Spanish Calendar

Hannah attends an international school where they learn in English half the day and learn in Spanish the other half.  Her Spanish teacher invited me to watch Hannah leading the class in their daily calendar.  After only 6 months of Spanish, I was so surprised at what she knows!

Isabella Inchworm

Hannah came home with the cutest song about the letter Ii.

You can also watch a cute animated video on Frog Street.

Isabella Inchworm will you try

to name some things that begin with I

Into and inside and in between

invisible means that you can't be seen

Indians and igloos, and insects too

and interesting, intelligent kids like you!

Reading Time at Hannah's Library

Welcome!

We found this in the living room last week! Hannah having story time with her animals.

She's busy reading to all the "children"

The entire living room was her library. She sorted the books by content...

...each section had it's own place.

After she read a story, each "child" received their own book to read from.

Here's Hannah reading/singing "The Animals of Farmer Jones"

I am also allowed to pick out books from the library. She uses my library card, "scans" the bar codes and lets me borrow books. Hannah uses the piano bench as her checkout stand. She loves it!

Magic E Activity

'Magic' E

Here is one of the activities from the Hooked on Phonics Green Book. You could make this yourself using some cardstock or index cards. Hannah thought it was a lot of fun adding the 'e' on the end to change it to a new word!

Hannah Reading - Feburary 2010

Hannah Reading

Hannah is loving the Magie E (aka Silent E). I am amazed at how quickly she caught onto the concept of it. She loves to trick people, and I guess she feels that the 'e' on the end is a 'tricking' letter. Whatever the reason, she loves reading more now.

Counting Bears

Counting Bears

Hannah loves her counting bears. When she was younger she would sort them by color into little containers or her muffin pan.

Now she uses them for simple addition with her "Fishing Fun" file folder game. I can't find the original source for "Fishing Fun", but "Math-A-Magic" (addition) and "Math Monster" (subtraction) are available to download for only $1.00 from Finch Family Games!!

Of course counting bears are great for (just) counting too :)

Shaving Cream Art

Today Takeshi will be demonstrating Shaving Cream Art for us.

You will need:

• Shaving Cream
• Food Coloring (liquid works best)
• Toothpick or Skewer
• White Cardstock
• Black Sharpie
• Scissors
• Black Cardstock

Step 2...

Now it's Hannah's turn...

Just finished scraping off the shaving cream...

Then outline with a black sharpie...
Cut it out, mount on black paper and you have cool art!!
What a great looking dragon!

Here's Hannah's. I think she did a great job with the outlining!
Takeshi cut Hannah's out for her, she's not very good at cutting yet.

Hannah - July 15, 2006

Hannah Signing

We found a wonderful program called "Signing Time!" It's DVD's that teach your children how to sign. Hannah loves it! After watching for 2 weeks she is signing! Hannah is 1 year and 3 months old and has a very limited vocabulary, so this is a wonderful help :)

Games - Gone Fishing

Hannah found a fishing game at Lakeshore Learning and loved it! Instead of spending $20 on the game, I just make our own cheap free version. We tied some yarn onto a broken sword handle and tied a strong magnet onto the other end of the yard. Don't make it too long or it tends to swing too much and makes "fishing" difficult. We got the current phonics flashcards we were working on and slide large paperclips onto them. Viola! Fun in a flash :)

Here's a couple videos of Hannah playing the fishing game. If she doesn't know the word or is not sure, I'll just tell her or help her sound it out. If she doesn't know any of the words then I will point to a word and say "I'm going to catch the ___." or "You're turn. Can you catch the ___?"

Games - Little Mouse, Little Mouse

This game is called "Little Mouse, Little Mouse" You hide the little mouse under one of the houses (ok, they are barns... but at the time, I couldn't find clipart for a house that I liked). After you hide the mouse then your child can look.

Me: "Little Mouse, Little Mouse are you hiding in the... what color?... "
Hannah: "Blue house!"
Me: looking under the blue house "No, he's not in the blue house..."
Me: "Little Mouse, Little Mouse are you hiding in the.... what color?... ".

and repeat, and repeat until the mouse if found.

We played this at our library storytime and Hannah loved it. Of course, when we played it at home she had to be the mommy and I was the child finding the mouse. You could also play it with shapes too, or letters....

House Clipart - (from this site)
 Mouse Clipart - (from this site)
Barn Clipart - (don't have the original site I downloaded it from, sorry!)

Here is a video of us playing "Little Mouse, Little Mouse"

Just make one mouse and as many house colors as you could like. You can use paper (colored and laminated) like we did, or you can use colored felt and a felt board. Since we don't have a felt board, I just put magnets on the back of my laminated paper houses and used my dry erase board.

Games - Alphabet Stop & Go!

I made 2 "Posters" with the upper case alphabet on one, and the lower case alphabet on the other. The poster is 4 sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 colored papers taped together. Final measurements are 17 x 22. The white sheet is 8 1/2 x 11 with a hole cut out of the middle so that ONE letter can show through, like this..

Papers are covered with contact paper so it doesn't get ripped up.

Here is how to play. Your child says "GO!" and you start moving the white paper (with the hole in it) around the poster very fast. Your child says "STOP!" and you stop at a letter. Either YOU say the letter/sound, or if your child already knows the letter then let him say it.

Let me just say that this game is rigged. You only stop at the letters you want to stop at. This way you can teach the letters you need to, or review the letters that you want to. When my kids learned a letter and knew it they got to put a star on that letter! This is the way that all 3 of my children learned their letters.

Here is a video I made to explain the game better. I played this game with Hannah before she turned 2 (in the video she is 3 1/2). It's just a fun Stop & Go game!

Games - Mixed-Up Whole Words

This is our Mixed-Up Sight Word game. Hannah loves to play this!

We are using Glenn Doman's method of teaching from his book "How to Teach Your Baby to Read".

We have 9 flashcards measuring 3 1/2 x 8 1/2. A single word is printed on each one in large letters. First I say the words to her for a couple of turns until she knows them. Like this:

Each day we take out the oldest word add one new word. The first words I picked were: Mommy, Daddy, Hannah, Takeshi and Ernest (her brothers). The next words that I picked are out of easy reader books that Hannah will be reading (after she learns these words).

Here is our video of us playing the game. We put the 9 flashcards down, and Hannah reads them. Then I mix them up quickly and say, "They are all mixed up... you can't read them now!" Hannah of course comes over and reads them again, and again.

Here is another version of the "Mixed-Up Whole Words". Here Hannah says the words once and then has Twyla say them the second time.

We play this game 2-3 times a day, mixing them up about 4-5 times in each sesson.

Books - How to Teach Your Baby to Read

How to Teach Your Baby to Read - by Glenn Doman
(Stock Photo)

This is the book that started it all for me. I love this book!! Although I did not teach sight words exclusively, I learned a lot from this book. The main thing I learned was that you can teach little children (0-5) how to read, math, etc. It is actually easier to learn the younger they are. The second thing I learned was how to make learning to read fun.

We have 9 flashcards measuring 3 1/2 x 8 1/2. A single word is printed on each one in large letters. First I say the words to her for a couple of turns until she knows them. Each day we take out the oldest word add one new word. The first words I picked were: Mommy, Daddy, Hannah, Takeshi and Ernest (her brothers). The next words that I picked are out of easy reader books that Hannah will be reading (after she learns these words).

Here is a video of how to show the flashcards to teach reading. We did this a couple times and then played our "Mixed-Up Whole Words" game.