Story-telling

Bear loves stories. She loves to read and recently I have seen her "reading" her favorite books to herself. When she "reads" Are You My Mother? she tells herself the story as she turns the pages.

"Mommy? No. Mommy? No. Mommy. Snort. Snort up. Tree. Mommy."

It's very cute to see her do that. It is amazing to me how children learn language and every day I am so awed at what Bear can do that she couldn't do before.

Bear also likes to tell us stories about herself.

Along with reading stories, I am helping Bear to learn storytelling and language skills by telling her short stories about her, her family, and her friends.

For example:

"Once there was a little girl with brown hair. Her name was Bear. Bear loved to go swimming. One day, Bear went swimming with her friend Ati. They put on her swimsuits, counted 1,2,3 and jumped into the pool. After they swam a long time, Bear and Ati climbed out of the pool and called for their mothers. Their mommies came to get them and dried them with towels. Then they got dressed and went home."

Bear loves the stories about her and Ati and likes to act them out with her felt dolls.

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Counting jars

I took 5 jars and with those dot stickers, I labeled them 1 through 5.

I then took little ant stickers and stuck the corresponding number of ants in each jar. Bear was to feed the ants the right amount of marbles. I count the marbles as she drops them in the jar and when she reaches the number written on the jar, I tell her the ants are full and she moves the jar to the back of the tray. Bear loves "feeding" her ants and will say "again" numerous times when I take this work out for her. I figure she will eventually internalize my counting and make the association between the words and the number of marbles in the jar. For now, she is having fun while being exposed to counting.

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Bubble Wrap

aka how to keep toddler entertained for hours!Bear has been so engaged with bits and pieces of bubble wrap. I was saving them for a painting project but she got into it instead and has been sitting for long periods of time popping her bubble wrap with her fingers, or stomping on it.

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Gluing

Bear loves to glue, but at 21 months, her projects kind of "waste" glue. Since we live in a place where school supplies like liquid white glue and glue sticks are expensive, I made Bear some glue paste using flour and water. (I eyeballed the quantities - you want a thick, but liquid texture.) She loved using the paintbrush to put the glue on the backs of her magazine cut outs. I am always amazed at her concentration when she does art.

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Some of Bear's Activities from before and during our move

We've been without internet again; consequently, I've been unable to post.

I'm always complaining that Bear won't sort. I got the surprise of my life on moving day when I found these two yogurt cups with sorted marbles. Bear had to self-entertain a lot during the first few days of our move and having found the marbles and some empty containers, she happily sorted repeatedly all morning the day I first found these.
These craft buttons made a great caterpillar. She occupied herself for an hour stringing them. I had initially put them out for her to sort, but she had her own agenda!
We did a lot of contact paper collages. Here is Bear doing one of them. I tape backgrounds to the non sticky side of the contact paper, then she adds things to the background by sticking it to the sticky side. I sometimes cut out magazine pictures for her to put on these collages (like the elephant in the photo).
She loves climbing the rope web to the slide at the playground.
She practiced stretching her hair elastics over the bottle. This also entertained her quite a while.

Hopefully our internet connection will stay stable and I will be able to post regularly again.

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A beginning consonant game

I can't post photos because I have no idea in which box is the cable for the camera. However, I will do my best to describe the game.

What you need:
alphabet letters (fridge magnets, foam bath letters, alphabet puzzle pieces...)
an assortment of objects, ideally one per letter of the alphabet (Little People animal figurines and stuffed animals work great)
or you can use picture cards (but I find that concrete objects work best with younger children)

How to play:
1. Choose about 5 letters and lay them out on the floor. (For example, B, C, F, T, G)
2. Place the corresponding objects for each of those letters in a clump near the letters. (For example, bear, cat, fish (bath toy), turtle, goat)
3. Ask your child to find the object that starts with one of the letter sounds. (For example, "Can you find the toy that starts with /b/?" or "I spy something that starts with /b/").
4. When the child picks up the bear, ask him or her to give the /b/ to the bear. (This is my daughter's favorite part.) The child should pick up the letter B and place it near the bear.

If your child isn't familiar with beginning consonant sounds, start with fewer letters.

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Some Action Rhymes

While unpacking and trying to get rid of 'stuff', I came across a little pamphlet (from a library) of rhymes. Here are a couple my 21 month old especially liked.

Two little feet go tap, tap, tap.
Two little hands go clap, clap, clap.
Two little fists go thump, thump, thump.
Two little legs go jump, jump, jump.
One little child (I used Bear's name here) turns around.
One little child sits right down.


Hands on shoulders, hands on knees,
hands behind you if you please.
Touch your shoulders, touch your nose,
now your hair and now your toes.
Hands up high in the air,
down at your sides and touch your hair.
Hands up high as before
Now clap them 1 -2 -3 -4.
(sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star)

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The Alphabet Book Revisited

Someone asked what on earth I found in my kitchen that started with "X" for the alphabet book that Bear and I made using her foam letters. I cheated a bit for X and we used Chex cereal. We actually don't have Chex here in Costa Rica so I had to wait until a trip to the States to finish the X page.

I thought I'd list the words we used here for those of you who would like to recreate the book. I tried to use food that Bear was familiar with.

A - apple
B - banana
C - carrot
D - dates
E - eggs
F - flour
G - Gerber (we can't buy applesauce in jars here, only in Gerber form) and gingerbread man
H - hummus
I - empty icecream container
J - jam
K - ketchup (even though she doesn't eat it, we put the ketchup container on bumps when she falls)
L - lettuce
M - mango and mandarin
N - noodles
O - onion
P - pineapple
Q - quesadilla (she has a felt food quesadilla and we used that for the photo)
R - raisins
S - squash
T - tomatoes
U - utensils
V - vanilla essence bottle
W - watermelon
X - Chex cereal
Y - yogurt containers
Z - zucchini

This site was useful in giving me ideas.

Once the furniture is where it should be and the craft supplies and computer are out of boxes I plan on making an animal alphabet book with Bear. Now that she knows her letter sounds she may be able to help me make this one. I'm going to give her three different animal pictures and review what they are and then play I spy and see if she can give me the picture that corresponds with the letter for that page of the alphabet book.

I just love alphabet books and there are so many ways you can use them. We used them all the time in my third grade classroom but in more complex forms.

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We've been moving...

...so I haven't been posting. I had scheduled posts for the end of April, but nothing past the 1st of May. Once my husband sets up my computer, and I've set up house, I'll be back with more posts. Hopefully by Monday I'll be back up and blogging.

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"If you're happy and you know it" - letter sounds

Here's a cute action song to teach or review letter sounds. I found it here at the very end of the poem/song list.

Here is the song:

If You're Happy and You Know It

If you're happy and you know it,
Bounce around “b” “b”
If you're happy and you know it,
Bounce around “b” “b”
If you're happy and you know it,
Then your face will surely show it
If you're happy and you know it,
Bounce around “b” “b”.

Catch a ball “c” “c”...
Dance with me “d” “d”...
Fall down “f” “f”...
Gallop like a horse “g” “g”...
Hop on one foot “f” “f”...
Jump so high “j” “j”...
Kick in the air “k” “k”...
Laugh out loud “l” “l”...
March in place “m” “m”...
Nod your head “n” “n”...
Paint a picture “p” “p”...
Run in place “r” “r”...
Sit on the floor “s” “s”...
Talk to me “t” “t”...
Vacuum the rug “v” “v”...
Walk around “w” “w”...
Yawn right now “y” “y”...
Zip your zipper “z” “z”...

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A clever way to display children's books

Check out this neat project for a hanging book display.

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