Practicing Reading

One of the ways that we practice our reading, and build on our phonics skills is to use our Fisher Price Magnetic Doodle Pad.

Selena and I will spend hours playing with her doodle pad. I start out by just writing random words, some she knows and some she doesn’t know, easy words to complex words. It is up to Selena to tell me what I wrote. The words she doesn’t know, she isn’t allowed to just guess at she has to sound them out. Many times she surprises herself and gets them the first try, but since I throw in a lot of different letter blends, it might take her a couple of attempts. Sometimes I do have to give her hints, when this happens, I write a new word using the same letter blends to see if she remembers what sound we just made.

After we have done this for a while, I start writing sentences, from simple sentences to complex sentences. Selena then has to read the sentences to me. I may or may not use many of the words we just practiced, and many times I will throw in new words into our sentences.

Selena loves this activity, I think more then just sitting down and reading books with us. She still does read a lot of books, but I think this is a fun and very important learning tool. It is not only introducing her to how to use her phonics skills, reading skills, but also recognizing the written word, not just typed word.

Of course what would playing on the doodle pad be without truly just sitting back and doodling, she will doodle, I will doodle, we draw all sorts of pictures, play tic tac toe, hangman. I don’t think I have mentioned Selena’s newest favorite game is hangman. She isn’t too bad at the game either.

We do love our doodle pad!

Homemade Jigsaw Puzzle

After seeing several posts on homemade jigsaw puzzles, especially this one at Leah’s and many other posts where she has used empty cereal boxes. I just love her blog for the wonderful ideas she has. I thought right away I wanted to make Selena a jigsaw puzzle using a cereal box, but I forgot to tell Papa what I was saving the box for. I guess you know he scooped it up and threw it away even though I had sat it in my laundry room out of the way.

On Saturday I was really feeling rather lazy so we has Stauffer’s Mac & Cheese, this time I didn’t give Papa a chance to throw my box away. I quickly cut a jigsaw puzzle out of it. Now Selena had a complete picture of what her jigsaw puzzle would look like when she finished.

Then I turned Selena loose with the puzzle and told her to put it back together, just like it looked in the big picture. She had so much fun and found it rather easy to do.

She spent quite a bit of fun taking her puzzle apart and putting it back together again. She truly thought it was neat that the finished puzzle did indeed look like the big picture. She even had to teach Papa how to put it together. Papa was surprised that I had made this and asked me how I did it. Maybe now he will ask or think twice before throwing an empty box out again.

Papa Teaching

I am not the only one who teaches Selena. Papa gets in on the fun as well. Many evenings he is found working with Selena with her doodle pads, reading library books with her, listening to her make up stories for him, counting with her, and just fun play.

Another great present that Selena received from our friends were three puzzles. One is of the United States, which we haven’t pulled out just yet. These two though, Selena has had so much fun with. Papa got in on the fun as well.

Selena does better on the one with the small children shapes then she does with the butterfly puzzle. These are Lauri puzzles, should you like to try to find them. We have depended on Lauri puzzles for all of our early learning puzzles. I love both of these as they build comparison skills. While each piece is different there are certain similarities that make the child really have to think and compare shapes. Sometimes on the people they will have the right arm in the air or the right leg stretched out, while another piece will be just the opposite. Selena does very well at figuring out which piece goes where.

Then there is always time for fun play time!

Then it was Papa’s turn!

I enjoy the fact that Papa takes so much time with Selena, and that they enjoy learning and play together. I know that Selena loves it as well, and I know she really benefits from having a Papa who desires to take that precious time with her.

Child’s play is one of the best learning tools we have, play along and learn at Childhood 101.

Selena’s Computer Time

I haven’t shared lately about Selena’s computer time. She doesn’t get to spend a lot of time on the computer, but I do let her play on it every so often. Her mouse skills are improving so much! Not only that but on her memory match game she is now getting through the levels very quickly.

She can earn coins on this game which allow her to take a peek at all the cards, there are three per game, she usually only has to use one maybe two at the most to get clear through the game. Each game has different characters and objects. She figured out the coin option on her own, I had no idea that the coins could be cashed in for a peek at the board, until she showed me.

She also loves to create in Paint. This is one that we do not do a lot of as she is all over the place with it. She uses every option possible and I can hardly keep up with her when she is on it.

This isn’t the best picture since she chose to use such light colors, I finally persuaded her to use some darker colors, since she insisted I take a picture. She is getting very good at making circles with the mouse, and then filling them in using the paint brush. I would have to say there is nothing wrong with her mouse, eye, and hand coordination. She even knows if I get a notice of an email to go and click right on the little x to clear it out of her way. How she figured that out is beyond me!