More Letter Practice

Although it was Christmas Eve, Aidyn and I worked on his letters after breakfast. First, I randomly pointed to each letter and marked down ones that he did not know. Today's total was eight. He took turns whispering the answers and yelling the answers. Then, as I did yesterday, I flipped over the letters he got right, leaving only his problem letters. We reviewed them, and then played a card game with them, each picking a card, naming it, and checking to see if our chosen letters made words. His combination made an actual word, so he "won." We reviewed the problem letters once more before I flipped the rest back around. We sang the ABC song twice. First, per Aidyn's request, I sang it, pointing to each letter. Then Aidyn sang it as I pointed to the letters. I'm pleased that he can now recite the entire alphabet song and recognize at least 18 letters by sight!

More Letter Work

After gulping down some freshly-squeezed orange juice, Aidyn worked on his letters with the help of his blue pocket chart and his Mama. First I randomly pointed to letters, and he guessed them. Each letter that stumped him was written on a piece of paper to revisit later. Then we cycled through the alphabet song twice, pointing to each letter as we sung. Still in a playing mood, Aidyn watched as I flipped over the letters he knew, only exposing the seven letters he didn't know. I named each letter twice and asked him to repeat after me, then we played a game.

"I will point to a letter and you must say as fast as you can to get a point," I said.

My Crayola marker, or makeshift pointer, dashed to a letter and Aidyn would spout out the name. Some he struggled with, particularly "M" and "N." Then we moved on to a different game.

"When I point to a letter, say its name as LOUD as you can!" I said.

After I pointed to a letter, he would shout its name at the top of his lungs.

"Ah, you can say it louder than that," I teased, to which he responded with an even louder burst.

When our game was over, Aidyn had "scored" ten points, and he was a proud boy.

After that game, Aidyn surprisingly asked to make some words. I asked him which words he would like to make.

"Cat," he said. So letter sound by letter sound, we constructed the word 'cat.' Then he asked to do "hat" like Cat in the Hat. So I asked him what makes the "Hh, Hh sound like someone is h-h-hot!" We had fun rearranging letters, spelling, and reading whole words.

Afterward, I made an alphabet chart on Microsoft Word to help me keep track of his progress. After he learns all his letters thoroughly, we'll move onto phonics.

Letter Work

Yesterday while at the table, Aidyn ate Spaghetti-Os for the very first time. They were of the alphabet-noodle variety, so Aidyn accidentally went on a letter hunt in his bowl. Afterward, I worked with him on his letters with our blue pocket chart. I randomly pointed to letters, and he identified them. He asked to sing the alphabet song, so we did as we followed the letters. Also, lately has been interested in spelling two words: his name and 'elephant.' Of course, he needs help but when I tell him we need a p, for example, he points right to it. We have been enjoying our blue pocket chart thus far, and it is becoming an integral part of our learning.

Later in the afternoon, we watched several alphabet videos including many Letter People videos. I have fond memories of watching those episodes in my kindergarten class, and I'm pleased Aidyn gets enjoyment out of them. A particular one that stands out is Miss A. To help with the A's phonetic sound, Miss A sings about how she always goes, "Aaaaa-choo!" We also watched two of our favorite ABC song videos: Sesame Street's African Alphabet Song and Sesame Street's Fairy Alphabet.

In the evening, we took Aidyn to see Santa Claus. Being his third time seeing St. Nick, he handled it amazingly well. He waved at him, smiled with him, and talked to him. It's a relief to know that I no longer have to worry about timidity with Santa Claus. After we did a little Christmas shopping, the family drove to the infamous local house that goes absolutely CRAZY with lights and decorations. We drove by extra slowly and absorbed the Christmas cheer. At night, we had a good friend stop by, we exchanged gifts and caught up.

Additionally, I have been putting together a new arranged curriculum for Aidyn to use next year along with our other planned activities. It's sure to be a fun year in 2010!

Gingerbread Boy

Yesterday Aidyn and I made a giant Gingerbread Boy from scratch. He donned his imaginary chef's hat and helped me add ingredients to the bowl, mix them up, and taste the dough afterward. When our dough was finished, Aidyn and I kneaded it until it was ready for baking. Then the two of us spread the aromatic dough in a boy-shaped cake pan. Baking the Gingerbread Boy filled the home with such a warm, sugary smell that I wish we could have bottled! Once our creation was finished, we pulled him out and decorated him. After making the frosting, I spread some for his eyes, smiling grin, arm and leg sleeves, and buttons. Aidyn delicately placed gumdrops for his eyes, nose, buttons, and sleeve decorations. He was quite a handsome Gingerbread Boy when we were finished. And tasty! I'm glad that Aidyn is becoming more dextrous with baking: he's cracking eggs better, stirring better, and exhibiting more patience for our goods to be done. Most of all, I am proud that he is excited to work with me on kitchen projects.

We have also been listening to Franz Joseph Haydn this week, our fourth composer. Aidyn has definitely adapted to the music and enjoys hearing it. His favorite so far, according to him, is Bach.

Additionally this afternoon, I bought Aidyn a blue pocket chart (finally!) and some alphabet, word, and picture cards. The uppercase and lowercase letters were all jumbled, and, surprisingly, Aidyn asked if he could help me fix them. I laid all the lowercase letters on the table and pulled one capital letter at a time. "Will you find the uppercase G?" I'd ask. He looked through the sea of letters and produced lowercase g. He matched the whole alphabet and was only stumped by a handful of letters; for the most part, he can identify most of the letters. After I hung our letters on the chart, Aidyn pointed to several letters, unprovoked, and said their sound. Pointing at V, he said, "That one says Vvvvvvv," and then pointing at S, "That one says, "Ssssss," like a snake. "There's Z for Zorro and Zurg," he noted. His favorite phonic game is when I ask, "what does U say?" and dramatically pretend to punch his tummy. Equally dramatic, he groans, "Uuuuh."

I am excited about this new phase in Aidyn's learning. He's become such a verbose motor-mouth. He asks so many wonderful questions, makes great observations and deductions, and has a pretty wide vocabulary range, surprisingly me daily with certain words he knows. "Jerry is exercising for he can have big muscles," he said today. Yesterday he informed me, "I can be a (sic) archer and shoots my bow and arrow on a hill." "Can we build a tobaggan for me for I can go doooown the hill in the snow?" he asked, while I had no clue what a tobaggan was. I thought he was just making up words. When I asked him what a "tobaggan" was, he answered, "a sled that you can get in and go 'weeeee' down the hill real fast."

I've made plans for next year's curriculum, still keeping it fun and explorative, and I cannot wait to see what journeys we go on!

Itching to Write

Yesterday while I was wrapping presents, Aidyn requested that he be my gift-wrapping helper by writing the names on the receivers on the packages. I told him that he still needed to learn how to write his letters but he was more than welcome to doodle alongside me. I gave him a strip of paper, some white paint, and a paintbrush. He proceeded to tell me that he can write his letters, at least some of them. Announcing that he would write the letter "i", he swept his paintbrush down and narrated that now he just needed a little dot on top. Thus he made a marvelous lower case "i." Impressed, I told him to continue the good work. He ended up writing (with a sloppy paintbrush, no less) O's and I's of all shapes and sizes and a willingness to do more. Because I was busy wrapping presents, I couldn't instruct him fully at that point, but I got the message loud and clear: he's ready for handwriting. Got it.

This week we will go through one of his preschool workbooks and play around with the letter-tracing worksheets and see how he likes that. : )

ABC Train

Through play time with our Melissa and Doug Alphabet Train Puzzle, Aidyn has been mastering his ABC's, letter recognition, phonics, and puzzling skills. We have been playing everyday and Aidyn can put together the puzzle up to letter G on his own. When I join in, we sing the alphabet to discover which letter comes next. He used to rely on the pictures on each piece to help him find the letter, but we are gradually moving toward looking for letters first. When we find the correct letter, we look at it, compare it to other letters, and say its sound. If a letter is particularly difficult to find, I spout out all sorts of words that begin with that letter. If I had to wager how many letters he can correctly identify, I would say 20/26 as he still confuses some letters for others. This is a huge improvement from where he was before, and he has learned this solely on playing this game! He can sing the alphabet song in its entirety but gets a bit scrambled at the ever-difficult L-M-N-O-P section.

Seeing him taking strides of improvement makes me proud beyond words, and I love that he's learning many things about letters through this game instead of only memorizing the song.

Update!

It's been a while since I updated!

For the past couple weeks, we have been playing it by ear. Aidyn and I have been baking, playing, reading, taking library trips, and welcoming the Christmas season. The other day we made snowflakes out of tissue paper which lead to Aidyn creating snow by clipping and ripping tissue paper. He created a large mound of "snow" and played with our sledding snowmen knickknacks through it.

Because of his recent game, I picked up some snow-related books and a Christmas themed story. Today we made a batch of chocolate sugar cookie dough which we intend on making into alphabet cookies so that he can "accidentally" review his letters.

In other events, we finished listening to Handel and have recently moved on to Mozart. Hearing music from 17th century composers has been a surprisingly peaceful and educational event. I cannot wait for us to listen to more! While his grandma was watching a civil war documentary, Aidyn announced that he liked the music (I filed a thought to listen to 1860's music in the back of my mind). I can see that he's developing an ear for music which delights me beyond words.

We also had my friend, Hannah, visit us last weekend and Aidyn took to her immediately. She posed some good questions to him, and I loved hearing their conversation. Aidyn explained the life cycle of a butterfly to her (and showed her with our poster) and told her about how we released them at Daffodil Hill. They spoke of superheroes, snowmen, Christmas decorations, and the happenings of Horton Hears a Who.