Tag: letters

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Free Activities Holiday Printables Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Valentine’s Day Matching Game – Free Printable

Valentine's Day, Valentines Day, Sight Word Practice, Matching Game, Free Printable

So this Valentine’s Day Matching Game idea first came to me when my son and I were working on his sight words. I remember playing sight words games with our now 12-year-old back when he was in Kindergarten, and the games just seemed to help him get it.

Somehow, it hadn’t crossed my mind to play games to learn sight words with my current kindergartner until now. The best part of this matching game printable that I created, however, is that I can use it for more than just a sight words matching game.

I plan to use it for matching uppercase and lowercase letters, matching numbers, and a few other learning games. The multiple game options also mean it will work for different age groups, depending on which game you decide to play with it.

Valentine's Day, Valentines Day, Sight Word Practice, Matching Game, Free Printable

Free Printable – Valentine’s Day Sight Word Practice Matching Game

Valentine's Day, Valentines Day, Sight Word Practice, Matching Game, Free Printable

Free Printable – Valentine’s Day Matching Game

Valentine's Day, Valentines Day, Sight Word Practice, Matching Game, Free Printable

How I Used Them

So I printed two copies for each kid. On one copy, I wrote the sight words, numbers, or letters (depending on which kid’s I was doing). The second copy was used for cutting.

Before I had the kids cut out the hearts on the second copy, I wrote the matches. Once they cut the hearts out, they were already ready to match them up.

You don’t have to do the second copy this way, however. Instead, you could cut hearts onto pink or red construction paper and then write the matching word, letter, or number onto the heart. I just wanted the kids to cut their own hearts, to be honest. Lazy mom moment.

Valentine's Day, Valentines Day, Sight Word Practice, Matching Game, Free Printable

Another Way to Play – Learn Sight Words Using Technology

I taught my son how to type his sight words into dictionary.com and listen to the word. If you don’t know how to do this, it’s simple! Type the word into the search box and then when the definition comes up, click on the megaphone icon and it’ll say the word out loud.

This allows your child to play the game on their own and still hear the words spoken aloud. It helps with letter recognition, spelling, and reading.

Don’t leave them to do it on their own every time, though. Kids still learn best through personal connection.

Valentine's Day, Valentines Day, Sight Word Practice, Matching Game, Free Printable

Final Thoughts on Valentine’s Day Matching Game

This game was so much fun and my kids learned so much while playing it! Would you use the sight word version of this Valentine’s Day matching game or would you use it for something different like learning letters or numbers? Tell me about it in the comments!

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Parenting Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Name Recognition Puzzle and Scissor Practice – DIY

My four-year-old is starting school soon and, while he can recognize his own name, he is still learning to put the letters of his name in the correct order. I want him to know how to write his own name before school starts but first, he needs to know what order the letters go in. This DIY Name Recognition Puzzle and Scissor Practice activity has been perfect for that.

Since this puzzle was so easy to make I made one for my two-year-old as well. If she can be further along than my four-year-old is right now, I will be so excited because we won’t have to cram the summer before four-year-old preschool starts.

The cutting practice involved in this activity is so good for both of them, too, so it was definitely worth the few minutes it took me to put the activity together.

This activity is so simple, it will only take a couple of minutes to prepare. Plus, it will keep your kids busy for a while.

DIY Name Recognition Puzzle and Scissor Practice

To start, I drew a “sun” shape onto a piece of yellow paper. It was *supposed* to be a sun, but it definitely didn’t turn out as round as a sun. My kids didn’t mind so I didn’t fix it LOL.

I cut the shape out myself and then wrote their name on it. I left space in between each letter so that I could draw lines and they could cut on the lines.

That was all the preparation I had to do… they did the rest!!

I gave my kids scissors and explained to them that they had to cut on the lines that I drew. Sylas (four-years-old) did it with no problem and Josie (two-years-old) just needed a little help with hers.

That was it! It is so simple. Sylas is already putting his whole puzzle together on his own and starting to recognize where the letters go in his name.

What name recognition activities have you done with your kids? Tell me about it in the comment, or even drop a link if you’ve written a blog post about it!

If you’re looking for even more name recognition ideas, check out my other post- Name Recognition with Caterpillar Letter Matching

 

Categories
Parenting Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning Toys

7 Ways to Play With a Pretend Kitchen for Dramatic Play

My kids have a pretend kitchen that they LOVED when it was new to them. They spent at least an hour every day playing with it. After a couple of weeks, they got kind of bored, though, and I found myself just picking up the play food and dishes off the floor after they were dumped out and not played with.

IMG_3980
This is the first day that we had the pretend kitchen… we hadn’t even gotten the food and dishes in it yet.

I contemplated getting rid of the entire playset but knew I would regret it as soon as it was gone.

The only option was to find ways to make it more fun and exciting for the kids so I began brainstorming some ways to play with it.

It worked! I taught the kids a couple of new ways to use the pretend kitchen playset and they fell in love with it all over again.

7 Ways to Play With a Pretend Kitchen

*this post contains affiliate links*

  1. Cooking/Following recipes
    I know that most toddlers can’t read but that doesn’t mean they can’t follow directions! Using pictures with just a few words is all they need, and usually, they can figure it out from there. They use the pictures as a guide and eventually, they may start recognizing the words that are included with the picture. Even if they can’t figure out what the recipe is calling for, they can still pretend to create a meal or a treat from a recipe. If they see you do it when you’re cooking real food, they’ll be so excited to be able to do it with their play food. You can create recipes using Canva (if you click the link it’ll take you right to their recipe card template!) or even just Microsoft Word. Keep it short and simple, and don’t forget the pictures! The recipes (I’ve only made 2) I created for them are not even close to as cool as some of the ones I’ve found on Pinterest so I definitely plan on stepping my game up there.Recipe Book by Emily at LaForce Be With You – link
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  2. Grocery shopping/Putting food away
    We don’t have a grocery store set up, but I just take small baskets and sort out some of the food that way and then they come through with their shopping carts and choose which food they would like to “buy”. We use play money for this.. we actually made it ourselves and it looks NOTHING like real money aside from the fact that it is green. You could use monopoly money or anything else you have. After they “buy” their food, they push the shopping cart “home” to the kitchen playset and begin putting it away. When I first had this idea I was worried they wouldn’t want to put it away but turns out they really like to do it! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because when I go grocery shopping they love to help put groceries away.
  3. Restaurant
    This one is their FAVORITE!! We use the play money, a tablet, and a pencil. I sit at the table and they come over to take my order. Then they go and prepare/cook whatever it is I ordered and serve it to me. It’s so much fun. I want to take this a step further and make a menu for them soon. There are a couple menus I’m considering.. the first one you can purchase (this isn’t an affiliate link, however) and the second one could be made at home. If you don’t feel like creating your own you can buy one for pretty cheap on Teachers Pay Teachers (pictured below).6f80c829b3cc3cb46ec0ddad52ef8300Created by Andrea Miller on Teachers Pay Teachers – link920e0ebb14fa0d8877f213a3bc127469Created by ObSEUSSed – Link
  4. Setting the table
    Josie really enjoys this one. I used paper and traced a toy plate, fork, spoon, knife, and cup onto 2 different pieces of paper. I also wrote the word out for what goes where because we are working on recognizing words. When the kids are setting the table they use the paper as a placemat and place everything where it belongs. We usually do it before we play restaurant.IMG_7652
  5. Washing dishes
    This one is fun because they love to “wash” dishes. I’ll admit, this is the one we do the least often because it usually results in them asking for real water in their kitchen playset. I let them do this sometimes. Other times I tell them to just pretend or to pick something new to play.
  6. Pizza shop
    I have a small tote where I store all of their “pizza” pieces. These pieces were all cut out on paper, but plan to re-do them on felt soon. I cut a circle on brown paper for the crust, small red circles for the pepperoni, and a bunch of small yellow pieces for the cheese. You could also include green peppers, mushrooms, ham, pineapple, etc.
  7. “House”
    I’m honestly just not sure what else to call this one… Josie likes to play mommy and feed her baby doll. She puts her baby’s highchair right next to the kitchen and cooks for her, then pretends to feed her the food.Sometimes she sneaks real food for her baby doll

Usually, throughout all of the “cooking” activities, they wear a chef hat and apron that I picked up at Dollar Tree.

You will definitely need play food to go along with the kitchen playset. The pretend kitchen comes with a little, but not enough. I have found the best deals on Amazon.


JaxoJoy 122-Piece Deluxe Pretend Play Food Set Beautiful Toy Food Assortment

This is the kitchen playset that we have. When you click the link below you’ll be able to see lots of other options, as well. There is literally a pretend kitchen for every budget!

Step2 Lifestyle Deluxe Kids Pretend Kitchen

I love watching them use their imagination and pretend to do real, everyday activities. It is such a good learning opportunity and if you play your cards right, they’ll be working on letter/word recognition, number recognition, and counting. They’ll get practice using writing utensils and speaking/asking questions. The possibilities are endless.

I did have to show my kids the first couple of times they did some of these activities. Now I’m usually able to leave them to it. They either do the activity I showed them or create an entirely new activity. I still play with them sometimes just to reinforce the learning opportunities involved.

If your child has a kitchen playset, what do they like to do with it? We’re always looking for new ideas!

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Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Magazine Letter Hunt

What’s better than an activity that involves letter recognition, cutting, and gluing? An activity that the kids LOVE and one that holds their attention for a while, right? What if I told you this activity does ALL OF THAT?

I’m serious.

I was inspired by Playful Learning in the Early Years. She did this activity on a poster-size scale and with each letter written out on one big piece of paper. The kids lined up their cut out letters next to the written letter.

My kids only know a handful of letters, though, so I thought writing them ALL out at once would overwhelm them. For this activity I wanted to work on letter H. No reason, really, it’s just one of the letters that they didn’t really know yet. I plan on doing this same activity with pretty much every letter of the alphabet at some point.

I took a single sheet of paper and wrote the letter H at the top of the page in both uppercase and lowercase. I handed the kids scissors, glue sticks, and a stack of magazines and asked them to find H’s, cut them out, and glue them to their paper. Sylas was able to do it all on his own and I worked with Josie on hers. Josie only wanted to do like, three H’s and then got distracted by pretty shoes and started cutting out the entire outfit. At least she focused on the letters for a little bit.

I guess this is also a good time to talk about when activities don’t go as planned. Josie literally covered up most of her letters with a giant picture of an actress’ outfit… THAT’S OKAY. She still took something from the activity.. we talked about and looked for the letter H, and she was able to pick some of them out herself. She also worked on fine motor concepts. Cutting, gluing, using her pinching fingers when needed, and also she made a little collage. She’s happy with what she created, she learned, she worked on other concepts, and she enjoyed herself. It’s totally okay if your child doesn’t do exactly what you had envisioned.

 

Next time I’ll probably cut the paper in half because the letters were small and didn’t cover much of the page anyway.

They really liked this one because they love cutting and gluing, and apparently they think it’s fun to cut up mommy’s magazines.

And a bonus – now they are BOTH recognizing H.

What are your favorite ways to teach letter recognition? I’m always looking for new ideas. 🙂

 

**Note – Sylas just turned 4 a couple days ago and Josie is 2.

 

Categories
Family Activities Our Family Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Name Recognition with Sidewalk Chalk

While we were outside playing today I wanted to do a learning activity with the toddlers. We hadn’t done much all day because Liam had a reaction to eggs and it threw our day off a little while we dealt with that.

The kids were using sidewalk chalk so I grabbed a couple pieces myself and wrote out the names of everyone in our immediate family. We’ve been working so hard on name and letter recognition so I wanted to reinforce what we have been learning.

I asked Sylas to find his name and he did immediately, then he noticed that my name has the same letter as his name. We talked about how he will see the letter ‘S’ in a few different names in our family so I asked him to show me every name that had a letter ‘S’ in it. He was able to identify them all!

Then he went and stood on Peyton’s name and actually told me that it was Peyton’s name! I hadn’t read any of them to him so I was a little surprised. I asked how he knew and he said, “It has his first letter!” He couldn’t remember that it was called ‘P’ so we worked on that a little, too.

We worked our way through all the names and the letters they have in common.

It was super effective and since we had never done it with sidewalk chalk before, he paid attention a little longer and seemed to pick up on more of the learning aspect.

Bonus, there is absolutely no clean-up required. 😉

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Friday Favorites

Friday Pinterest Favorites

It’s Fri-yay!! Time to take a look at some of my favorite pins from this past week.

 

Flying School by Life As Mama – I know Peyton and Sylas would have fun with this one. Peyton loves making things from paper, including paper airplanes. He experiments with different ways of making them, trying to figure out how to make them go straighter, faster, or stay in the air longer. Sylas likes to do pretty much whatever Peyton is doing, and has been trying his hand at creating things from paper. He hasn’t succeeded yet, but he sure does like to try. This would be a fun trial and error activity as well as a fun aiming activity. Me or Peyton could help Sylas make a paper airplane that actually works and he could join in on the fun, too. It’s supposed to be rainy all weekend here again so this might just be perfect to try out.

I-Spy Bottle by Because I Said So – How fun is this? It could definitely help curb boredom this summer and I think it could be something to use for a calm-down time. I could make a couple different ones to target my different age groups (toddlers and a 10-year-old). They could also do these together which would be pretty awesome. There are so many possibilities of things you could put in an I-Spy bottle.

Cut and Paste Letters by Playful Learning in the Early Years – I actually kind of love this. I’m all about letters and learning how they can be different sizes, upper case or lower case, and something be written a little differently. I love that this activity allows kids to visually experience how letters can look different, and I feel like it will help with quicker recognition. My littles love to use their scissors to cut things out, too, and we have a stack of magazines just waiting to be cut up.

Threading Station by Busy Toddler – I LOVE quiet time activities. Sylas only sometimes naps and he can get quite noisy even when he’s “trying” to be quiet. Josie sometimes wakes up before the others (when Sylas actually naps), and she also has trouble using her whisper voice or choosing quieter toys. This is perfect and, knowing my littles, this will keep them busy for hours. I can’t wait to set something like this up.

 

What are some of your favorite pins lately?! I’d love to see some links in the comments!

Categories
Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Name Recognition with Caterpillar Letter Matching

We work on letters and name recognition SO MUCH. When I was working full time and my kids were with a babysitter, I felt like they were falling behind and not learning quite so much anymore. That feeling had a lot to do with me quitting my job to stay home with them. We couldn’t afford a daycare, so the littles just went with whatever friend or family member was available that day. They were taken care of, don’t get me wrong, but they were not learning anything and that was a huge issue for me. (Let me just add that my friend Nikki did watch them sometimes and she worked on learning stuff with them, but she didn’t have them often enough to really enforce it).

So, since I’ve been off work, we’ve worked on letters quite a bit. Sylas is starting preschool in the fall and I want him to know how to write his name before he starts and I want him to be able to recognize letters.

That leads us to this – Name Recognition with Caterpillar Letter Matching.

I found two objects with different size circles to use to draw the circles, one only slightly bigger than the other. I used the smaller circle shaped object to trace on construction paper and then I cut out different colored paper for each letter of their names. The first time I cut out the construction paper, my circles were too big and wouldn’t fit on the piece of paper so I had to find a smaller circle and re-cut. I used a canned good from the play kitchen and it was a perfect size.

The bigger circle is for the caterpillars head, which I traced onto a full piece of paper. I didn’t need to cut construction paper for the head because there was nothing to match. Josie did insist, however, that I make a circle for her to put on the head. I didn’t, but I would if she was adamant. LOL.

So, once the construction paper is cut out and the caterpillars head is drawn on the page, I used the same toy canned good (the smaller of your two circles) to trace five more circles onto the full page, trying my best to make it look like a caterpillar. Finally, I wrote one letter of their name in each circle and did the same on the construction paper circles, and then I added a face to each caterpillar.

I made one for both older toddlers.

It was extremely easy to make and both Sylas and Josie loved it. I wondered how Josie would like it because it’s hit or miss with her, but she LOVED it. She didn’t even need help to match the letters in her name and she did it over and over again. We talked about the letters as she worked. She would say, “what letter this one mom?” in her teacher’s voice and then I would tell her what letter it is and vice versa.

When dinner was ready I told the kids we had to be done and Sylas asked if we could save it to do it again later so I put it in a gallon size Ziploc bag (I but these from the dollar tree because they are so handy. I store everything in them haha).

This activity could be used for numbers, shapes, other letters, etc. There really is no limit to what you can match up here.

What are some of your favorite name recognition activities? I’d love to hear about them!

Categories
Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Alphabet Bingo

My kids have been way into their Bingo games lately and it seemed like the only version we didn’t have is an Alphabet version. Well, I changed that this morning! I made one by hand. I probably could have easily created one to print out but it was just easier to freehand it. I wasn’t sure how well my kids would enjoy this but they LOVED it. Sylas especially. It was perfect for matching the letters and also working on recognizing them. We used cheerios at our bingo markers. A bunch of them were eaten by Josie but that’s okay.

   

So to make this game, I cut squares out of orange paper. You can use any color you want, of course. Then I used a pencil to draw lines, creating 16 boxes. Four vertical lines and four horizontal. When I was content with my lines (they’re still not perfect but that’s okay), I drew over them with a black marker. In the boxes, I wrote letters. I made two boards and I made sure to get all 26 letters somewhere on the two of them, then I filled in the extra boxes with letters that weren’t on that board yet.

Then I cut out 26 small pieces of paper and wrote one letter on each piece of paper. I put these pieces into a small bowl and began pulling slips of paper from the bowl. I read the letter aloud and asked if either of the kids had that letter. Sylas was able to recognize quite a few letters without having to match my piece of paper to the letters on his board, and Josie was able to identify ‘A’ and ‘J’ without matching. For the letters they didn’t know, I sat my piece of paper with the letter on it in between their boards and let them match it up.

This is seriously my new favorite way to learn letters. I really feel like it’s going to help them learn, and they have a lot of fun playing. I didn’t want to reward them with candy or anything like that so I just excitedly announced the winner and that was enough for them. Then I let them eat their cheerios.

Tell me about some learning games you’ve created for your littles!

Categories
Friday Favorites

Friday Pinterest Favorites

I am absolutely in love with this idea and every bit of it is inexpensive. Looking at the picture, I wasn’t sure what she used to make the lily pads and I worried about that part but reading her post answered all of my questions. The supplies are already on my shopping list for this weekend. I’m excited and I know Peyton, Sylas, and JoJo will be, too.

This shirt is so perfect. It’s cute, true, and right up my alley. Adding it to my Mother’s Day wish list. 😉

 

How cool is this? So easy, very little prep, and hardly any cleanup. No clean up at all if your kids take care of it all. 😉 We are working on letters like crazy lately so I’m always looking for new ideas. I plan on doing this on our sliding back door while I prepare and cook dinner tonight. I think it would also work for practicing name recognition and numbers, too.

I’m all about cute outfits, I just can’t put them together myself. I’m not even kidding. I used to be fashionable – before babies. Now I’m so far out of the loop that I don’t even know what’s in style or what looks good together. I either have to take Nevaeh shopping with me or I have to have Pinterest open while I shop. I am good at using Pinterest to guide me in the right direction at TJ Max. 😉 What do you all think of this outfit?

That’s it for today!! Share some of your favorite pins with me in the comments!

Categories
Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Play Dough Letters

If your kids are anything like my kids, they will love this method of learning to write letters. With two kids in the house who are learning letters, I am always looking for new ways to teach them. Pencil and paper do the trick, but I want them to be inspired by new ways, as well. My kids love play dough so incorporating play dough and letters seemed like the perfect way to further their learning.

We did it a couple of different ways. First, I had them roll their play dough flat and then gave them tools to “write” with. I put out flashcards with letters on them, as well, so the kids could copy what they see and I worked with my own dough while they worked so that they could see the way I did it. I always find that they learn best when they can see it being done and do it at the same time. I wasn’t sure if the flashcards would help but Sylas actually referenced them while he was working. We worked on letters S (for Sylas), J (for Josie), and A.

The second way we used play dough to learn letters was by forming the letters with playdough. I taught them to rip a piece of the dough off, roll it in their hands until it’s long like a snake, and then form it into the letter they want to make.

They wanted to make shapes this way, as well. It could work for any learning concept!

They really loved making letters with play dough and asked if we can do it again tomorrow. I’m completely okay with that because it’s easy to clean up and there are not many materials involved.

For older kids, this would be a good way to practice sight words and spelling words.

What are some of the ways you teach your kids to make their letters?