PSA- Go ASAP to Target's $1 section! They have tons of fun learning materials right now. I got alphabet stickers, letter, number, and color/shape flashcards, foam 3D shapes, and craft gems.
Here we used those alphabet stickers to work on her name. I wrote the letters in crayon and she matched the sticker letters to each one.
We also have been working on writing. Right now we are just focusing on pre-writing strokes lines down, up, and across. This is in preparation for us working on writing letters. Here she was practicing writing a line down...she was drawing the "string" for each balloon. You can see where I used a yellow highlighter for her to trace with her crayon.
In this picture she's just playing with the highlighter and extra letter stickers she put on the paper.
When we do start letters, we will use a program called Handwriting Without Tears. I used this in my classroom with great success and I think Campbell is almost ready to begin. I like the program because it is multi-sensory and teaches explicitly how to form each letter.
On that note, I wanted to mention that I think I will be changing how I plan Campbell's activities. Rather than doing literature- or theme=based units, I think we'll focus on Letters of the Week. I used to do this in my classroom for handwriting and I think I can incorporate it well into Campbell's activities. One of our readers suggested a website ( http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/) that uses this method and it has tons of free downloadable activities (or you can pay $10 for the whole set so you don't have to download each one). I have also found some other great blogs/websites that have free Letters of the Week activities that look great: http://lovemylifex4.blogspot.com/2009/08/alphabet-fun-letter.html
One big difference in the way I'm thinking of structuring it however, is that instead of going in ABC order, I will go in the order that the Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) program teaches capital letters. For example, rather than starting with the letter A, I will start with the letter F which is the first letter in HWT.
Another big change to Campbell's activities is that I'm beginning to plan to teach her some simple reading skills. She's done so well with learning her letters and numbers, that I think she'll pick up some simple sight words quickly. I have a membership to http://www.readinga-z.com/ which has a huge selection of simple leveled readers that I can print out. I'm excited about this, but realistic that she's only 2 and 1/2 and might not be ready, but I'd like to try...
Check back next week to hear more about these plans...
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