Homemade Reading books (Ages 2-5)

D (almost 3) will see a word and ask me what it says. He does this all day long. He wants to read. How can I help him read aside from our learning time during the week?

I-Bell is 5 and is writing. She's always asking me how to spell words. What can she do when I'm not able to sit with her and help her spell/write a word? How can I empower her so she can do more on her own?

This is how our first reading books came to be.

Learning to read through pictures.

 

I-Bell and D were huge contributors to putting this together. We used their interests and their ideas. They sat with me and I helped make their ideas come to life on the computer. They chose the pictures, I wrote the words. When they lost interest in creating the book, we stopped creating it. When they were interested in making it again we'd work on it again. I wanted this to be a book that they created.  

 

In the end, they each got their own binder and their own copy of this book.

D's first interest was trains. His Thomas trains, in particular. We also included The Polar Express. We have multiple pages of these in his and I-Bell's book. I catch D peeking at the bottom of his wooden trains to see the names now. I believe he is memorizing them, or learning them by sight. However, he knows what letter all of these trains start with by memory. ("I'm thinking of a train that starts with the letter ...") We play this all the time!

I-Bell wanted Super Heroes:)

Animals. Sort by category: Farm animals, Jungle animals, Zoo animals, etc.

Transportation 

They helped me think of all of these. We add more on our Microsoft Word Doc as they think of more.  I'm constantly jotting their ideas down in my phone so we can remember them when we get home. They are so excited about adding to their books!

Body Parts 

Craft Time 

Colors 

Weather. 

D and I-Bell already are in the process of creating a Tree section, a leaf classification section, plants, flowers and insect identification sections. I'm thinking Spring ... Bird classification/eggs. The possibilities are endless!

We got out a box of pictures and they chose the pics they wanted in their books. We did a scrap book at the end. 

After they chose their pictures, I'd write about them. I-Bell, 5, told me about each picture and I wrote what she told me. That way she can work on her reading. 

D's book was kept very simple.

 

I can't wait to see what they add to their books next!

Cheez-It Fun

Yesterday during our Shadow Show (and Tell) my son was eating these Cheez-Its with letters on them. It was dark in the room, so he'd hold each cracker up to the light to see what letter he was about to eat. I saw this and knew there had to be some way to put these letters to use in play!

 

I created a few different sheets and then laminated them (they will get grease spots on them otherwise) and we played with them on the light table.

It would also be fun on the overhead. Here is how the crackers look by themselves. (My son's name): 

Here I-Bell is filling out her page after learning to read it first.(The one word she had trouble with was her name? She stared at it for a long time and finally said, "This looks like my name." LOL:)

Here is D's: 

He needed help reading the words beyond his name. However, he recognized all the letters and was able to do this with no help.  

Cute! 

The best part is eating it afterward ... 

This was so much fun. The kids' first game of Tic Tac Toe

We used the first letters in their names instead of X's and O's. 

Have you played with your food today?

 

Shadow Show (and Tell) and a little puppet show too!

I can't begin to tell you what fun my family had with this activity. We did Shadow Show and Tell at least 50 times, some shadow puppet shows, and plenty of fun just being silly behind the curtain.

The curtain was hung from the ceiling, and our overhead projector was set up on a table behind us.

Each person had a box of items. They would choose one to cast shadows onto the curtain as they described what it looked like.

The people in front of the curtain would try to guess what the object was.

This was an awesome activity.

 

Here are some of the benefits:

Descriptive language development

Speaking and listening skills

Learning to ask questions

 

Here is a video of them in action:

 

And here is a free little puppet show for y'all ...

 

LOL. Have fun!

Why I love Thomas The Tank Engine (almost) as much as my son.

It would be an understatement to say my 2 yr old likes trains. This is why he loves this book so much. It was created over a long period of time as he shows interest in letters, numbers, then words, then emotions and then telling time, etc. I love that it grows along with my son♥

 

The worksheets are not fancy. They were created with paper and marker, then put into plastic sheet protectors, and my son uses them over and over again with dry-erase markers.

 

Matching the name of the engine to its number.

The trains' names are written on the left; their numbers on the right.

 

Talking about emotions: circling the correct written word for the facial expression. At 2 yrs old, D figures out which word based on the beginning letter and knowing its sound.

Circling "Happy"

 

Here, D said, "Thomas is cross." He wasn't sure which word to circle. I assisted on this one, "Another word for cross is?" He said mad, and then we talked together about what mad started with by sounding out the first letter and finishing the word (Mmmmad). He got it:)

 

He loves pushing trains through tunnels, so to play off that, I made a wide track and a narrow track leading to tunnels. "Can you help the train chuff down the narrow track?" "Now can you help him go down the wide track?"

We work on left and right all day long, putting on shoes, squirting with bath squirters in the tub (squirting your right arm, now your left arm. Let's do your right hand, etc.) We work on left and right whenever we go up and down stairs, when we put on jammies, clothes, coats, and everywhere in between.

 

D tells me which direction to turn in the car now LOL.

Count the wheels and match to the number in the middle.

He's getting really good at drawing facial expressions.

He wasn't too sure how Thomas was feeling here LOL.

:]

Matching the names of the trains (color coded).

This is as much as he wanted to do for this one. However, the reason I created this one is because D is always asking me what the names are on the bottoms of his trains.

Coal cars are on the right, match the number on the left to the amount of coal in each car.

Letter recognition.

D asks me all.day.long. what time it is. Now that he knows his numbers, it's time he starts learning.

I write the (digital) time and the long hand to the 12, he draws the short hand.

 

Here are some more games we've made, and some additional activities to show you where we started ...

 

 

Avery simple game I created to help learn numbers:

http://auntiejill.blogspot.com/2013/10/fun-with-learning-numbers.html

 

A DIY very simple matching game for train lovers:

http://auntiejill.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-matching-game-for-train-lovers.html

 

How chuffing down tracks got my son to write:

http://auntiejill.blogspot.com/2013/08/28-months-and-writing.html

 

Ticket punch number learning:

http://auntiejill.blogspot.com/2013/07/train-ticket-activity-for-2-year-old.html

 

More ticket punch for over 2 yrs old:

http://auntiejill.blogspot.com/2013/07/ticket-punch.html

 

 

Learning is fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Treasure Hunt and Twist on Hide and Seek

 It started the other night. My husband got home, and my son rolled up his check stub, and kept it in his pocket calling it his "map." All night long he would take it out, unroll it, look at it and talk about the lost treasure. He invited me to look for this "treasure" but he had no idea what we were looking for, and we didn't find any of the real stuff.

 

So, I found some left over tokens from Funset.

I hid them in his chair in his room.

(close-up)

I drew the layout of his room (map) and marked an X in the location of the hidden treasure.

He looked at his map and together we figured out where the treasure was hiding.

Then the map turned into a telescope, so he could see the treasure from far away.

Found! He calls them gold doubloons!

Today ... my niece and my son were playing "hide the choo choo." One person would hide the toy train, the other would have to go find where they hid it. I thought they might like the map idea.

This took me 5 minutes to create:

I drew the layout of three of our rooms upstairs and laminated them. I grabbed a bag of "treasure" for hiding and a dry-erase marker.

They couldn't wait to play! She hid the "treasure."

Then sat down to figure out where on the map she needed to place the X.

Found it!

Then we all looked at the map together. Once he figured out where we were in the room, what the objects were on the paper, and where the X was pointing him to ... he couldn't get to the location fast enough!

Found it!! 

 

This was so simple to create, and best of all, the children are learning as they play. Note it doesn't have to be about treasure. We actually went back to "hide the Thomas Train" after a few rounds and continued using the map.

 

Hope you have as much fun as we did!