightly older kids who have already learned the name and sound of each letter.  Since my daughter loves letters and could already recognize all 26 letters I decided that this video would be developmentally appropriate for her even though she was not yet two when I purchased it.  As soon as it started introducing letters she started participating.  She would try and copy the sounds for each letter.  Within the first month I noticed her making some of the letter sounds as she played with her foam letters.
~Talking Word Factory teaches kids how to use phonics to spell words.  I waited till my daughter had completely mastered all her letter sounds (about 2 months) before moving on to this video.  She really enjoys it and it helps her understand that the letter sounds she knows form words.
~Let's Go To School teaches your child what they can expect at school.  It covers things such as recess, raising your hand, taking turns, and cleaning up while teaching counting, the calendar, animal families, and telling time.  My daughter likes to watch this one and then play school.

My daughter's favorite Leap Frog video currently (age 34 months) is Numbers Ahoy.  My daughter easily picked up letter recognition but was struggling with number recognition even though I tried to teach letters and numbers using the small playful games.  This movie had her recognizing numbers 1-10 within a couple times of viewing it.  I expect before long she will also recognize 11-20 which are also covered in this video.


Television Shows-

Super Why!  http://pbskids.org/superwhy/#   This show really promotes reading and helps develop early literacy skills.  Every episode includes practice saying the alphabet, finding rhyming words, sounding out and spelling a word, and changing a word in a sentence (and therefore the sentence) to change the outcome of the story.  I believe that this show (along with over letter games) is the reason that my daughter could recognize letters at the age of one.

Word World http://pbskids.org/wordworld/index_flash.html   I will admit that this is not my favorite show to watch but hey, it’s meant to entertain and educate toddlers and it does it’s job.  Even though this show is all about word formation the stories and themes are geared to a toddler audience.  Children are taught that the name of every object is made up of letters.  All the characters in the show are formed by the letters of their name, so the duck’s body is formed using the letters D-U-C-K.  This applies to all characters and to most inanimate objects in Word World (I cannot explain it any better.  It’s one of those things you just have to see for yourself).

Sesame Street http://www.sesamestreet.org/  Some parts of this show are really educational while others are just fun stories.  Sesame Street tries to hit on moral character topics and also on hot topics in society.  While each episode focuses on teaching children one number and letter I recommend this show for the older preschooler.  Even though the older child might already know their letters and numbers they will get more out of the show than younger children.  They will be able to understand the moral of the stories, be able to remember the longer and more in depth story lines, and they will still benefit from reviewing letters and numbers.  I have tried letting my daughter watch this show around the age of 30 months but it just did not hold her attention, the only parts she was really interested in were the theme songs for Abby’s Flying Fairy School and Elmos World. Now that she is almost three she does watch it for longer periods of time (usually when I have gotten busy and forgot to turn the TV off after her other show).  A couple weeks ago she did pick up the word of the day, which was humongous, and has been using it non-stop. Fun!

Reminder- Even though your children are watching educational shows that are developmentally appropriate for them you still need to monitor the amount of time in front of the television.  Children need to be active, especially young children who are still in the process of developing gross motor skills.

Name on the Wall

This is such an easy way to help your child start recognizing letters.

Spell out your child’s name in block letters on the wall near there changing table.  You can even paint their name directly on the wall (I recommend using capital letters).  After every diaper change hold your child up or let them stand on the table (with you holding them of course) so that they can point to the letters.
Point to each letter as you name it and then say their name.  Example J-A-N-E Jane.  They will quickly learn that those letters on the wall spell their name.

Your child will soon start pointing to the letters for you to spell out.  They love to mix it up and point to them out of order.  This is great because they are actually learning the letter name instead of just memorizing the letter order.  As they get more verbal they will start trying to say the letter name as each letter is pointed too.  Encourage them to spell their name in order and out of order.  Only say their name after it has been spelled correctly that way they learn that the order of letters are important in word formation.


How does this simple task help your child learn to recognize letters?

This simple fun game teaches your child that their name is made up of individual letters and that each letter has a name.  Your child will then be able to understand that every word is made up of letters and they will begin pointing out letters they recognize in different words.

Teaching them the letters in their name is easiest because they love learning about themselves.  Once they have learned the letters that make up their name you can encourage them to find those letters in other words.
After they have mastered their name letters you should start introducing more letters.  You can do this by putting a new word on the wall or playing some of the other letter recognition games.

Foam Bath Letters

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Reading Nook

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Hello!

Welcome to my new early childhood education blog, titled Learning At Play. I hope you find ideas that inspire you to incorporate play into your child’s educational lessons and education into your child’s playtime.

My BA degree is in psychology with an emphasis on child development.  I have spent the last eight years working with infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers. I have taken a number of early childhood education courses and have created and carried out lesson plans for classrooms of varies sizes and ages.  I am very interested in early childhood cognition, development, learning and language acquisition.

It will take me a while to get this blog organized the way I want and get blogs wrote for every topic I want to cover. Hopefully within the month I will have at least some basic information and helpful hints wrote for every learning category (categories will include topics such as; Letter Recognition, Numbers and Counting, and Educational Play Areas). Subscribe or check back often to see all the stuff I will be posting as I get Learning At Play up and running.

Also, I have allowed for comments at the end of every blog so please comment, expand on an idea, attach pertinent links, or add additional examples. Everyone has something to offer that the rest of us have not thought about, so share your playful teaching strategies.

 

 

 

This is my daughter. Throughout this blog you will see and hear much about her. I’m just a little bit in love with her!