Anytime you can mix learning and fun it’s a win!   Even better when it takes little or now prep. work!

We were cleaning out the hall closet one day when the kindergartner saw my old Bananagrams game and asked to see what it was.

Both the kindergartner and preschooler were excited by all the little letter squares inside the zippered banana!

They hunted through the letters for a while, and then we worked on sorting all the letters into piles.

It was great work for letter recognition for the preschooler.  As we sorted, the kindergartner and I talked about which letters were considered vowels.

Then the kindergartner started using some of the letters to sound out words.  (I didn’t correct any of the misspellings because I really want her to start sounding the words out for herself.)

Finally, she came up with a few short sentences that we sounded out together.  (I loved that she used some of her spelling words in the sentence!)

We will definitely be pulling this out again!  I’m looking forward to seeing what words they both come up with in the future!

Do you have any favorite games to use when working on literacy skills?

The post Early Literacy Fun with Bananagrams first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

I am thrilled to have Ginny Marie of Lemon Drop Pie guest posting today!  She has some great ideas on how to keep your kids reading this summer!

School’s out for the summer! One of the first things we do every summer is sign up for our public library’s reading program. However, sometimes reading conflicts with what we really want to do. My daughters and I spend a lot of time at the pool and playing outside. Reading can fall by the wayside. Lily, who is eight years old, loves to listen to me reading books to her. Reading independently, however, has been a struggle for her. Here are some ways that worked to keep her reading during second grade. She came up with most of these ideas on her own, and then I encouraged her to keep reading!

1. Read to a pet or stuffed animal.

Lily loves reading to Stripe, her pet fish. She really thinks that he listens to her read, and who am I to argue with that? Emmy, my five year old, was caught reading to her teddy bear the other day. She just finished Kindergarten, and all of a sudden she is becoming an independent reader, too!

2. Find a quiet reading nook.

Lily and Emmy have a small play tent that I will bring out for fun every once in a while. With some pillows and blankets, this little indoor tent makes a perfect reading nook. This summer, we’re going to set it out in the backyard for an outdoor reading spot. Emmy also creates her own little reading spot in her bedroom. She will put her child-sized rocking chair in the little nook between her dresser and bookshelf and camp out there to read.

3. Become a reporter for your local newspaper.

The joy of writing also encourages reading. Lily often grabs a notebook to report the latest news in our neighborhood, such as a water main break. Of course, every day happenings are not always that exciting, but Lily has included our daily adventures such as trips to the park in her one-copy-only newspaper. She also knows that I am a writer, and has even written a guest post on my blog.

4. Have some DEAR time.

I encourage Lily to sit with me on the couch to read her book while I’m reading mine. So far, this has been a challenge because Emmy hasn’t been an independent reader for very long and doesn’t know what to do with herself while we read. We’ll keep working on this one. (You may recognize the D.E.A.R. acronym: Drop Everything and Read.)

5. Don’t let the enjoyment of reading end when the book is over.

Lily LOVES to talk about her favorite books, even when she’s done reading them. Her favorite characters in books become friends, and she talks about them as if she really knows them. After reading The Mysterious Benedict Society with her dad, she talked about Kate and her red bucket for days. You can help your child extend the book by having them draw a picture of their favorite part or write interview questions for one of their favorite characters. Lily has also written a quiz on Goodreads for one of the Magic Tree House books that she loves. (I checked her questions and answers before I published her quiz on Goodreads.) After reading a retelling of The Gingerbread Man, Lily and Emmy held a mock trial to decide if the fox was guilty or innocent after he ate the Gingerbread Man. My husband and I were the jury. Extending the book in these ways help enrich the reading experience for your child.

Most of all, if your child sees you reading, whether it’s a novel or your favorite magazine, you are sending a message that reading is fun! Enjoy your summer reading!

***

Ginny Marie loves sticking her nose in a book, and has often forgotten to start making dinner because she can’t put her book down. She taught second grade for thirteen years and now she reads books to her preschool students. She blogs at Lemon Drop Pie, and you can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Five Ways to Keep Your Kids Reading This Summer first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

Spring is here!

And that’s the name of one of the books we had fun with this week: Spring Is Here!: A Story About Seeds (Affiliate link).

Ants are the main characters in this cute book.   And what do ants like more than a picnic?

We started our fun by having lunch picnic-style (inside because the temps are still way too cold outside).

Then we read the book.  Three times.

The 3 year-old loved how each activity the ants did rhymed with one of the ant’s names.  He giggled non-stop.  (Good thing we waited until we were done with the red Kool-Aid before I read!)

The book deals with some seeds the ants find and plant.

After waiting patiently, and having plenty of spring rain, the seeds grow into beautiful flowers.

We have our own set of seeds that we have been patiently waiting to turn into flowers.  We measured their growth and made sure they had plenty of water.

Then we hit the great outdoors for a spring scavenger hunt.  I gave each preschooler a picture list of some spring items to find, such as daffodils starting to poke through the ground and buds on the trees.

They had fun hunting for each item on the list.  The toughest one to find?  Bugs.  It was just too chilly to spot many of the little critters today.

What ways have you been welcoming spring?

The post Preschooler Book Activities for Spring first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

If you have multiple children, it’s inevitable.  At some point one of them will feel like (and probably even say) that you love their sibling more.  That’s what’s been going on here.  My baby girl has been feeling like I might just love her little brother more.

Thankfully we stumbled upon the book Most Loved Monster.

If you haven’t read the book before, Momma Monster has little monsters who all want to know who she loves the most.  The book focuses on the fact that all her little monsters are special to her because of how different they each are.  I couldn’t wait to use it to reinforce the fact that I love both of my little ones and that they are both special in their own ways.

Activities to go with Most Loved Monster:

The first thing we did I actually came up with spur of the moment.  My youngest had all his stuffed animal “babies” on the chair with him as we read, and I used them as a learning tool.  Taking two stuffed animals at a time we talked about what was different about them.  We talked about what they looked like, where they’d each live if they were real, what they’d each eat…everything that was different.

And then I asked him which one he loved.  Of course he loved each and every one of them.  After a couple rounds with his animals, my oldest went running off to bring a few of her own.  Since neither of them have just one special stuffed animal, we were able to talk about how they love all their “babies” even though they are all different.

Then we checked out the snowflakes they made a few days ago.  I explained to them that in nature no two snowflakes are the same.  The same was true for all their paper snowflakes.  And yet they are all pretty.

I probably didn’t need to do the snowflakes with them after our impromptu look at the stuffed animals, but I wanted to use the opportunity to also talk about how just one snowflake on the door would not have been as pretty as the entire collection — that it took all the different snowflakes together to make it as beautiful as it is.

By then they needed something more hands-on to do, so we headed to the Play-Doh.  We’ve used random objects to make Play-Doh Monsters before, but today I wanted to use our often forgotten Potato Head pieces to build some wacky creatures.

They had fun adding multiple eyes, arms, mouths, etc. to create their own funny monsters.  And we talked about how each of the monsters, although different, were fun to play with and interesting to look at.

Most Loved Monster and the activities we did to go with the book helped ease my little girl’s mind.  She no longer is worried that I might love her little brother more.  And, just in case there is any lingering doubt in her mind, I plan on telling her every night just how much I love her.

The post Most Loved Monster first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

It’s been a while since I posted about fun we’ve had with a book we’ve read…  Trust me, it’s not that we haven’t been reading, or that we haven’t been having some fun with our books!

Things have finally settled down around here, and this week I want to share one of my preschooler duo’s  favorites: The Berenstain’s B Book.

I admit it, it was one of my favorites as a kid, too.  I love when my daughter “reads” it to me.  (She has it memorized….)

This week we played with the Berenstains’ B Book.

During bath time I brainstormed words that started with the letter “B” with each of my preschoolers.  It seemed the more words I wrote on the wall, the more excited they got.  It was fun seeing what they each came up with.

Then we tried our hand at forming the letter “B.”

Not only did we practice writing it, but we also used sparkly pom-poms, yarn, pipe cleaners, and even a bag of colored game dice to form a variety of “B’s.”

Of course, we had to try walking backwards (in the book they bike backwards, but that wasn’t happening in the house) and blowing bubbles.

Finally, I set them on a letter “B” scavenger hunt, searching for objects that started with the letter “B.”  I had to give the 3 year-old a few ideas at first, but the 5 year-old?  She came back with quite a collection all on her own!

The reward, of course, had to start with a “B” — we had bears (Teddy Grahams).

My son is already asking if we can do the A Book next time….

The post Berenstains’ B Book first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

We’ve been enjoying several fall-related books from the library lately.

One of our favorites has been  A Friend for All Seasons!  

A Friend for All Seasons tells the story of a little raccoon who lives in an Oak tree.  When its leaves start to fall he thinks it may be sad or cold, and then his mom explains about the seasons.

I thought it was the perfect book to inspire some leaf activities!

First we took a walk and collected some leaves of our own.  In scavenger hunt style I asked the kids to each try to find a red leaf, a small leaf, a big leaf, etc.  They had fun adding their leaves to our collection bag.

Once we got home with our leaves, we sorted them.

After sorting our leaves, I showed the kids how to make leaf rubbings.  (With younger kids you may need to hold the paper down for them so it doesn’t move around too much.)  They were excited to see their leaves “magically” appear on the paper!

Finally, we used our leaves to make some fall trees of our own.   First they each drew a tree and used a paint brush to add glue where they wanted their leaves to stick.  Then the kids had fun crumbling the dried leaves into a bowl (pick out any large stems!) and  sprinkling them like glitter onto the glue.

Looking for another preschool book about fall?  Check out our activities for Hello, Squirrels!

What activities have you done with the fall leaves?

The post Leaf Activities first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.