Sweet Sight Word Reading!

   The little munchkin and I have been having a SWEET time with our latest snack unit!

   Since the little one is obsessed with books and in my mind, she is showing some signs of being somewhat ready to read, so I decided to give Sight Words a shot.  First I made VERY simple sight word sentences, using the sight word “the” and had her practice reading each sentence and finding the matching picture.

   I also recently purchased the Read To Read, Level 1 Unit 1 from Annie over at  The Moffat Girls.  It is a great packet that I know I am going to get alot of use out of this summer!

   I pulled out the sheet with “the” on it and she painted it with watercolors.

   Then I decided to create something new and different for my TPT store. So I created fun mini books using the sight words “the” and “a”.  I wanted to create 2 different kinds of sets; one focused on reading the sight word and the other focused on spelling the sight word.

   This is one of my first two attempts to create some kind of mini book and I am pretty satisfied with  the way it came out! Maybe in the future I can go a step further and create some kind of bundle set. Who knows?

   Anyhow, here she is reading the mini book and then working on the Sight Word Cut & Paste mini book.

    They seemed to be a hit with her and she was very excited to “read” the books to daddy when he got home from work!

    Stop by my TPT store today or click on the pictures below to have some SWEET fun learning with these Sight Word Mini Books!

  

    Tomorrow I will share the learning fun that the little munchkin and I began today as we talked about the YUMMY snack that starts with the Letter Ii... Ice Cream!
   And later this week I will also be taking part in the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp (Week #1) as we learn about Insects!

Sweet on Math!

I promised some fun,  SWEET stuff, so here we go!

   It is SUMMER and we want to SNACK on SWEETS all day long!!  Well, we do…don’t you?

   The little one practiced counting and writing numbers with these SWEET Math activities.

   First I looked through her play food and put a bunch of different foods in a basket and asked her to sort them into 2 categories: Snack & Not a Snack...this was much too easy for her as she has become a big snacker!

   Then she made a Sweet Candy Machine and glued on as many different sweets onto a circle shape that she cut out. 

   She added the base of the machine and used a sheet I created to count out how many of each sweet candy she had in her machine. And she did a great jo in attempting to write the numbers.

    Here it is: Naomi’s Sweet Candy Machine!

    And then she practiced counting and matching number to set with these sweet math printables that I created. 

   She isn’t too thrilled with the Count & Clip concept, even though it is a great fine motor skill. She prefers to color in the circles… whatever works, right?

Click on the picture to get this in my TPT store!

   Well, I need to get back to working on the little munchkin’s reading nook that I am creating in her bedroom. There are so many great ideas out there (again, thanks to Pinterest) for little reading nooks, I needed to make one for her! Today I found a very cute silver ottoman/storage thingee at a garage sale for $5 that is perfect for her reading nook!

   I will post pics tomorrow after it is all done… It is gonna look super cute!

A Garden of Flowers & Letters... and it's FREEBIE Friday!

    And… we have flowers! Teeny, tiny flowers…but FLOWERS! 

The munchkin was SO excited!!

   For our Gardening Theme, the little munchkin created this cute picture by searching for all the right letters to make a Garden of Letters!

   The munchkin also practiced some writing with her Letter Rr and Ss writing mini-books, similar to the ones she did for Letters Gg and Ff. 

Click on each Picture to pick up your own FREE copies of these 

mini writing books, which are also being featured at Teaching Blog Addict's Freebie Friday!!

   I also came across a post by This Reading Mama and decided to try something like it with my little one. It is called Reading The Alphabet. Our activity focused on Tracking Print, Letter Identification and Letter/Sound Connection.

This Garden theme sure was fun! 

Now to move on to some SWEET stuff… 

Stay tuned!

Summer Vacation is here! YAY!!! So...Salt and Soup anyone??

   Yay!! Summer Vacation has officially begun! FINALLY! 

   I said it many times and I will say it again- This year is Year #9 for me and has by far, been the most challenging year for me! Thankfully I had a great team and director to help me get through the year. And I think this vacation is a very well earned and deserved one! I intend to enjoy it to the fullest! 

   My plans are to relax and as much as I want to start my planning for next year, I am going to try and resist the temptation and wait until after our Disney World vacation in July! The only work I plan to do is the fun learning stuff with my little one, while trying to keep my teenage son from being bored all summer!

   The little munchkin and I have been learning about the letters, Gg, Ff, Rr and we still had some work to do with letter Ss.

   We experimented with salt painting and did she love it!

   The look on her face as she watched the watercolor spread as she dripped paint on the salt is priceless. 

The whole painting process occupied about 20 minutes of her time!

Can you find the letters G, Z and S that she made??

    I purchased this Scrabble Soup game on Amazon last summer but it wasn’t until recently that the little munchkin became interested in learning letters. I was going to do an ABC Soup Scoop game with her, but I pulled out this game instead.

   First we just scooped letters and identified them. 

   Then we attempted to play the actual Scrabble game. She was amused for the first few turns and then just wanted to scoop letters and play with it; so she did.

  Tomorrow we will be wrapping up the Gardening Theme and move on quickly because we have to get ready to dive into our Virtual Book Club Summer Camp, hosted by Toddler Approved, Rainy Day Mum and The Educator’s Spin On It!

   It begins on Monday, June 24th and we are very excited about it!

Rr is for Rain, Rocks and Rainbow Letters!

    Well, the school year isn't quite over YET... 3 more days!! But I am already in summer mode...and I have been for quite some time now... what can I say? It really has been a LONG year!!

   I am planning away for summer fun with my little one... and now I am thinking that I need to find ways to keep my teen involved and active this summer too, so I am thinking up some fun projects for him to do.

  Anyway, we have had a lot of rain lately and our eyes are glued on the munchkin’s little garden.

   Here are her hands hard at work about 2-3 weeks ago. We are still patiently waiting for something to come up...

   While waiting, the little one has been learning about the letter Rr. We have talked about RAIN and where it comes from and how it helps flowers to grow.

   I found this very cute April Showers unit at Our Little Monkeys.   It’s not April, but who cares, right? 

   She worked on math skills by counting and coloring, rather than using clips. Even my kitty, Brooklyn wanted to practice counting!

   And she worked on patterns too.

   There are so many other fun and cute printables  in this pack. Go check them out and pick up a FREE copy from her website.

   We reviewed the letters that we have been learning in our Garden theme (Ff, Gg, Rr) and created the letters from colorful rocks! She called them “Rock Rainbow Letters”

   One day last week, she was in an very artsy mood and wanted to paint and color. I pulled out my letter stencils (from Lakeshore) that I used in the classroom early in the year, and she made “Rainbow Letters”

   This week we will review all the letters again before we move onto our next theme: Sweets. I have quite a bit of yummy fun planned for this theme!
   AND I am also prepping for the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp that begins on June 24^th... I am so excited to join in on this fun!

   But for now, I must TRY and focus my attention on the final days of this school year. Lots to do to prep for our MOving Up Ceremony this year, and then I can put Teaching Year #9 behind me forever!!!

Counting and adding practice with Flower Ten Frames!

   As I chug along (or drag my feet) to make it to the end of the school year, I can honestly say that I have checked out. I know it sounds really bad, but that is the truth. My mind is fried, my body is beyond exhausted and I am just DONE! 6 more days!!!!
   So instead of trying to relax a little like I deserve to, I have focused my energy on the learning fun with my 4 year old at home. My Idea Boxes are full to the brim with lots of ideas that I want to cover this summer!!
    But right now, we are still working with our Garden Theme. We did alot of work in her Math Basket and she practiced counting and adding with these cute Flower Ten Frames that I created.

Click the picture above or HERE to get your set today!

   Here are a few other math activities that I created last year (with my Cricut that I actually have been neglecting lately!!) to practice counting and matching Number to Set.

   We have a few more other things to share but for now, I have to sign off! My sis is flying in to visit tonight! My little munchkin has been asking me ALL night, "Is it time to pick up Desi yet?" Luckily for her (and me) she gets to stay home and sleep in with her tomorrow (because it is WAY past her bedtime right now)... and I get free daycare for the next 2 days!  Everyone wins!