Making Words

Today I decided to mix things up a little. We started our work on the floor with alphabet blocks. I took out the letters I wanted to have the girls practice their "at" words. I put the "a" and "t" off to one side and lined up the other letters to the left. We did a routine that went like this: Sophie, move a block to make the word "pat". Zoe, did Sophie make the work "pat"? Then I would move the letter back and repeat until we had made all of the words. We also did this with "it" words.
After we spent time making the words by moving the blocks around, I had the girls practice writing the words in their notebooks. I left the set up the same and just told them which word to write. Sophie had no trouble with this, but Zoe froze when it was time to write the words. I told her that if it helped her to move the blocks around she could. So when I said, "Write the word "hat" in your notebook", she moved the "h" over and then copied it. I still have to remind myself that she is only 3!!

After our writing, we moved back to the kitchen table to review our lesson from last week on making halves. I got out some of our Melissa and Doug toys - the birthday cake and the cutting fruit set. I gave the girls various items and told them to cut them in half to share. We talked for a long time about how to share the banana (which is made with 3 pieces) and the girls finally decided that we couldn't do it without cutting the middle piece into two. I think they have a very good understanding of halves, which is as far as we're going to go with fractions for awhile. In an upcoming post I will discuss the math scope and sequence I plan to follow starting in January.

After the cutting halves lesson, we reviewed the numbers 1-12. Using a set of princess cards with numbers on them, I had the girls stand side by side on our tile. For each card they got correct, they got to move one tile forward. If 'm got it wrong, they had to stay on their tile. The winner (the one who moved the most tiles forward) would get a prize. It was a tie...and they still are not consistent with numbers greater than 9. I'm going to have to just really focus on those numbers in lots of different ways. I notice that I don't spend as much time on reading and writing numbers as I do their letters. I think it's because we spend a lot more time in life dealing with letters than with numbers, but I am vowing to make more of an effort to get some number time in there! On a more personal note, at bedtime Sophie read almost an entire Biscuit book by herself (I helped with just a few words) so that was a thrilling experience!