Teeing Up and Hammering Away Beginning Sounds!

    The past few days, the little munchkin has been working hard at reviewing beginning sounds. I want to make sure she has a good grasp on beginning sounds before we move on to identifying middle and ending sounds. Kindergarten will be here before we know it!
   She had some fun with a little wooden hammer and golf tees we borrowed from daddy's golf bag. (When I first put out the hammer and golf tees for her awhile back, she really liked it.) So this hammering activity, "Tee It Up For Sounds" by Make Take Teach was lots of fun, with some learning included!

    Another beginning sound activity she did was with our ABC Cookies. We have used this on many different occassions to learn different skills: Letter Identification, ABC order, Spelling and now Letter Sounds. The great thing is that it includes learning cards inside.  (One lucky Facebook Fan will have a chamce to win today!)  So, if you are not a fan on my Facebook Page yet, you should be if you want a chance to win this!

    With these games and other spontaneous activities that we have done with beginning sounds, I am confident that my future kindergartener has a very good grasp on letters and their sounds! 

Now onto some more challenging, learning fun! 

Shopping for Sounds!

    So I completely lost a day yesterday and forgot all about posting my Crafty Tuesday post. How sad. It has just been one of those weeks... The past two nights, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out COMPLETELY, until the next morning...Craziness.
    Anyhow.... back to the learning fun at home. The little munchkin has a fairly good grasp on beginning sounds, and as I skimmed through the book  "Words Their Way" by Donald R. Bear, Marcia A. Invernizzi, Shane Templeton and Francine Johnston at Barnes & Noble (cuz there was no way I was going to buy that expensive book), I took some notes.
     I understand the importance of phonemic awareness in early childhood, but my knowledge as to how to actually teach reading is a whole different ball game for me. So I took note that before children begin to emerge into early reading, there needs to be a strong grasp on the different aspects of phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is this ability to take words apart, to put them back together again, and to change them to something else. 
     As an Early Childhood teacher and mom, I have been on top of this since last summer when she first started showing interest in letters.
    One of the first things we did last summer, was begin learning the different letter sounds. I bought these Alphabet Soup Sorting Cans and have used them in a few different ways to teach her beginning sounds.

    We used them to learn beginning sounds and learned to name, label and spell items with letter tiles.

    So, now that I know that she can identify all of the letter sounds, I know I have to reinforce the learning of each inital letter sound.. (We will work with middle and ending sounds soon).

I brought the Soup Cans out of the garage and made a fun Beginning Sounds Sort game for her:

She went "shopping" for her cans:

And then I dumped all the pictures out and scattered them on a piece of paper. 

She said each name and sorted the pictures onto the correct side.

(She needed very little assistance in doing this)

    And THEN, we made it even more fun and used some of her pretend play food. Instead of sorting sounds into groups, she picked items and placed them in one of four circle shaped papers and then found the letter card that matched the item.

   So, we turned letter/sound identification and beginning sound sort work into lots of fun with our pretend play props!

Freebie Friday...again?!

    I can't believe it is Friday again! I mean, I know it is a wonderful thing, but wow... my week went by fast! Even with the mid-week  blizzard, the week still flew right past me.

   Anyhow,  thank goodness it is Friday! 

    This week I laid low because I wore myself thin with the little munchkin's party so I didn't have the energy to create any new learning materials, activities or games.
    She did bring home another set of sight words this week and I quickly made a Sight Word Search Coloring Mat with the Wizard of Oz theme, since we are still hype on the Wizard of Oz.

    On Tuesday, we had a nice, very Spring-like day and then, on Wednesday, we  got dumped with more snow as a blizzard passed through.I swear, Mother Nature cannot make up her mind!)  So, the little munchkin has ANOTHER Snow Day. That's like #6 this winter!
    We played all of her fun board games she recieved for her birthday and caught up on reading some of the books we borrowed from the library almost two weeks ago. And I pulled out my Lakeshore Sorting Sounds Mats out of one of my zillion teacher boxes, so she could work on sorting sounds.

And then she worked some fine motor skills and did a Beginning Sound cut & paste activity that I created.

And that is your FREEBIE today!!

Click here or on the picture to download one for yourself!
(I am currently working on making this set for the entire alphabet, so the freebie is just a little sample)
Enjoy!
I am crossing my fngers (and praying too) that this last snowfall we had this week is the last of it!
The 1st day of Spring is around the corner and I want it to start feeling like it!

Freebie Friday: Beginning & Ending Sounds!

   Well, life is in the fast lane these past few days as birthday preparations are coming along!
   But I just took a break to stop in and say "hi" and post my weekly freebie for all of you.

   I plan on doing some reinforcement work with the little munchkin on beginning and ending sounds next week and here is a sneak peak at what I have started to create.

    Click on the picture to go to my TPT store and get your free copy of these two sheets today!

Back to Birthday Preparations... 

I can't wait to post and share all my pictures with you next week!