ABC Adventures – Letter M Printables

I am slowly preparing for our ABC Adventure. I have decided to begin with the Letter M. The reason why I chose this letter is because when Connor sees any word beginning with the letter m, he says mum. He says other words for other letters and it seems to me that he has already made the association between letters and words. I hope that by beginning with this letter, he will not get confused.

 

Below are the letter m printables that I have created. Click on the image to download the printable.

 

 

Letter M Poster

Letter M Word Poster

Letter M Writing Practice for older children.

Letter M Monkey Colours

Letter M Monkey Puzzle

Letter M Monkey Size Sorting

 

Letter M Word Flashcards.

I am going to use these with magnetic letters.

Letter M Memory Cards

Letter M Mouse Number Sequencing

Uppercase and Lowercase Matching Printables

Jolanthe from Homeschool Creations has created these wonderful uppercase and lowercase matching printables. I will definitely be using these during our Alphabet Adventures. Thanks Jolanthe!  

Season’s Greetings

ABC Adventures

Early experiences with letters of the alphabet are an important step toward reading. The most important rule to remember when teaching young children the alphabet is to make sure that learning is fun. If you can provide lessons that use the five senses, and integrate games, crafts, food, or songs then your child will be a willing and enthusiastic participant. The idea is to make the letters of the alphabet come alive for your child.

At the beginning of next year, Connor and I are going to embark on our journey to learn the alphabet. To be honest, I have been looking forward to this for quite some time and am excited that my child is going to take his first steps towards becoming a reader.

If you have a child and are teaching them the letters of the alphabet, join in the fun and share your ABC Adventures. Don't forget to include information about your arts and crafts, learning centres, games, recipes, songs and rhymes, and books read. By sharing our activities and experiences we can then pick and choose what we think will work for our children.

Here is some more information and guidelines for ABC Adventures:

1. ABC Adventures is open to anyone with a blog that wants to join us by linking up to their current weekly letter activities.
2. In order to make browsing as easy as possible, please link to your individual ABC Adventures post instead of to your home page.
3. When you add your link please include the name of your blog and the letter of the alphabet that you learned about during the past week. For example, United Teaching (Letter A).
4. Although you are not required to use the ABC Adventures image you are more than welcome to do so by right clicking on the image, saving to your hard drive and uploading to your post the same way you would a picture. Please do not create a banner of your own.
5. Please mention ABC Adventures in your post and link back to my weekly ABC Adventures post here at United Teaching.
6. The first ABC Adventure will be posted on Saturday 9th of January 2010. Following this, an ABC Adventures post will be added on a weekly basis every Saturday evening.

ABC Adventures Images

Image for the beginning of an ABC Adventures post.

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ABC Adventures Image with border to include in your blog’s sidebar.

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Introducing Scissors the Montessori Way

Cutting is a basic activity that requires control and fine motor coordination. It’s importance lies in the fact that many other skills and activities are built upon this activity. The standard approach to introducing cutting is as follows:

Place a pair of scissors and cardstock on a tray.

When demonstrating the activity to the child for the first time, assist the child by fitting the thumb and fingers into the scissors handle and holding the scissors in a vertical position.

Have the child practice opening and closing the blades.

As the child opens and closes the blades, hold a strip of cardstock between the blades. Allow the child to cut the cardstock when they close the blades.

When the child wants to, allow them to hold the scissors and cardstock and continue cutting on their own.

This week, I have decided to introduce Connor to scissors. However, instead of scissors and cardstock, I introduced him to plastic scissors for cutting play dough. I believe this approach is even easier than cutting cardstock and should motivate Connor to practice using the scissors and develop his fine motor coordination.

I arranged the materials by placing the small plastic blue scissors and a tub of blue play dough into a container. When Connor chooses to do this activity, he rolls the play dough into a long dough “snake” with his hand. Then, I hold the snake for him while he cuts the play dough. Each time he cuts a bit off we say snip.  

 

Tech Tools for Parents – Online Chore Charts

Chore charts help children clearly know their household jobs, teach responsibility, and foster independence. Traditionally, chore charts are hung on a wall so children can easily access them to check their tasks and keep track of their progress. However, as children become more technologically savvy, the following online chore charts can be utilized to further encourage them in their work.

Handipoints

Handipoints uses a combined approach for handling children’s chores. Parents use the website to create a free printable chore chart. Then, children earn points by doing the chores. They can also earn points by doing worksheets and arts and crafts. With the points they earn, children adopt a pet cat and play online games. A list of appropriate children’s chores are provided to start you off or you can add your own custom chores.

Goalforit: The Chore Chart Kids Love

With the Goal for it system, you can customize your child’s chore chart by choosing a background and adding behaviour goals and chores from the 30 different ones that are offered. You can also create custom goals & chores too. You can then track you child’s progress using any of the 20 progress icons that are available. As an option, you can create a Reward Chart by assigning “Moolah” points to chores and goals. Lastly, charts are created in, and are only accessible from, a parent’s account.

Childzilla

Childzilla provides parents with a fun way to provide positive reinforcement through an easy to use web application. Parents set up their child’s chores, and the Childzilla system allows the child to login to their own website and ‘check-off’ their chores as they complete them, awarding them points with each completed task. Parents can then set up prizes for the children to redeem their accumulated points. Some of the features of this system include:

Password Protected Family Home Page

Customizable Webpage for each child

Configurable online chore charts

Custom chores for each child

Parents can award any number of points/stars for each chore

Each reward can be assigned a point value

Rewards are 100% configurable

Children check-off their chores

Points awarded when chores are done

Parents can add comments each day

Comprehensive "Rewards Store"

Children's Wish Lists for rewards

Dozens of safe internet based video games to play

Parenting Article Library with 100's of titles

Tech Tools for Learning - Online Reading Logs

 

Reading logs are a standard teaching tool that help teachers and students to monitor and keep track of students reading. When reading logs are used, students gain confidence and are more motivated to continue reading. Your students can now create reading logs using online tools. These tools provide additional features which can motivate even reluctant readers to pick up a book.

Skratch Track

Skratch Track is “an online system that encourages literacy, inspires kids to read more, informs their parents or teachers with useful information, and strengthens the family bond.” Children log the books they read into their virtual bookshelf, complete mini book reports, and earn virtual awards. Also, with a full account a complete record of all of your child’s books are kept in a searchable database. To assist teachers and parents in monitoring a child’s progress, Skratch Track provides Report Cards. Information such as how many books your child has read, what are their favourite authors and subjects, and the progress they are making is provided in an easy to read digest which can be printed. Students can log 15 books and earn the first 3 awards using a free account. A full account costs 19.99 annually.

Reading Logs

Reading Logs helps students keep track of the books they have read, learn new vocabulary, and practice their spelling. Teachers upload book lists and reading goals. There can be weekly or monthly goals and goals can be set for the number of minutes, or the number of books a student reads. Teachers can also upload vocabulary lists. There is built-in access to an online dictionary, so students can look up definitions and create vocabulary cards. These vocabulary cards can be printed so students can revise their work offline. To practice their spelling, students use the Listen and Spell Practice System. The listen and spell practice system speaks words on a spelling list so that students can hear the word pronounced correctly, try to spell the words and check their spelling.

Book Adventure

Book Adventure is a FREE reading motivation program for children in grades K-8. Kids have more than 6,000 of the most popular and acclaimed children's titles from which to read and quiz. Points that Readers score on quizzes can be used to earn prizes! The Book Finder feature lets Readers find books by author, title or ISBN of the book, and books based on their grade level and interests. Once Readers have finished a book and are ready to start earning prizes, they go to Quiz-O-Matic to search for the book they read. Each quiz contains either five (for books grades K-3) or ten (grades 4-8) questions, each with four answer choices. Lastly, before a prize can be awarded it must be approved by a teacher or parent.

Tot School

 

Connor is 25 months old

We had lots of outings this week and very little time for proper tot school activities. 

The highlight of Connor’s week was going to Wiggles Play Land, Lollipops Play Land and the beach. At the indoor Play Land Centres Connor played in the ball pit, went on a tea cup merry go round, and met Wags the Dog. He was quite happy to say hello from a distance, but didn’t want to shake hands or give Wags a hug like the other children. Nevertheless, when Wags was mentioned over the next few days, Connor was sure to inform everyone that he said Hi.

At the beach, Connor pretended he was a shopkeeper, swam in the ocean, explored the rock pools, and played in the sand. He enjoyed all the things we did (except maybe the shower when we had to rinse of the sand before getting back in the car).

This week, I also took Connor to see a Lemax Village Display. He was fascinated by the small buildings and people, but preferred the reindeers which were located at the entrance.

 

For our Christmas theme, in addition to the Christmas puzzles, after reading The Wild Reindeers by Jan Brett, Connor completed a reindeer craft activity. This craft project was very simple. To create the reindeer, you trace and cut out one foot for the body and two hands for the antlers. Glue the hands on to the foot. Then, glue googly eyes on the body and draw the nose and mouth.

For Painting, Connor normally sits and paints at his outside table. To vary this activity a little, this week, I set up the chalkboard as an easel. Other activities that Connor did was play with his lacing letters and dominoes.

Lastly, we have continued practising counting. I drew numbers 1 to 5 with chalk. Connor told me what the numbers were, showing me the correct number of fingers at the same time. Then, he hunted in the backyard for the correct number of objects for each of the numbers. He used his dump truck to transport the objects.

My favourite photos this week are of Jessica. She rarely allows me to take a photo of her were she’s not scrunching her face. Well, as you can see, for one photo she smiled, and in the other photo I captured her and Connor playing together at Lollipops.

How to Make Christmas Puzzles

Puzzles are good for fine motor skills, spatial relations, and problem solving skills. Also, they are fun and rewarding, especially when the design is about something your child likes or, as in our case, the design is seasonally appropriate. The best part is you can make your own puzzles.

Materials

• Several Popsicle sticks
• Craft Glue
• Christmas Greeting Cards
• Scissors or Craft Knife

Directions

1. Spread glue on the back of a Christmas Greeting Card.
2. Lay Popsicle sticks side by side on to the back of the Christmas Greeting Card. Leave a small gap between the popsicle sticks for cutting.
3. Allow for the glue to dry.
4. When the glue is dry, cut between the popsicle sticks.
5. You may want to number the back of the puzzles to help distinguish several puzzles from each other.
6. Have your child mix up the pieces and put them back together.