Hidden Words Reading Game with 3D Glasses

A couple weeks ago we got a game with 3D glasses and a workbook with objects to find in a Chick-Fil-A kids meal.  The kids enjoyed playing the game as intended, but were particularly fascinated with the glasses.  I made them a fun reading game with hidden words that could only be read using the 'magic' glasses.  You can make this game using any red tinted see-through object (color paddles, Magna-Tiles, etc..).  This game provided lots and lots of entertainment (and reading practice) for my kids. Here's how it's done..

CVC Word Flip Books: 10 Games for Beginning to Advanced Readers

These early reading word books that I made for the twins (3 years old) have been a big hit in our house.  The concept is simple, and I think I've seen something similar used for learning word families, but making all three letters 'moveable' really adds to fun.  I came up with a number of games that can be played with these CVC Flip Pads for a variety of reading levels (even kids who are already proficient readers can benefit from games that let them play with words.  My kids are too little to play a lot of the more advanced games I came up with, but I wanted to include them in this blog so I have something to refer to later as my kids' reading skills improve...

Phonics Jumping Game (with Video!)

This morning the girls (37 months) helped me use painters tape to make letters on the floor.  Then we played a phonics reading (and jumping!) game that I made up.  It was so much fun that we ended up playing for over an hour and L forgot that she was on a reading-strike!  I even caught one of the rounds on video.  Here's how to play...

Tricycle Reading Game

For the twins' 3rd birthdays, they each received adorable tricycles from my parents.  They've been happily riding them in a loop through the living room and kitchen every day (and are getting fantastically good at turning the tight corners!).  Since the girls (especially L) are demonstrating a 'sweet spot' for phonics at the moment, I reinforced what we've been learning by creating this game for them...

Leaping Frogs Homemade Reading Game

I've been following the phonics reading method described in Teach Your Child to Read in Just 10 Minutes a Day by Sidney Ledson.  I was terrified to hear that schools now take the 'whole word' approach to reading - which is basically teaching kids to memorize sight words rather than decode words using letter sounds.  I know that when adults read, they don't sound out each word, but rather identify it from memory, but I'd rather give my kids the foundations to understand the mechanics of words.  I noticed that when I let the girls watch the Meet the Sight Words DVDs, they learned nearly 50 words very quickly and could soon 'read' sentences, but if they forgot a word (or came to a word they hadn't learned) they guessed what it was (with the guess usually not resembling the correct word at all), which means they were not really reading.  I'm very happy with the phonics approach we're doing now, and the girls (3 years old) are progressing marvelously.  Here's a game I made that followed Sidney Ledson's 'block game', or 'train game', but uses frogs instead...

Egg-tivities

We celebrated Spring this week with a couple egg-themed activities (because nothing says Spring like plastic eggs, right?).  I didn't have a lot of time to spend planning the egg-tivities, so they were basically things which were put together in the spur of the moment.  The kids still had a lot of fun.  Here's what we did...

Phonics Game With Velcro Letters

I want to share this incredibly easy phonics game / learning tool that I made a couple weeks ago.  You need some craft sticks, a tub of cheap plastic letter tiles and a roll of velcro dots (they are pretty cheap if you buy them in bulk).  I put the velcro dots on the backs of the letter tiles as well as on the craft sticks.  Now the girls can get hands-on practice building C-V-C words.  We have some $1 flashcards from Target that we use to copy words (I either pull out the letter they need or they ask for the letters one at a time - making them all available seems to be too distracting).  I also like to show them how with word families you can just change the first letter to make a new word.  Both girls (30 months old) are really getting the concept that letters are used to sound out words.  Sometimes they pick random letters, put them on the craft sticks and then sound out the "words" they've created.