Bird Activities for Little Learners

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to a 5 year old girl and 21 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha! #keepinitreal

"Momma, can we learn about parrots today?"

Absolutely!  I pulled out my bird bag from our Mother Goose Time: Family & Pets box.

Bam.  Math games, craft lesson, even a book with sight words to begin our reading-all ready to go. 

Add in the plethora of parrot/bird books on my shelf and we are set. 

Since we had just listened to lots of songs while studying our memory work for Classical Conversations, I decided we needed some game time.  So I started our bird day with our math game, Feed the Birds.  I had a ton of these little bottles from my breast feeding days with Everett and they made the perfect containers for this game.

MGT sent these cute birds with numbers, tweezers and yarn (I used  pipe cleaners I had already cut for Everett).  All I had to do was put the little birds on jars and add some dry beans for the game.  Although MGT suggested using number cards in our pocket cube, I have really loved using these big foam dice (also from MGT).  They really help with one-to-one correspondence.  Avaleigh tossed the die seeing how many pieces of bird food she needed to retrieve with her tweezers and which bird was to get that amount.  

Everett didn't use tweezers (although he wanted to) but he worked on his pincer grip and pouring.

Both kiddos had a blast and kept at it until all the food was given to the birds.

After a fun activity like that, it's great to have some quiet time.

Our Literacy lesson was perfect!

Our new I Can Read book came with pointers and sight word cards.

The pointers I placed on a key ring (8 for a dollar at Dollar Tree), and

I grabbed a $3 pocket chart while at Target this summer! Perfect for the sight words!  

I first went over the sight words with my girl and we practiced making the sentence "it is a..." and then used the picture card.  After practicing our sight words, I had her open up the 

I Can Read book: What Is It? and she began reading all on her own!  I had to help her a little on the last page, but the words were unfamiliar.  

We are really working on reading this year, but taking it very slow.  

We read the book again, this time using our pointer to point to the word "is".  

I love how the very last page gives the kids something to do that is kind of like a brain break.

She was getting tired, so it was the perfect time for my girl to draw her pet, 

our golden retriever Bailey.

"Why did you use orange?"

"Because that is the color of Bailey's fur, momma," Avaleigh said as she pointed.

"There wasn't enough room to write my name, so I wrote it this way."  Yall, she wrote her name backwards.  I'm really impressed.

After outdoor time, lunch, and putting Everett down for a nap, it was time to do our 

Invitation to Create: Birds.

MGT sent us everything but the markers, glue, and outdoor materials.

We observed the picture of the birds and talked about them.  Avaleigh decided she wanted her picture to look like the one provided (I am not surprised), so we went outdoors to gather sticks, leaves, and acorns.

"Momma, make a bird with me.  You can make one and I can make one."

Done.  First she created "stairs" on her bird, then all of a sudden, my girl said, 

"These are tears (blue lines) because my bird doesn't have a momma."

"My bird can be his momma," I said.  "Maybe they can be tears of joy."

Later when Avaleigh told her daddy about the picture, she mentioned that her bird had tears of joy because he had a momma. 

Her finished piece.

Love it.

Happy learning friends!

I Can Read: -ad Words

My girl is book obsessed.

Has been since she was less than one.

If you sit on a floor, she will make a beeline for your empty lap.  With a book in her hands, she will fill your lap with her tooshy, and ask for you to read to her.

Lately, she has become quite interested in words. 

She knows all her letters, capital and lowercase, and all their sounds, and she recognizes that all words "say" something.  I normally have to point to the words while we read.  If I dont, she will point to the words asking, "What does this say, momma?" 

Because she is so interested lately, I have taken the beginning steps to teaching her how to read.

Our Preschool curriculum comes from Mother Goose Time, and each month they send us a new "I Can Read" book.  This month's focus was on feelings and -ad words like sad, mad, and glad.  We also learned 3 sight words: he, she, and is.

When we get this book, I usually read it to her a few times, and then have her read it to me.  I then give her a sight word pointer, and as she reads, she is to point to the words and then match the sight word pointer to the correct word.

Here's a video to see it in action:

After we finish the book, we place it next to her bedside.  It becomes part of our bedtime routine for the month.  

As this year continues, I hope to continue to foster her love of reading.

I don't expect her to read at this age- if she does, spectacular! 

All I hope to do, is continue to help her to love books, being read to, and help her learn what she is desiring to learn about, and lately it's been words. <3 

Happy Reading! 

Literacy with Mother Goose Time

This is my 100th post about our Mother Goose Time adventures!

We have loved our Ocean Commotion unit from Mother Goose Time!

Each month we receive 20 discovery bags about our unit, and each bag is filled with items to make art, crafts, games for math, and literary devices and games.

Here are some of our favorite literary tools they send us each month.

BOOKS

We receive 2 books each month.  One is a leveled reader called an "I Can Read" book.  It is filled with sight words that repeat over and over to help your child learn to read.  My girl loves these, and we read it each night as part of our bed time routine.  The other book is an actual paperback book that you read to your child.  This month is was all about ocean animals and learning to trace letters!  I caught my girl reading it by herself several times during quiet time- practicing tracing her letters and reciting facts about the animal on that particular page. 

At the back of the "I Can Read" book, is a spot for the child to draw or to work on a skill.  Can you tell what ocean animal Avaleigh drew below?

SIGHT WORDS, LETTERS, and STORY MAGNETS

To go along with the books, we also receive sight words and little picture cards.  I make these interactive which you can read about here and here.

The little picture cards match our letters of the month, and my girl says the word and the beginning sound and then places the picture on the corresponding letter.

The story board and magnets also come with our curriculum and go along with our book that MGT sends us!  There is so much to do to make our story expand beyond the words on the page. 

BOOK LIST

Each month we get a book list with suggestions to help our home library expand.  I can find a lot of these books at my local library.  Ones that I know my girl will love I'll try to order from Thriftbooks (super cheap) or look and see what Usborne might have.  Having a list to go from helps me spend my time wisely especially at the library with a newborn who can start screaming at any moment.

These are books I added from Thriftbooks based on our suggestion list by MGT.  There are so many great books we have been able to add because of these wonderful lists they send to us monthly.

LETTER COLORING SHEET

These past few months, my girl has steadily grown to love coloring.  She calls it her "homework." I have no idea why she started calling it that. lol!  This month we turned our "O" sheet into an octopus and used watercolors to paint the "W" page.  It was working on these sheets a few months ago when I noticed her coloring beginning to bloom.

MY LITTLE JOURNAL

We love this!  The reason I love it so much is I can document how much she has progressed from month to month just by looking in this book.  It gives tons of suggestions of what to do on each page, but mostly my girl just likes drawing or practicing tracing letters in the book. 

HANDS ON LETTERS

These letters are great.  On our whale day (hence the letter W) we practiced blowing like whales do out of their blow hole.  She had to have her Orca and Blue Whale come join in the action.  There are tons of activities throughout the month that allow us to use these letters, but I wrote about our Literacy Scavenger Hunt using the hands on letters here.

Fostering a love for literacy starts at such a young age.

Making learning fun and joyful will help your child cultivate that love.

I have seen so much growth this past year in her knowing all her letters, their sounds, and a few sight words.  She has started to love writing, coloring, and working with writing instruments. 

I am just so grateful we get to experience this, and I get to watch it happen.

Happy Learning!

I Can Read: Creating Sentences

My girl loves to read.

If you decide to sit on the floor, she will find you, crawl into your lap and ask to read a book.

Each month we get one of these I Can Read books from Mother Goose Time.

I have been trying to find more ways to use it than just for reading, though.

MGT sends arrows and rectangles with the sight words on it along with 6 pictures of real images of certain things discussed in the book.

I made the rectangles and pictures interactive by adding magnetic tape to the back which you can read about here.

Sweet Pea likes to match the arrows to the correct words in the book.

But the challenge has been:

What do I do with these magnetic words and pictures?

As we read the book, I noticed I had many of those same magnetic sight words created.

Then the thought came that we should build sentences!

Match the words from the book and build a sentence!

I placed the book on the floor and Sweet Pea could match the magnetic words 

to the ones in the book.  When we saw a word that we could use a picture, we did that, 

like jaguar or monkey.

Point and read.

By collecting these words from month to month and making them magnetic with a little magnetic tape, we will be able to build a wide assortment of sentences throughout the year!

So save those words each month!

Build yourself a collection and a center and start creating matching sentences to some of your favorite stories!

I Can Read: Interactive Sight Words

Yall, Sweet Pea is getting into words and language so much more lately!

It's like an explosion has happened, and I am so excited to be able to witness and take part in this journey with her.

We love our I Can Read books from Mother Goose Time. 

In the past, she has always considered this book "a game" as she uses the sight word arrows to point to the matching words in the book.  I, on the other hand, have always been confounded on how to exactly use the other word cutouts and pictures they send with the arrows... until the other week!

Why have I not been using them as interactive words for her?!

It hit me to make them into magnets that we can move around and eventually mix sight words.  

Here's what I did:

Get yourself some magnetic tape from the craft store... this roll was like $5.99 and it will last a while!

Punch out all the sight words and the picture cut outs that go along with the I Can Read book.

Cut yourself some magnets to size.  This tape is self adhesive with a sticker on one side. It is not the strongest magnet in the world, but it is PERFECT for this size paper.  Stick those bad boys on.

Ta-da! I know... why haven't I already been doing this?! 

**palm to the forehead**

These would be great anywhere, but I placed ours on the dry erase board in our 

Preschool Homeschool Classroom along with our story magnets.

Now we don't have to have our book with us to practice these words... she can practice them everyday, multiple times a day just looking and interacting with the words.

Here's a video of Sweet Pea using her interactive words for the first time.

She loves this and uses it all the time! 

Making learning and reading fun is what will help her become a lifelong learner, 

and I definitely want that for her.  So thankful for MGT!