How to Teach Series Part #5

Numbers

Teaching Numbers is mostly about repetition. We count everything in our house, how many steps we walk, how many goldfish we get as a snack, and how many cans of veggies we put away in the pantry. I love working it into our everyday life! Here are some other ways that I have found that my boys loved to do as they learn their numbers.

• Place a poster up that has the numbers plus that same number of objects like the one below.( I got it at Dollar Tree last August)

• Play Number Games like below:

1. Number Dash- Draw Numbers on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk (if you have 2 kids put 2 sets of numbers) be sure they arent in order just place them all over. Call a number and have them jump, hop, skip, run to that number. This is also a great activity for listening to direction.
2. Number Mats- Place Numbers around the room and have them name the numbers as they stand on them. When we do this sometimes we also play music and when the music stops. They stop on a number and they have to yell it out! # 1- 10 number mats and #11-20 number mats
3. Hopscotch- Have them throw the rock or bean bag on the square and where it lands they have to name the number.

• Pom Pom Numbers- This is a great activity from 1+1+1=1. Its great for 1:1 correspondence.  If you don't have pom poms you could use stickers for this.

• When teaching how to write Numbers I have a great set of Tracing Sheets. They have the dots on them for easy counting that can be worked in with the tracing! # 1- 10 and # 11- 20 Printables.

• Another Activity we will be using this summer for cooling off but also some learning fun.  I will hide 20 objects in a bowl of water. Then the boys will have to use a hammer on the ice to bust out the objects. As the get the objects out we will count them.

If you have any other fun Number learning activities feel free to leave a link in the comments!

How to Teach Series Part #4

Gross Motor Skills

Gross Motor Skills are skills that improve the large muscles in the body.

Here are several activities to help with Gross Motor Skills

• Balancing- Draw a line on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk and have them try to stay on the line. Using a curb will also help or gardening edging would work as well. 
• Dancing- We like to play dance freeze here. I play music and they dance and when the music goes off we freeze. You can also do things like hokey pokey and songs like that.
• Obstacle Course- Make an obstacle course where they have to climb over things go under things you can even through in balancing and other fun things!
• Swimming- Kicking their legs in the pool and using their arms to swim is great for building muscles.
• Playing Pretend- Waddle like a duck, gallop like a horse, stiff legged robots, soaring like planes. 
• Riding a Tricycle, scooter, ride on toys
• Throwing and catching a ball
• Playing tag, follow the leader, red light green light, simon says, duck duck goose.
• Swinging, sliding, running, climbing, and jumping.

These are all really good for Gross Motor Skills!

If you can think of anymore leave a comment to share with everyone!

Next Tuesday we will go through how to teach Numbers.

How to Teach Series Part #3

Fine Motor Skills

I had planned on doing both Fine and Gross Motor Skills but since there is so much to cover for both I'm going to keep them separate.

These are just basic ideas to cover Fine Motor Skills. I may include some pictures that are linked to amazon as I think they would be a great help for some of the skills.

• Drawing , Coloring and Painting

 

• Cutting Play-dough with safety scissors. This will help build the muscles in their hands for using regular scissors.

 

• Folding Paper- Hand your child a piece of paper and teach them how to fold it. Challenge them to fold it as small as they can.

 

• Tearing Paper- I always do this activity for when we plan on doing a collage. I hand them the colored construction paper we need and let them go to town tearing it apart!

 

• Tying Shoes- This Melissa and Doug Wooden Shoe would be perfect for a child to practice on.

•  Zipping and Unzipping- I think this board would be great for on a Tot Tray or in a Work Box. For open end play and helping build skills.

• Buttoning and Unbuttoning- This buttoning board is perfect for small hands as the buttons are quite big, It is great for building fine motor skills and they will also learn how to dress themselves if their clothing has buttons.

Another great item that would cover all of the zipping and buttoning and a few other fine motor skills would be this Melissa and Dough basic skills board.

• Latching and Unlatching- Great for working those little hands

• Picking up small objects. Work with your child and let them do beading be sure to stay right there with them as beads are a choking hazard. But beading is a great fine motor skill.

 

• Screwing and Unscrewing Lids- Let your child work with an empty water bottle. Let them practice taking the lid off and on.

• Reading Books but allow them to turn the pages. It helps build their hand muscles.

 

• Using Utensils- From eating and also letting them use them for school. They can spoon pom poms from one bowl to another. Spoon Ice from a bowl of water to another empty bowl. The options are endless!

 Those are the main Fine Motor Skills I focus on with my boys.

Next week I will be back with things to do to improve Gross Motor Skills!

How to Teach Series Part #2

This week I'm going to cover Calendar and Circle Time.

Our first part of Circle Time starts off with our Good Morning Song.

Good Morning Song

Good Morning (Child's first and Last name) how are you?
(The child replies I'm Fine)Repeat 2 times

How are you this special day
We're so glad you came to play
Good morning( child's name) how are you?
I'm fine(child replies)

Repeat for every child

 Calendar

Then we move on to our Calendar. We take turns weekly on who does the date on the Calendar.

Then once the number is up we count starting at 1. 

Days of the Week

We start our Days of the Week topic with saying what day it is. We normally get a little loud to make it fun and I find they remember it and repeat it during the day.

We also sing the Days of the Week Song

(Sing to the tune of the Addams' Family)

Days of the week (snap, snap)
Days of the week (snap, snap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week (snap, snap)

There's Sunday, and there's Monday, there's Tuesday and, there's Wednesday, there's Thursday and there's Friday and even Saturday

Days of the week (snap, snap)
Days of the week (snap, snap)
Days of the week, days of the week, days of the week (snap, snap)

Month of the Year

 We start  this part of Circle time with saying the Month we are in. Then we find it on our Calendar.

Follow it with this song below.

(Sing to the tune of 10 little Indians)

January, February, March and April,
May, June, July, August and September,
October, November and December
These are the months of the year

Weather and Season

This is another part of our Circle time where we have a job. Whoever is the person to do the weather goes to the classroom window and takes a peek outside to decide what he thinks the weather is. Then he comes back and sits down and shares with us which picture is our weather. And then he places it on the chart shown below.

Since our season doesn't change everyday we just repeat the season we are in and some of the characteristics of that season.

Shape, Animal, Letter, Color, Trait and State of the Day

Each day we change out our shape, animal, letter, color, trait and state of the day.  As you can see below we place them in their spots on the chart.

We take turns drawing from these cups shown below which I've found to be very easy for storing the pieces.

Letter of the Week

I normally have a Letter for each Week that is part of our theme. So I try to pull random objects that go with that Letter. The picture below our Letter was P. I fill our tray and we explore and name the objects.

Bible Verse of the Week

Each week we have a Bible Verse that goes with out Letter of the Week. We say our Bible Verse daily.

Read a Book

At the end of Circle Time we read a story that goes with our theme. Whether it go with our letter, color or our Unit Study. I make sure it fits in with a part of our theme for the week. We also discuss the book after we read it just so I know they were paying attention.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We always try to have fun. Some days I throw the musical instruments in the mix, or we stand up and jump when we answer a question. I have found movement is key in getting them ready for learning and it also gets the wiggles out of them! 

For the Printable resources I used in our Circle Time you can find them at 1+1+1=1. I also bought our Calendar at Mardels.

I'll be back next week on Tuesday with another part of the How to Teach Series that will focus on Fine and Gross Motor Skills.

How to Teach Series Part #1

 

I had this idea and figured it'd be a great resource for homeschoolers. And since I won't be on as much for the next 2 to 3 weeks as my mom is flying in to spend time with us. I figured I'd start this now and space some posts out for while I'm offline.

So the first part of my series is going to focus on the Alphabet. It will cover letter sounds, identifying letters, how to write letters, and fun techniques for teaching letters.

Identifying Letters

• Letter of the Week Activities - you can either buy the whole curriculum at once from COAH or under her Alphabet tab find each letter separately!
• Letter Coloring Sheets
• Letter Color by Numbers

 

Letter Sounds

• At out house we have a song for learning letter sounds. We kinda make up what word we use for each letter each time but it starts a-a-apple, b-b-ball, c-c-cat, d-d-dog, and so on just make up the word as you do it. Its fun for the kids and they don't even realize they are learning the sounds.

• We also just say the letter and sound with a word that begins when we have a letter of focus.

Writing Letters

• Letter Tracing worksheets
• Letter Writing Salt Box
• Letter Builders- uppercase- lowercase

Curriculum that focuses on Letters

• Raising Rock Stars Preschool
• Tot School Printables

Fun Letter Activities

• Alphabet Crafts
• Play-dough Letters
• Letter Collages
• Alphabet Do-A-Dot Pictures- Letters A-M, N-Z

Alphabet Movies

Several movies and show my boys love are what I am linking to.

I am sure there are plenty of great alphabet movies out there!

Leapfrog Letter Factory

Welcome to Word World (this is how Austin learned his letters)

_______________________________________________________________________________

The rest of the series will cover numbers, unit studies, science, getting ready to read, math, life skills, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, circle time.

See ya in a few days with another part of this series!