Easy Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

Part I

Part II

A fun song we probably all remember from growing up, used to teach us movement and our body parts is Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.  Kids often enjoy this one with all of the movements and the gradual increase in tempo that is sometimes included. Adults...maybe not so much with all of the bending over.  Who is still that flexible?? The only issue with this version is that when teaching it to toddlers for the first time, or anyone with a speech/motor delay, it must be taught at a very slow tempo. 

When my oldest child was a toddler, we attended Library Story Time here at one of the public libraries. Our wonderful librarian, Yanira, taught us this song instead to the tune of Frere Jacque.  This version is wonderful because it focuses on only two body parts with one move with a repeat before moving on to the next two.  In the other version, four parts were introduced and the only part that was repeated was knees and toes. The tempo is also much slower in this new version.  Definitely works well for anyone who takes  more time to process speech.  

Our baby sure smiles when we sing to him.  At 4 months he seems to remember melodies which he shows by smiling big on the songs we do frequently.  When introducing a new song, he still smiles, but he looks as if he is doing more listening to process the new song. I did not realize the video was in two parts until posting so I have the song split up in to Part 1 and Part II. Hope many more can enjoy this one!

Game to Search for Sight Words

I made this cube last night for Zachary. I probably should have taken more time because as you can see it's not as sturdy as I would like. I came up with this because Zachary prefers to search for words in his books rather than sound them out and some of these words are not words we sound out such as "the". He likes the idea of playing a game while reading and he has a picture of the word he is looking for instead of me just telling him "look for i-n". Hopefully he will recognize the words more quickly as we play the cube game more often. 


An alphabet cube can also work for toddlers learning the ABCs.  I have some of those that I actually purchased at a teacher supply store.  Maybe these will work for others too!

Recognizing Words Through Labels

Family and friends who come to our house do not ever have a hard time finding their way around the kitchen.  Yes, it is indeed because of what you see in that picture.  Our house is labeled with words of all kinds.  

I know this is not a knew idea and is in fact it is a popular one among families with new readers and those hoping to learn another language!  Peggy Kaye is one person who recommends this idea in her book Games for Reading Playful Ways to Help Your Child Read.  

When we first put up our labels, our son was just turning 4.  He definitely noticed at first but a lot of the words were more complicated than the beginner words.  For a while it seemed that he had forgotten about them completely.  They had just become lovely decor.  He has, however, begun to realize that the beginning sound of the object matches the first letter of the words. He may also be recognizing the whole word itself and the object it's paired with or that some of the letters are often next to other particular letters even if he does not know what all of these words say.  

I've also been meaning to brush up on the French I had learned at one time and then help myself learn Spanish as well. We may have words covering most of our house but if it's stimulating all of our brains I'll take it.  :)

Summer

Books- Have not read all of them, but viewed summaries on the library website.

• Mama, Is it Summer Yet?- Nikki McClure
• Morgy's Musical Summer- Maggie Lewis
• Carl's Summer Vacation- Alexander Day
• Summer Beat- Betsy Franco (Two friends celebrate the sights and sounds of summer)
• Mouse's First Summer- Lauren Thompson
• Summer is Summer- Phillis and David Gershator- (Summer from a child's perspective)
• Four Friends in Summer- Tomie DePaola
• The Encyclopedia of Summer Olympics-David Fischer

Crafts

The link below has some fun and amazing summer crafts including a paper plate sun, popscicle matching game, ocean flower pot, watermelon craft, a homemade butterfly net and more.

http://www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/summer/

Baking

• Vanilla Pops (See below for recipe)
• Blueberry Yogurt Treats (see below)

Vanilla Pops- from Highlights High Five Magazine

1. One cup of milk

2. 6 oz container of vanilla yougurt

3. Tablespoon of honey

Blend ingrediants and pour into paper cups.

Freeze for 30 mins to an hour and then insert Popsicle stick.

Freeze until frozen!

Eat!

Blueberry Vanilla Treats

1. Break up graham cracker and pour in bottom of cup

2. Add vanilla yogurt

3. Place blueberries on top

House Labels for Reading

This is an idea from the book, Games For Reading: Playful Ways to Help Your Child Read by Peggy Kaye. This was a book my mom had in her study that she gave to me the last time we visited. Though it was published in 1984 the ideas are still great and very useful.

This is one of the more basic games in the book and a great one to start with. We're about to start labeling our kitchen!

Fishing to Read

Here's a new game we made to help learn and sound out the simple words. We start with a few that all end in the same letters (at, bat, rat, etc) and then add more! It's easy to make and is a fun way to learn.

We take turns fishing and if we identify all of the letters and sounds they make we get to keep the fish. As they learn you add rules, like identify sounds and put them together.

How to Make:

1. Draw a fish and cut out.

2. Stack several pieces of construction paper together and paper clip.

3. Trace fish onto top piece

4. Cut out tracing on all sheets at once

5. Write words on fish

6. Place a paper clip on each fish

7. Make a fishing pole with magnets on the end. (We got our little one at the dollar tree)

8. Go fishing!

Little REaD Wagon- San Antonio Libraries

A branch of the public library called Little REaD Wagon has been doing a Play and Learn series at the library we usually go to, the Guerra library, to encourage early literacy. These ladies travel around to different libraries throughout the year to do their series. We were not able to make all of them, but we did go 4 different Fridays.

The topics they offered were:

• What is early literacy?
• What is print awareness?
• What is letter knowledge?
• What is phonological awareness?
• What are narrative skills?
• What is print motivation?
• Why is vocabulary important?
• What other resources are available?

Each day we attended began with reading a book as a large group and then going off to play with the resources they brought. Some examples of activities are listed below. Most activities had books to read that were related.

1. A sound garden for phonological awareness- hanging pots, pans, and kitchen items on strings for the children to play on.

2. Music instrument exploration- for phonological awareness







3. Writing letters and putting them in a mail box (they did not have to know letters or have skills to write) for print motivation

4. Making play doh with a recipe for print motivation

5. Using tongs to pick up small items to practice fine motor skills for print motivation



6.. Finger painting for vocabulary

7. Planting a lima bean in a pot for vocabulary

8. Looking at pictures from magazines, etc on the wall with a magnifying glass for vocabulary

9. Playing with book character cut outs on a sticks while reading a book.

10. Digging for dinosaurs for vocabulary

11. Playing with baby dolls and learning to care for them for vocabulary

12. Making large bubbles





13. Puzzles



All of the activities were things that are easy to be done at home.

Other books and Activities

For a one week we didn't have a theme and another week we a few different books. We had fun with a variety of activities and spent time with our friends.

• Books we enjoyed- How Groundhog's Garden Grew by Lynn Cherry, Does an Elephant Take a Bath?, Maisy Books, Bearenstein Bears

• Crafts- Coloring, finger painting, play doh

• Music- Exploring instruments, piano melodies on piano, Shamu soundtrack, Playing guitar with Mommy

• Science- Oil and water, making colored water, catching crickets

• Activities- gardening, swimming, playing with Banana Grams letters

• Imagination- Playing restaurant, camping, castles, and driving in pretend cars.

• Baking/cooking- honey bread

Book Theme: Go Dog. Go! by PD Eastman

July 12-16

• Book- Go dog. Go! by PD Eastman
• Crafts- Paperbag puppet of a dog
• Music-instrument exploration
• Science- Mentos in diet coke
• Activities- Unrelated but fun- Riverwalk and Sea World

Other ideas- Make Puppy Chow!

Book Themes: Spot books by Eric Hill

July 4-9

• Books- Where is Spot? Spot Goes to the Beach, Spot's Farm
• Crafts- Spot puppet on a stick- painting, laminating, gluing
• Music- Instrument Exploration to background music
• Activities- http://www.funwithspot.com
• Science- Magnate search in cornmeal
• Baking- peanut butter playdoah
  

Circular Stories-Mouse Cookie Series

Mid March- April 2

Taught by Gramsie!

• Books- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If You Take a Mouse to the Movies-
  
• Crafts- Coloring Story Pictures
• Baking- Cookies with Blue Frosting
  
• Activities- Playing with new Baby Sister

Wise Stories

February 1-5

• The Little Engine that Could, Three Little Pigs, Peter Rabbit
• Crafts- Coloring Page- Little Engine, Putting together paper train, gluing sequins on brick house of third pig coloring page.
• Baking- Blackberry Pie (Peter Rabbit)
• Science- Elephant toothpaste (just for fun)

Three Little Pigs


Elephant Toothpaste