F is for...Fishy Alphabet Match Game

Cristi from Through the Calm and Through the Storm and Meg from Adventures with Jude are hosting this great weekly party called Blogging Through the Alphabet. All are welcome to join in, just make sure to keep your posts family-friendly. I am determined to stay faithful this time around. I might not always post on the same day of the week, but I have every intention to post something each week.

Here is how I decided my "theme" for this round of Blogging Through the Alphabet. As I was going through old blog posts recently, I noticed I have some neat ideas for activities and crafts that I did with in the past. Unfortunately, I always included them in my weekly wrap up posts or more recently in Poppins Book Nook posts, so they sort of got buried. I can't really share them as individual activities or create pinnable images to promote them and share my ideas, which is why I started this blog in the first place (to share my ideas with others who work with children). So, I am going to make new posts for these ideas.

I have found there is a huge benefit in this strategy. I am remembering  ideas that I had forgotten, which means I can now do these activities with the younger children. I will be sharing the old pictures and possibly sharing new pictures of the younger children participating. In fact, this is the second week where I wasn't sure what I was going to post about, and through searching my blog I found activities I had completely forgotten about.

Several years ago, when we were on the letter F, it was also Dr. Seuss's birthday, so we read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish. I decided to make a kind of fishing game, though it is fishing in reverse. 

F is for. . . Fishy Alphabet Match Game

That probably doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? Here, let me explain. The girls were told that the fish had all jumped out of the pond and they had to flip them over, make the match, and put them back in the pond to save them.

I found a fish image I liked on Google images and printed out enough for each letter of the alphabet. I then wrote the capital letters on them. 

The next step was to make the pond. I printed out 4 sheets of fish on blue construction paper, making sure there were 26 fish. Then I taped them together, folded them up, and cut out the curve on the corner. The lower case letters were written in random order.  

 The magnets on the back of the fish are really optional. The girls like the idea of going fishing, even if it was in reverse, so I put some magnets on them and we used a safety pin on yarn. I had used magnetic strip, which if I remember right, didn't work very well. 

It was a fun way for the girls to practice matching upper and lower case letters. As a bonus, it was quite easy to put together.  

Toddler Ideas Tuesday: January 13, 2015

Welcome back to Toddler Idea Tuesdays! I hope you will join with me again in sharing the fun activities, crafts, and lessons that you are doing with your young children. 

We have been working on some letter review. This is an activity I did with the older girls a few years go when we were doing Letter of the Week. I love making these tactile letters. This time we used the letter papers I printed out from ABC Twiggles, a fun preschool site I reviewed this past summer as a part of my Back to School/5 Year Blogiversary Celebration. In the past, I have just printed out letter templates to do this activity.

I try to find objects that start with the letter the children are making. So, for A, they glued on apple seeds and for B they glued on beans. I hold the glue and they hold my hand while we form the letter out of glue in between the lines of the letter. Then they glue on the little objects. Not only do they learn the shape of the letter, they are developing fine motor control.

We didn't quite have enough apple seeds for each of the children to do the upper case and lower case A's.

Now onto:

Toddler Idea Tuesday Features

On my last Toddler Idea Tuesday post, there were 2 wonderful posts linked up. I will be featuring both of them this week. 

The First Featured Post:

Kayla from Wild Berry Trail shared Literacy Connections: The Very Busy Spider Web Making.

The Second Featured Post:

Jen from Chestnut Grove Academy shared her Volcano Workbox Activities post.

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your toddlers and preschoolers? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on my Toddler Ideas board and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up. Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our toddler time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your toddler, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Sunday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

<a href="http://totsandme.blogspot.com/search/label/Toddler%20Ideas "><img alt="Tots and Me" src="http://i597.photobucket.com/albums/tt58/kewkewphoto/ToddlerIdeaTuesdays2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a>

Alphabet Scavenger Hunt

Once again we were having a good old time, this time playing at the park on the "new" swing set they recently put in, when a fun activity started spontaneously.  I noticed that the support structure of the swings made an "A" and showed it to Tabitha (Amelia wasn't really interested).  Tabitha couldn't see it at first, so I took a picture.  Thus started our Alphabet Scavenger Hunt, which spanned two days of walking around town.  Unfortunately, by the time we began our trek around town the first day it was already getting too dark to take decent pictures, so we went back out a couple of days later to complete our hunt.

A

 

Steven found this B in the branches

C

D

E

F

G

(Can you find the G?) 

 (Start at about 2 o'clock and follow

the tire counter-clock wise until you hit the red bar which 

becomes the horizontal line of the G)

H

I

J

Could not find K, we are still on the look out

Edit August 7th:

I was informed that I have indeed discovered a K

I just didn't know it.  Thanks to whoever it was that noticed the K:

L

Hubby found this M

Nope, couldn't find N either

O

P

Q

No R either

I was really upset that I didn't have my camera at the ready during the walk.

I figured everything we would find would be inanimate, giving me time to grab the camera.

I was wrong.

Tabitha saw a snake slithering along the side of the road.  By the time I saw it and thought about my camera, it was in the grass and out of sight.  Would have made a great S.

T

This U is our kitchen door window, upside down

V

Had to have the second one.  Tabitha picked the flowers and then noticed it was a V 

(actually could work for Y too, but the way she was holding the stem she only saw the V)

 

W

 

X

I had a different one picked out but Tabitha spotted this one

Y

 

No Z.

This was inspired by a book I've had for a while called Alphabet City by Stephen T. Johnson.

Here is the review I found on Amazon for this book.  I love this book and need to share it with the girls, but I haven't had a chance yet.

This wordless ABC, a Caldecott Honor book illustrated with photo-realistic still lifes, "transcends the genre by demanding close inspection of not just letters, but the world," said PW in a starred review. All ages

From School Library Journal

Grade 1 Up?Beginning with the A formed by a construction site's sawhorse and ending with the Z found in the angle of a fire escape, Johnson draws viewers' eyes to tiny details within everyday objects to find letters. In this wordless tour of sights from Times Square to the Brooklyn Bridge, he invites young and old alike to take a new look at familiar surroundings, discovering the alphabet without ever looking in a book or reading from a sign. Conceived in the tradition of Ann Jonas's work, especially The Thirteenth Clue (Greenwillow, 1992), Johnson's pastel, watercolor, gouache, and charcoal paintings are much more realistic than his illustrations for The Samurai's Daughter (Dial, 1992); in fact, they are almost photographic in appearance. Some of the images are both clever and incredibly clear, e.g., the E found in the sideways view of a traffic light. Others, such as the C in the rose window of a Gothic church, are more obscure. Nevertheless, all of the paintings are beautifully executed and exhibit a true sense of artistic vision. While parents or teachers might assume from the title that this is a traditional alphabet book, they should be encouraged to look at it as an art book. It's sure to inspire older children to venture out on their own walks to discover the alphabet in the familiar objects of their own hometowns.?Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition

Linking up to

 

 and

Reading and Reading Readiness Accomplishments

Well Tabitha is finally ready for the Progressive Phonics books.  The last time I tried to work with her on them we both got frustrated.  Today I pulled them out, figuring she has been sounding out 3 letter and some 4 letter words lately, so she should be able to read along with me.  In one sitting we zinged through the 6 pages of "at" word stories.  She wanted to keep going after each page, even though the baby was crying and I had to keep putting it aside.  She is so proud of herself when she realizes she recognizes the word she just sounded out.
As I was sitting here contemplating this (at three o'clock am) I came up with a little word recognition activity that I am going to try tomorrow (okay, today).  I wrote one "at" word per index card and put the pile in an envelope marked "at words."  The envelope is taped next to our Letter of the Week poster.  I was thinking of having her read them daily and I would put a sticker or smiley face or something on the back of the card each day.  Will post how it goes later on in the week, probably with our weekly post, unless I decide to get around to my reading pointers post.
Also wanted to share that Amelia knows most of her letters and sounds.  She had dropped the letter papers I had made to go with the gel tracing activity I posted about with the Y lessons.  As she picked them up she excitedly stated each one's name and sometimes the sound when she brought it over to the table to pile them back up.  So she is definitely catching on.
I am so proud of them both for these accomplishments.