Letters & Numbers

This week  we have been exploring lowercase letters and numbers 1-10 and beyond!  We have used letters and numbers  in many activities this week.
Letter Activities

• Alphabet bean bag basketball:  Picking out a specific letter on a beanbag, then tossing it into a plastic container. (letter recognition, gross motor skills)
• Letter hunt, in teams of 9 (two teams) children would hunt out 3 letter cards and bring them back to the team, tag the next child who would then go find 3 more letter cards.  At the end, every child stood up and identified their letters to the group. (following 3-4 step directions, maintaining attention on a task, counting by rote 1,2,3, identifying letters, showing confidence)
• Letter Bingo, using gems and letter tiles, each child draws a letter tile one at a time, and identifies the letter for the group, everyone looks for their tile.  Continue until every child covers every letter on their board.  I will have them make the letter sounds, and give examples of words that start with that letter too. (identifying letters, matching similar shapes, fine motor skills, following 2 step directions) 
• We used a book I had from home that has magnet letter tiles in it, and words that the magnets stick to,  picture cues help children read the word they've spelled, Children have the opportunity to use this book during center time. (identifying letters, showing interest in reading, using materials correctly)
• Stamping our first and last names: We used our class's new letter stamps to stamp our first and last names.  (letter recognition, "reading"  from left to right, hand-eye coordination)
• Word families: This week we practiced a few word families, the _at words, _op, and _ar words.  This is a guided and whole group lesson to expose children to sounding out similar words (rhyming, phonics, beginning readers)

We also read several different alphabet books and did a class activity to help support the context of the book. for example: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! (video reading) and  each child has a random letter magnet, when I read that letter, the child who had the matching letter brought it up to stick it on the board.  For the book Dr. Seuss's ABC, the words in the book were "Big A, little A, what begins with A? I would write each letter on a dry erase board, and call on a child to  give me a word for that letter, and would write that word on the board before continuing the book.  This was a 2 part activity as one sitting was too much for their attention.  

Number activities:

More You Tube readings that may interest your child: 

Parents, YouTube videos have a vast array of book readings, this can be a great resource to use.  I will try to post videos I have personally viewed to recommend.   

1. (Hip-Hop) Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
2. (Read by a Jamaican, it's great for kids to hear!) Dr Seuss ABC

Online games your child can play to support alphabet learning and number learning:
Alphabet:

• http://www.learningplanet.com/act/fl/aact/index.asp
• http://www.boowakwala.com/alphabet/online-alphabet-game.html
• http://pbskids.org/games/letters.html 
• http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/games/count_your_chickens/count_your_chickens.html 
• http://pbskids.org/dinosaurtrain/games/pteranodonfishing.html