Early Literacy: Sight Words

I recently noticed that the number of words Eva is able to recognize and spell has been increasing.  For a while she knew her name and ours and that was about it (besides boo which she has hung onto since Halloween).  Now she is noticing more words in the environment and starting to hold on to them.

While she can read and spell them, she does not know how to write them yet.  (The only word I've actually taught her how to write is "love" so that she could sign birthday cards for family members.)  The other day I sat down with her and wrote down the words she can both read and spell to make a chart to help her learn to write those words.

I hung it from one of our window shades and left some sentence strips and markers for her to use to write when the mood strikes her.  She grabs the word she wants to write and sets it above her sentence strip for a reference.

I love finding her "writings" and knowing that she has embraced this and done it on her own.

Some other things we do with her little word wall are:

• use a pointer to point and read the words
• I say a word and Eva points to it
• take the words out and spread them on the table then Eva closes her eyes and I hide a sticker under one of the words; she then has to read a word and then look under it to try and find the prize
• trace the words with her finger
• take a word and make it with magnetic letters
• take a word and stamp it with alphabet stamps

As she learns new words I'll remove some of the really well known ones and put the new ones in their place.  

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving week!  We don't have a ton planned for this week but we have lots to be thankful for.

Crafts
Placemat- we are heading to Eva's aunt and uncle's for Thanksgiving dinner so we will make a placemat to help keep their table clean

Thankful Chain- we'll decorate the lounge with links listing all the things we are thankful for

Napkin Rings- toilet paper rolls will become fashionable table accents for our feast

Pumpkin Pie- we'll transform a paper plate into a scrumptious smelling pie craft

Activities
Beast Feast- we won't be the only ones grateful for food this Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Lunch- we'll have our own little celebration with traditional Thanksgiving foods

Hide the Turkeys- this game has been so popular we are carrying it over into this week

Thanksgiving Book- we wrote a Thanksgiving story based on Brown Bear, Brown Bear What So You See that we will be coloring and reading throughout the week

Books
            

Harvest Name Puzzles

I found these fall cut outs at the dollar store and decided to make name puzzles with them.  There were five of each shape so now Eva has a Mommy puzzle,

a Daddy puzzle,

and an Eva puzzle.

We also made a scarecrow out of a toilet paper tube, some scrap paper, a craft stick, a cupcake holder and two clothespins.

Halloween Games

I've added some Halloween games to our exploration station.  The first is a simple counting game using little pumpkin buckets and lima bean ghosts (similar to the dalmatians here- thanks for the idea Kathy!).  We are working on counting larger numbers so I labeled the buckets 10-15 and Eva had to count out the correct number of ghosts to go in each.

I thought it was neat that she counted them out on the floor first before placing them in the buckets.  It definitely made it easier to recount if she lost track.

I love how the ghosts look peeking out!

I also whipped up a quick Halloween matching game by placing stickers on squares of cardstock.  We play memory with the pictures facing up but I think Eva may be ready for the trickier version soon.

We have a similar game that came in our October issue of High Five that we can also play.

The sensory tub has gotten a little spookier

and the pompoms have been replaced with spiders in the tonging activity.

There is also a bowl of Halloween finger puppets and rings for Eva to explore (or stick all over Mommy)

and another counting activity using number cards and mini erasers from the dollar bins at Target.

The pumpkin pie play dough is still getting lots of use along with a collection of Halloween cookie cutters.

Finally we made a spider web using yarn and a paper plate.

I made a little die for Eva to roll to see how many spiders to place on the web.

I think we have enough to keep us occupied until the big day arrives!