5 minute sparklers
Rhyming is an important component to learning to read, specifically phonological awareness ( or the knowledge of sounds letters in words make) and it’s also really fun! This game is designed to work with word families , working on reading ( decoding unfamiliar words) and rhyming. For children not yet at this level of learning to read this game can be adapted using pictures. That way they can still group and sort by rhyme without the frustration of trying to decode words they are not able to yet.
- Gather your materials. You will need some baby food jars or other containers, popsicle sticks, masking tape and markers.
- I started by writing the words to match to on the tape. I find it easiest to put the tape on the table , write then rip it off.
You may want to use painters tape like I did if you do it this way. If all you have is regular old masking tape , write it on the roll, then rip off. Add it to your jar. 
- Now write the words on the sticks. I started by doing it right onto the stick, and it ran weird. Learning to read is hard enough let’s not make it harder with weird writing… so instead…
- I wrote it on more tape and wrapped it on the end of a stick.
I wrote some words starting with uppercase and some with lowercase. I did this deliberately because my son was asking if they make different sounds. I put them both in to show him that the word still sounds the same. - Time to play. Games and activities like this should be marketed to your kids as that , play. If these tasks aren’t fun try to find some way to make it fun or find other tasks they like and adapt. When learning is attached to play , the lessons stick and learning is fun not a daunting task.
- Encourage them to say the words out loud to match up the sounds. Here he is saying the words out loud to see if they rhyme… these did not.
- Keep sounding them out and matching them up.
- Soon he could hear and see the patterns , which was super cool.
Even if your child iosn’t ready for this activity, take time to be silly and talk in rhyme with them and read books with rhyming texts. It’s such a fun part of language !
Books That Rhyme
How Big Is a Pig?
Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs! 
My Truck is Stuck!
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin 
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This week I dove into Pinterest full on. I love the ideas that are out there and for creative bloggers it’s this fine balance between getting inspired and feeling like everyone else has all the best ideas. After brushing myself off, telling myself not to act like my children I dove back in and fell in love. All of this is to explain that I got this idea from a pin – after seeing these great labyrinths from bloesem kids I thought how can I make it so it encourages writing but is low on the frustration meter. This is what we did.
- Gather your materials. You will need a CD case, some plain paper, markers, scissors and dry erase markers.
- Start by taking the liner out of the cd case and tracing it to make your own liners – we made 4 by folding and layering the paper before cutting.
- Next make the mazes. Ok so you could totally print some off the internet too and I encourage you to do this because man making mazes isn’t super easy, but maybe I am just maze challenged.
- Pop them all in a stack and into your case facing the back . Now your child can do a few at a time or all in one sitting.
- Add your kid and dry erase – mistakes are no biggie and look , writing practice!
If you make a mistake , just wipe and try again! 
You really should check out bloesem kids they have some magnificent ideas.
We live outside Seattle and even for us this spring has been rainy. This activity is a perfect example of simple being wonderful. As soon as I told my son about my idea he was eager to start, so this wasn’t our most polished project, but trust me we had a ball. I don’t know about the kids in your house but in ours we need to work up a sweat inside or out to ensure a smooth bedtime and great sleep. So rain or shine we need to move our bodies!
- Gather your materials – all you need are some card stock ( index cards would be awesome) , a marker, and scissors if you need to cut the card stock.
- Write out different actions, exercises, and physical feats twice.
- Cut and make two piles.
- To play you need two players ( I played as well- trust me you don’t need to see me do karate kicks in my Pjs…not a pretty sight). Each player gets a pile. The premise is simple both players put their pile of cards face down, count out loud to 3 and flip .
- Then do the action on the card.
- Keep flipping and moving!
- Exercise will make you strong!
Book
Like all the books this week this one Strong Stickfiggy is one of the ebooks available on the free MeMeTales’ Mobile Reader App . We read it on my iPod , under the covers pretending it was the Batcave ( do not tell me that shocks you…). You don’t have to read it in a Batcave or even at home , you can read it anywhere which is my favorite part of this app.
Add Your Activity
Do you have a game, sport or dancing activity that gets your kids moving? Add your link here :
When I saw this post by Jenae over at I Can Teach My Child ( who will be a guest poster tomorrow so don’t miss it! ) my head was running with ideas on how to make something similar. I would be lying if I told you it was easy, maybe it would have been with no kids but I had an infant in my arms while taking every picture and a 4 year old helper wanting to “help”. However the results were pretty cool and it’s a great book to take to church or somewhere else that talking in that not so quiet but really trying to voice. It’s been tested out by a handful of friends already and was quite the hit at a playdate last week. So the effort was worth it. Here is how we made it.
- Gather your materials. This is a long list so take notes! I gathered a bunch of categories of my son’s toys. You can use anything for the pictures but I went with themes because it was easy to just grab bins from his room and the family room. You will also need some back drops. I chose plain jane construction paper, you will need some foam letters and a camera. A good camera would be better but my point and shoot was ok. Once the pictures are developed ( or printed out) you will need some self laminating pages, a hole punch, and some binder rings.
- Start by using the foam letters to write Can You Find and take a picture. This will be the cover page.
- Next do the first lay out. Lay the toys you are looking for on the page.
I laid out the whole search page first then picked a few out to lay on the can you find page.
Take a picture. - Replace the objects you used and take a picture of the full lay out.
- Repeat this is a bunch of different toys. I always used the same black paper with ” Can You Find ” in foam letters for the search page. It made the process quicker.
- I took this picture for the back cover.
- Have the pictures developed or print them out on your printer.
- Time to laminate.
Now in my dream house I have a craft room with awesome natural light and a laminator. But in reality I have my kitchen and these cool laminator envelopes that are sorta tricky but they laminate so clearly without a machine that they are worth it. I had a few bubbles but nothing too bad. Remember to laminate in order so 2 pictures front and back to each page. - Punch holes.
- Pop the rings through and you are done! I like using the rings because I have plenty of room to add more pages.
- Time to find things!
More Eye-Spy Crafts
My son has been asking how to spell words for a while, he knows his letter sounds and while I am not planning on formally teaching him to read yet I do want to keep him interested and learning , as well as offering some challenge . This activity evolved as we played and is easy to adapt to various abilities. You could even skip spelling as use it as a match game for younger children!
- Gather your materials. You will need a cardboard puzzle ours was from trick or treating , and markers in various colors. If you are doing this with school age or more proficient readers you can use one color, but for beginners or children needing less challenge the single color per word will help the process.
- Start by putting the puzzle together.
- Next divide it into smaller pieces for the words.
- Using one color per word , write the word one letter per piece on the back of the puzzle. Out of habit Icapitalized two of the words. When we put those together we talked about Uppercase letters and when we use them.
- Now to play! The way we did it for my son was to pick out all the letters in one color and place them on the tray.
- Next we tried to decide which letter came first. This frustrated my son, it was too much of a challenge. So I found the first letter and he was golden from there.
- Once the pieces are all together he sounded it out without prompting .
- This is when he figured it out!
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