“Again, please!” says Peanut. “You want me to read Swimmy again?” I ask. “Yes, I like this book,” says Peanut. After about 5 times through, I’m kind of bored of Swimmy, although it is a fantastic book. I suck it up and start reading again. This time, I pause as I read, leaving space for Peanut to fill in the words, just testing to see how much he remembers. We’ve begun story retelling! Continue reading “How and Why to Teach Story Retelling to Your Child”
Tag: preschool activities
Dropper Painting: A FUN Preschool Activity
What’s more fun than painting? Dropper painting. If your little one has already become a pro at using a paintbrush, why not add in another interesting element? There are many ways to paint, and one that we just discovered at our house is dropper painting.
Most mothers with young children have accrued a fairly large quantity of medicine droppers. We have loads! So, I thought rather than tossing them, we’d have fun painting with them. Below is everything you need to know about dropper painting:
Materials
- Droppers, one for each color of paint
- Tempera paints
- Old containers, I used yogurt cups
- Paper, I recommend using a fairly sturdy option – ours was too thin and got a bit wrinkled when it dried!
For each color, mix a tiny little bit of water with the paint so it’s slightly more runny than usual. This makes it easier to draw it up into the dropper.
Teach It!
As a Montessorian, I always teach by example. I showed my little peanut how to get paint with the dropper and drip it onto the page. After one demonstration, he was off and running! The only tricky part seemed to be getting the paint into the dropper. So, I reinforced by telling him to “squeeze” and “let go” with the dropper still in the paint.
What Benefits Are Gained with Dropper Painting?
- Your child will develop his or her pincer grip
- Your child can learn about color mixing
- Your child will enjoy expressing themselves artistically
Pincer what? The pincer grip is the grip we use to hold a pen or pencil. Young children must develop their fine motor skills to be able to execute this grip. Any activities that practice this grip (using the pointer finger, middle finger and thumb) help strengthen your child’s muscles, preparing them to have more control as they begin writing and drawing.
My little peanut used yellow and blue. Towards the end of the activity, he began experimenting with mixing. Now, we’ve done this before, so I got comments like “Lets see what color it makes when we mix blue and yellow!” and then “Look, Mama it’s green!” Children almost always enjoy color mixing I find!
So, what are you waiting for? Get out those old medicine droppers, some paint and make some art!
Here’s my peanut having fun with this activity:
How to Teach Your Child the ABCs and a FREE ABC Book
My little peanut has shown quite a bit of interest in learning his letters at the age of 3 and a half. We’ve pursued his interest by using Nell, which is actually a great app for little ones. I helped create the Montessori based curriculum that the app uses. With this app, Peanut learned the letters in his name and a few others.
We haven’t been very regular about practicing, and I’ve been working more lately so there’s been less time to focus on activities with him. When we do spend time together that doesn’t involve eating, doing chores or going to bed, we usually read books or do a craft.
But, that’s changing because we’re setting aside at least 10 minutes each day to work on his ABC book. What’s an ABC book?
Basically, it’s a book with one page for each letter of the alphabet. On each page, your child can practice tracing the letter. There’s also space for cut-outs or drawings of words that begin with that letter sound.
You can see below I helped peanut draw a monkey and he drew a very faint moon, the circle on the right-hand side of the page. Here you can see he’s starting to trace the “m”s. Yes, he’s a lefty! And that pincer grip is looking pretty good I must say. Go peanut!
Here are some of the important things to know when working on an alphabet book:
Use Phonics
Children learn letters most easily by teaching phonetic sounds. That means instead of teaching letter names like “A” as in play, letter sounds are taught. So the “a” would be taught “aaaa” as in apple.
Each time you get out a new page, look at the letter together. Say the sound. Ask your child to repeat the sound. Then, get started thinking of words that begin with that sound and draw together or look for pictures in a magazine to cut out.
Take Your Time
Don’t expect your little one to learn a new letter every day. You should mix in other letter activities to reinforce each letter. We enjoy drawing with sidewalk chalk, using cardboard letters and using the app, Nell, to practice. There are so many ways to practice! I’ll be posting some more ideas soon.
What Order?
The Montessori curriculum recommends teaching in an order that helps children notice differences between letters. In the traditional alphabet, the letters “b” and “d” are very close together. Also, children aren’t able to form words quickly using this order.
So, I recommend teaching in this order:
a, s, m, e, t, c, o, p, u, d, f, j, g, l, b, i, n, w, r, h, y, q, z, k, v, x
This way, children can quickly form words such as “sam, sat, met, set, mat, cat” within learning 5 or 6 letters. That’s great!
**Note** The book I’ve included goes in alphabetical order, so feel free to print out and mix them up according to the order you prefer.
Some people also choose to begin by teaching a child the letters in their name.
What Font?
I chose basic print for our book. Also notice that I’ve only focused on lowercase. In the Montessori curriculum, children learn lowercase first because the majority of what we read is written with lowercase letters. Learning lowercase is the most efficient way to start to read.
Get Your FREE ABC Book
I made a quick and easy abc book using a great worksheet creator. For our book, I included lots of animals because that’s what peanut likes the best! For other children, consider making changes to tailor to their interests. For example, change the “tiger” to “truck” or “tree”. Just be careful with the vowels because pronunciation of these letters is very important. For example, the letter “i” needs to be the sound you hear when saying “igloo” not “ice”. After learning phonics, kids pick up reading pretty quickly!
Get your FREE copy of our ABC book here!
Happy learning!