How can magnetic letters help with teaching the alphabet?

Teaching the alphabet is probably one of the most important things that happens in preschool, but guess what? It can be so easy! These fun magnetic letter match cards will help with teaching the alphabet, plus they are so fun! Download your magnetic letter match alphabet printables here.

Teaching the Alphabet with Magnetic Letters

These printables help with teaching the alphabet because your child has to recognize the different letters and match them. This is also a great activity for teaching letters sounds. The download has a different word for every letter of the alphabet. You can teach letter sounds by emphasizing the first letter in each word. You can say “Zz, zz, zz. Zz says zebra.” Repeated learning of letters and letter sounds creates a strong foundation for reading. The absolute best thing about this activity? You only need magnetic letters and the printables.

I got my magnetic letters a few years ago and I don’t remember exactly where I got them. This set of magnetic letters is all uppercase and it’s just about as basic as you can get. Here is another set that is more expensive, but higher quality. It’s also all uppercase, but it has multiples for the most common consonants and all of the vowels. This set has both uppercase and lowercase letters. These printables are all uppercase, but if you want uppercase and lowercase, this is a good set to go with.

When my kids play with these, they do one page at a time. I laminate the pages with my home laminator and laminating sheets. This is obviously optional, but the General Conference magnetic letter match cards I made a year and half ago are still as good as new with the lamination, so I definitely think laminating is worth it.

Put the printable on a cookie sheet and use the magnetic letters to match the letters. I use a cookie sheet so the magnets on the back of the letters have something to stick to.

There are two words on each page in the download. I made sure to choose words with no repeating letters so that you can complete the pages with only one set of magnetic letters. As long as you only do one page at a time, you only need one of each letter. You could also cut out each of the words separately and do just one word at a time or still do two.

Teaching the letters during the preschool years is all about exposure. The more activities you do with the alphabet, the more your child learns!

Other Posts You Might Like

• 5 Ways to Use Alphabet Stamps
• Scotch Thermal Laminator Review
• Missing Letters Cut and Paste page

Clipart in these Printables Comes from the Following:

• Pink Pueblo
• Poppydreamz Digital Art
• Jessica Weible Illustrations
• Pretty Grafik Design
• My Cute Graphics

How do I do age-appropriate toddler education at home?

I did a garden theme for tot school with Smiley Man last summer and Smiley liked it so much, I knew I had to include it in my Toddler Curriculum. I went back and looked at some of the activities we did back then (almost a year ago) and I am so impressed with how much Smiley Man has learned.

If you haven’t done much toddler Montessori, I would definitely recommend it. I am constantly impressed with how much Smiley Man is able to do with his tot trays. My biggest surprise was with the pouring tot tray. I didn’t think Smiley would be able to stop pouring once he got to the fill line, but he did! Using toddler Montessori or really any type of toddler education will really help your child achieve all that he can. And since I’m an educator, I’m pretty passionate about making sure my kids achieve their full potential. :)

(Smiley Man is almost 3, read here about appropriate ages for the Toddler Curriculum)

Make the Letter

Okay people, I lost our bathtub crayons. Those were supposed to be our Make the Letter activity for this week, but when I went to get them, they weren’t there. I’ll probably just make some more, but since I didn’t have them when we took the pictures, I don’t have a picture for you. :( It’s not that hard to figure out though, just use bathtub crayons to write the letter G. Help your toddler if he needs it.

Learning Notebook

Smiley Man did a pretty good job of finding all of the Gs for this printable. The hardest thing for him was coloring just one letter instead of the letter plus a few of the ones around it. This printable and more are included in the Toddler Curriculum.

Tot Trays

Theme: Use a toy watering can to water fake flowers that are in a flower pot. You could also practice watering a real flower.

Stickers/Stamps: Make a potato stamp with a carrot shape. Stamp “carrots” in the “garden” (brown construction paper).

Pouring: Have fake flowers in clear plastic cups. Draw a line on the cups (or put a rubber band around the cups) to act as a fill line. Pour water from measure cup into plastic cups to the fill line.

Cutting: Cut yellow, green, and orange paint chips to look like corn, celery or cucumber, and carrots. Use scissors to cut the paint chips on the line.

Sensory: Pick vegetable shaped erasers (or plastic vegetables) out of sensory dirt and put them in a small basket.

Supplies Used: watering can, flower pot, fake flowers, plastic cups, scissors, vegetable erasers, or plastic or squishy vegetables, sensory dirt

Tray Printables

I cut out the shapes for this printable before I gave it to Smiley Man to work on. If your toddler is older, you can let him or her cut the shapes out themselves. If your toddler is even older, he or she can cut the actual shapes out instead of just the boxes around the shapes.

Letter Activities

I’ve done lots of do-a-dot pages with Smiley Man with lots of different objects, but this was the first time we have ever done buttons. He LOVED it. I don’t know why buttons were so much cooler than using pompoms or glass gems, but Smiley Man just loved using buttons to cover his do-a-dot letter G. The Toddler Curriculum includes do-a-dot letters (both uppercase and lowercase) for the entire alphabet along with lots of ideas for how to cover them (dot markers, glass gems, pompoms, buttons, etc.)

Books

We didn’t get to the library this week so we had to just read our books at home. I really wanted to get this book though because it looks so fun! Maybe next week.

Letter G Craft

Smiley Man loves any kind of painting, so this vegetable painting craft was definitely fun for him. It wasn’t as fun for me because I cringe at messes of any kind, but we managed to get through it without a heart attack on my part. Definitely a success in my eyes. ;)

Sensory Bin

We used pompoms as the base for our sensory bin this week. Smiley Man loved them, but he was also a bit more interested in the Gs (unlike last week when he just wanted to play with the oatmeal). Read about our ABC Sensory Bins to see how we use them to teach letters.

Now that I’ve been using my Toddler Curriculum for a few months, I just have to say, it is so nice to have a set plan. An official curriculum definitely isn’t necessary for toddler education, but having one has made tot school more fun for Smiley Man and for me. This toddler homeschool curriculum keeps me organized and is perfect for when my creativity is lacking. When I do have more crafts and activities to add, I just add them to what we are already doing. But, when I have nothing extra, the curriculum has plenty to keep Smiley Man busy and learning. How do you get toddler education organized? Do you like to have a curriculum like me or do you like to come up with your own ideas?

Other Posts You Might Like:

• How to Start Tot School
• Spring Pattern Block Templates
• Spring Sensory Bin
• Toddler School: F is for Farm

What matching games for kids teach spatial relations?

Will your child be ready for Kindergarten math? This activity will lay the foundation to get him there. The activity is called Building and it teaches spatial relations. Spatial relation is how an object is located in space in relation to another object.

Why Use Matching Games for Kids

Matching games like this teach important pre-math skills that will prepare your child for Kindergarten. When your child understands these skills, it will build a strong foundation for all elementary math skills. Without this strong foundation, your child will have a difficult time visualizing abstract concepts, which of course, math is full of. This activity teaches or prepares your child for the following skills:

• Abstract Reasoning
• Spatial Relations
• Analyze, compare, create, and compose shapes

I loosely based these printables on the Fish Builders from the Letter F week from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Her printables are for preschoolers, whereas my curriculum is for toddlers and young preschoolers. So, my printables are much simpler, which makes them perfect for 2-3 year olds.

How to Use Building Printables

This “building” printable comes from my Toddler Curriculum. It’s from the E is for Extinct unit. If you want to know how to use other preschool printables, check out my How to Use Preschool Printables post for lots of different printables directions. Today I am going to tell you all about how to use building printables. If you don’t have printables specifically for building, never fear! You can just use regular matching cards.

I always start by laminating. (I use this laminator and this printer in case you’re interested). Laminating is of course optional, but since the laminating sheets I buy are so cheap, it’s worth it to me to make the pictures a lot more durable. Basically what you do is cut out one set of pictures into individual cards and leave the other set whole. Have your child arrange the pictures in the same order next to (but not on top of) the whole set of pictures. Check the pictures below to see what I mean.

The simple act of having the pictures next to the whole set of pictures makes it much more difficult to put the pictures in the correct order. If this activity is too difficult for your child, you can always have him or her use the cards like regular matching cards. Just have your toddler put each cut picture onto the matching picture on the whole page.

Matching Games for Kids Teach Spatial Relations

Doing building is a wonderful way to teach spatial relations. I am always surprised by how hard building type activities can be even for Little Bear who is almost 6. Smiley Man still needs help to complete printables like this, but he is getting better the more we practice. Use matching games for kids to teach your child lots of pre-math skills. This will really help him once it’s time for kindergarten.

Other Matching Games for Kids to Teach Spatial Awareness

• Zoob Jr. (comes with 8 instruction cards)
• Color Cube Task Cards
• Another Color Cube Activity Set
• Pattern Blocks and Pattern Block Activity Pack or Beginner Pattern Blocks
• Excellerations Spatial Relations Playset
• Castle Logix (see my review here)
• 3-D Spatial Relations Activity Set
• Sort & Snap Color Match

Other Posts You Might Like

• Toddler Curriculum and Schedule
• 3 Ways to Use Pattern Boards
• Kid Tweezers for Fine Motor Growth and Development

Where can I find a nice, but inexpensive gift for Mother’s Day?

It seems like Mother’s Day always sneaks up on me every year, so this year I was determined to get ahead of the game. I have been searching out and brainstorming a bunch of inexpensive Mother’s Day gift ideas and my list kept getting longer and longer. So, I did the only logical thing for a blogger to do; I turned my list into a post. Hopefully this list is helpful to you as you brainstorm your own Mother’s Day gift ideas.

These gift ideas are separated according to who would be giving the gift. There is obviously some overlap, but in general I think of mother’s day gifts from kids being homemade or “cutesy.” I think of gifts from adults (whether adult children, adult grandchildren, husbands, etc.) as being more “sophisticated.” If you have any other ideas to add to the list, feel free to add them in the comments!

Mother’s Day Gifts for Kids to Give:

• Photo Bookmark
• Canvas Bag with handprints from fabric paint
• Handprint Lilies
• Footprint decorated flower pot
• Clothespin Magnets (use scrapbook paper instead of wrapping paper)
• Puzzle Magnet
• Handprint Bouquet Card
• Picture Frame (kid decorated , store bought, magnetic, first mother’s day)
• MOM photo collage
• Why I Love You book (Have child write one thing they love about Mom on each page and draw a picture to go with it. Do several pages and staple them together.)
• Homemade Bead or Pasta necklace
• Flower pens, use these pretty calla lily silk flowers
• You Rock Mom card
• Salt Dough Footprint Heart
• I Love You to Pieces card
• Candy Bar Bouquet
• Fingerprint Pendant
• Fingerprint Candles
• Key Chain
• I Love you This Much card
• Mother’s Day Sun Catcher
• Homemade Sugar Cookie Dough and cookie cutters
• Photo Calendar
• Kid decorated bird feeder
• My handprint poem

Mother’s Day Gifts for Spouse or Adult Children to Give:

• Bubble Bath or Soothing Bath Treatment
• Candle
• Foaming Hand Soap in a nice smell
• Jewelry
• Fancy bobby pins
• Flowers
• Business Card or Gift Card case
• Cute Cell Phone Case
• Sugar Scrub or homemade sugar scrub
• Cupcake Bouquet
• Chocolate! Most any kind will do :)
• Lotion
• Manicure or Pedicure from a local salon or a manicure/pedicure set
• Coaster or homemade tile coasters
• Breakfast in Bed
• Mom Music Box
• Framed Mother Scripture
• Key Chain
• Nail Polish
• Nail Art Set if she frequently does her nails at home
• Cookbook
• Recipe holder or homemade recipe or photo holder
• Slippers
• Sunglasses
• Perfume Samples
• Water bottle
• Dish Soap Cake Stand
• Scarf
• Pretty pens
• Fuzzy Socks
• Succulent Terrarium
• Board Game or Card Game that you know she would like
• iPad cover
• Ladies’ Tool Set
• Gardening Gloves or tools if she’s into gardening
• Fun paper clips
• Scrapbooking scissors
• Journal
• Stationary Set
• Lip Gloss
• Heating pad, homemade or purchased
• Cell Phone Accerssories
• Camera Strap, if she’s into photography or just takes lots of pictures
• Sunglasses Case
• Amazon Gift Card
• Movie Tickets
• Mud Face Mask
• Homemade Bread with Jam Butter

Other Posts You Might Like

• Inexpensive Father’s Day Gift Ideas
• Handprint Lilies
• How to Make a Wind Chime

How do I make homemade yarn ball and what do I do with it?

I made some homemade yarn balls long ago when I was in college for extra credit in my Teaching Physical Education class. I saved them for “someday when I have kids.” Well,  awhile after college was over, Little Bear finally was old enough to play with the yarn balls and I have to say, I didn’t think he would love them as much as he did. Today, both Little Bear and Smiley Man love our yarn balls. I am constantly amazed by how much they play with them. It cost me less than $10 of the cheapest yarn to make 20 yarn balls, but they are a favorite toy around here.

How do my kids play with them you ask? Okay, maybe you didn’t technically ask, but I’m going to tell you anyway. :) They play basketball with a door hanging basketball hoop, they play catch, they use them in place of bean bags in bean bag games, they use them in indoor snowball fights, they rub them on their faces because they like that they are fuzzy, and most of all, they throw them down the stairs. You could also make mini yarn balls (just use a smaller piece of cardboard) to make a baby mobile.

My wonderful sister, Alyse, once again filmed and edited this video. I’m thinking her editing privileges may need to be revoked since she put that super random clip in of me making weird noises. But then again, she also edited the “Kid Advice” of Smiley Man exercising at the end. If you don’t watch the whole movie, you have to at least skip to 3:02 to watch the Kid Advice. I was seriously crying with laughter the first time I watched it. :-D Enjoy the video!

If you like this video, be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel.

Other Posts You Might Like

• Toddler Discipline Tips
• When to Teach What: A guide for colors, shapes, letters, and more
• Easter Egg Decorating on a Vertical Surface