TNT Letter Sounds

My girls love these little Pop-Its.  You can usually find them in local stores around Memorial Day and July 4th.  However, if you have a hard time finding them you can always order them online.  Amazon has a pretty big selection.  

POP-ITS... found at our local grocery store.  

I drew 10 letters on the driveway with chalk and put a circle around them.  I only started with 10 because I didn't want them to be overwhelmed.  

My girls can recognize all the letters of the alphabet so we've been exploring letter sounds.  I would say the letter sound, and then they would throw a Pop-It inside the circle with the corresponding letter.  

"Look, it's   /K/   /K/  K."  

Throwing a Pop-It on letter D.

My 3 year old loved this.  She would get so excited every time she found a letter. 

"Over here, over here!!  It's  /V/  /V/  V!!!!!

AK was inspired by this post, only she did it with water balloons.  She wanted to incorporate bother letter names and sounds, so she stated - "The name of the letter is __, and the sound is __.  Can you find it?"  She also included the words 'off' and 'on', because her son recognizes these two words thanks to their blender and all of the green smoothies he makes.  :)

Water balloons!

MORE IDEAS:

Sight words
Numbers
Math facts
Counting
Name recognition
Colors
Shapes
etc

RL 

Backyard Games

My girls are very interested in letters lately... especially my 3 year old.  We did an INDOOR LETTER HUNT a few months back that we play often.  Since the weather has been warmer I thought we would take the hunt outside!  

To make the letters I purchased Marking Chalk from Amazon.

I created an alphabet checklist they could use to mark off the letters they found.  

"I found letter P!  Let me see here.... where is it?"

"I found it!"

Letter P in the grass

Letter S in the mulch.

The girls searching for letters. 

"I found letter V under the trampoline.  That was a tricky one."

We also made some fun games.  

Backyard Hopscotch

I also buried a few letters in our garden.  

X marks the spot!

My oldest loved digging for "treasures".  We plan to do a treasure hunt dig next.  :-)  Stay tuned!  

RL 

"Painting" with water

I think summer play season is here!  We are always looking for fun ways to play with water as the temperatures here get HOT and HUMID!  A few years we back we did this water play post....

http://www.playathomemomllc.com/2011/08/squirt-squeeze-spray-pump-pour-press.html

We expanded off that a bit and instead of just squeezing, pouring, etc into the sensory bin I thought I would give them a "canvas".... AKA our driveway.  

Some of the items we used.  

Watering Ducks (Target Dollar Spot)

Paint Brushes

Bucket

Condiment Bottles

Spray Bottles

Our refill station.

This is much easier than using the hose and having the water running constantly.  

My oldest (4.5 years) twirling around with a wet paintbrush.

"Look at the design I am making!"

My middle girl (3 years) making a circle with her paintbrush.  

 Condiment Bottles

The girls asked if they could add some color to the water.  

We grabbed some color tablets from the bathroom.

My oldest discovered that you can mix colors by placing them on top of each other and spraying them with water.  So cool!!!  I love watching them experiment.  

Above is a small blue color tablet on top of a big yellow tablet.

"Look!!!!  I'm making green!!!"  

We placed some tablets in front of our refill station.  

The picture doesn't do this justice!  We had a "rainbow river"!  

It was also fun to "clean" with the brushes.  

Watering the flowers.  

RL 

Ice Play....The Frog Castle

Playing with ice is a favorite activity at our house.  You can see several more ice play ideas at these links…

ICE BRICKS

EDIBLE ABCs and 123s

ICE BLOCKS – AN IGLOO

ALPHABET BLOCKS OF ICE

I let my son choose some new molds for ice play (I showed him pictures and he chose the ones he wanted).  He picked people and frogs.  I love the people because they actually have different emotions, which made for a fun opportunity to talk about emotional intelligence.

The Invitation

People

He counted the people and found the corresponding number.

I asked him how many blue blocks he lined up.  He didn't say a word, just got the #5 and put it next to them.

Three frogs

"Look, Mommy.  I made a frog castle.  This is the frog who lives here."

"Red, blue, red, blue, red blue......  I made a pattern."

"It's a bridge for the people to cross on their way down the path to the frog castle."

- AK (MESE, MECD)

Alphabet Blocks.....of Ice.

Alphabet ice blocks

 Our first play with these perfect cube ice molds ------>  is HERE.  Today, we revisited them in a whole new way - alphabet blocks.  So fun!  We used LETTER JEWELS and simply froze them in the molds.

Check out more alphabet ice play -----> HERE.

  Its an obvious opportunity to learn about hot/cold, melting, properties of water, etc.....but you can also.......

...talk about and build sight words - for older children.

...create the alphabet....or play "insert the missing letter"

...incorporate heavy machinery

"Its carrying the K block"

...smash them......there are NO letter in the ones he smashed

...build CVC words - for older children

Just explore, play, and have fun!!

Some other options...

• put same colored letters together
• stack cubes
• slide them down a rain gutter - "there goes the G block"
• separate into consonants and vowels
• spell name
• match letters to objects with corresponding beginning sounds
• etc................

- AK (MESE, MECD)

The Arctic

Let me preface this by saying that I am aware that penguins and polar bears do not live together.  LOL  My son has been talking about polar bears a lot lately, so I asked him if he would like to create a polar bear habitat.  HE brought the penguin into the play.  Initially, I was going to set it up as a surprise invitation with a few polar bears, but he wanted to help so he did everything from filling up the containers for the "icebergs" to setting up the invitation and choosing the animals.  I actually really like it when he is part of the process.  Its a great time for dialogue and connection.  

With incredibly hot temperatures, ice play is always well received.  

WATER (with blue food coloring)

ICE

FAKE SNOW

 

Here are the containers I used to freeze the ice overnight. 

The penguin diving into the water.

So cool!!

ROAR!!!

- AK (MESE, MECD)