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...

Yoga Fun for Preschoolers

I'd like to do yoga, but I don't.  I can't even touch my toes.  My kids, however, are apparently made of rubber.  To keep my little contortionists occupied, I bought them some yoga cards....

10 Hula Hoop Games for Preschoolers

When I saw some kid-sized hula-hoops at the craft store, I couldn't resist getting them for the girls.  I'm glad I did - they've been the source of hours of entertainment.  Here is a collection of some hula hoop games and activities we've tried:

Cat in the Hat - Balancing Game

Today's activity for Seuss Week was based on Cat in the Hat, a big favorite at our house.  I came up with a Cat in the Hat balancing game idea a couple days ago in the middle of the night when Baby H was having a hard time sleeping, and I'm so glad I didn't forget it in my sleep-deprived haze.  We have a version of the book that has both French and English, so I even integrated a bit of French terminology in the game.

I picked six objects from the book (cup, hat, fish, ship, ball, book) and five body parts (hand, foot, chin, head, elbows, legs) and put the names of the objects (in French) into two photo-cubes:

Then I gathered the appropriate objects.  We took turns choosing who would be the Balancer.  Then the other girl rolled the dice and helped put the correct object on the correct bodypart of the Balancer.  We kept rolling the dice until the Balancer couldn't balance the objects any longer:

It was a real challenge, and the girls laughed and laughed as the objects kept slipping.  We also played a variation where you only roll the dice once and then have to carry the object using the correct body part across the room.  You could also add a third die with actions (like jump, stand on one leg, etc..) for more challenge.

Once the girls had enough of the balancing game, we played "What's in the Hat" by hiding different objects in the Dr. Seuss hat and then trying to guess what's inside or putting multiple objects inside and trying to find something specific using sense of touch (this is a variation of a Montessori Mystery Bag game):

When we read The Cat in the Hat after playing the game, the girls had a new appreciation for the amazing balancing act the cat performs.  They also could recognize some of the objects by their French names.

Other Seuss activities we've done this week include:

• Yertle the Turtle Number Craft
• Green Eggs and Ham: Try New Food Challenge
• The Shape of Me and Other Stuff

Now I need to come up with some ideas for the rest of our week...

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Number Olympics

L and E are 31 months old.  I always like combining physical activity with learning (like jumping over sight words, making an obstacle course in our living room, etc..), and I've had the idea of integrating math skills with Olympic-style activities for quite some time.

So yesterday after I completed my own record-setting endurance event (a 2-hour nap with Baby H!), the twins and I had a little bit of Olympic fun.  It almost turned into a reenactment of the first Greek Olympics (in the nude!), but I managed to keep the girls dressed long enough to take some pictures.

Our first event was the long jump:

This was the first time the girls had used a tape measure.  They helped me read the numbers, and we used ordinal/math words: "L's first jump was 10 inches, and her third jump was 22 inches.  This was her longest jump", etc.. (and yes, my 31 month old can jump almost 2 feet!).

We followed this with the high jump.  We've jumped over the broom before, but this time we added some number concepts to the game by increasing the height by one Duplo block at a time.  The girls counted the blocks and made sure we had the same number on each side.   Then we sang a variation of Barney the Dinosaur's "Number Limbo" song (substituting "limbo" with "high jump", "under" with "over", etc..).

A little more bragging - the girls both jumped over a height of 4 duplo blocks!  When we got to 5, they decided it would be easier to go under, which was a fun challenge too.

Next it was time for some track & field running events.  The girls took turns running around the living room, while the other one operated the timer:

We practiced hitting the correct buttons for Stop and Go, read the numbers on the display, and counted the laps.  I was most impressed by how the twins took turns very nicely with the highly-coveted stopwatch.

The shotput (beanbag) throw provided more number practice:

 The girls read the digits with ease (the only ones they mix up are 6 and 9), and were able to tell me which numbers were greater.

The most creative event I came up with was Weight Lifting.  I put out 24 blocks and asked the girls to put 12  in each pail.  Then we weighed them to see if they were the same:

 After getting both sides to weigh the same, I taped the buckets to the broomstick and the girls did some weight lifting:

Their Dad had taught them to grunt and huff-and-puff while they lift weights (for extra drama), so it was hilarious!

Our Olympic afternoon ended with some rythmic gymnastics:

We had so much fun.  I'm planning on building on this and doing an entire Olympic week this summer for the 2012 Summer Olympics!

Over, Under, Around, and Through with Hairy Maclary's Bone

The girls love to mix literature with dramatic play.  One of our favorite stories for this is Hairy Maclary's Bone by Lynley Dodd.  I randomly stumbled upon her books while surfing Amazon - they are very popular in New Zealand and the UK.  We have a number of other books in her series, which follow the adventures of a little terrier, and they are all really cute.

The plot of the book is that Hairy Maclary gets a bone, and all the other neighborhood dogs follow him around.  The dogs go through a sign, under a hedge, around a boat yard, over a hill, and jump over a wall.  In each activity one dog gets left behind until Hairy Maclary gets to go home with the bone all by himself.  This book lends itself to a great discussion on words such as over, under, around, and through.  After reading each section, we demonstrate the action.  The girls navigate through some chairs, commando-crawl under the table, climb over the couch, run around the room, and jump off a stepstool...  basically turning our living room into a giant obstacle course!  We've been doing this activity a lot in the winter when it's too cold to go to the playground.  Here are some pictures of the fun:

Through.

 Under.

 Over.

Getting ready to jump.

Easy.  Physical.  Fun.

Linking to It's Playtime linky:

Sight Words Jump

A couple months ago when L and E were just a little over two years old, I purchased Meet the Sight Words just for fun to see if they'd pick anything up.  They both already knew the uppercase alphabet and most of the lowercase letters, as well as all the letter sounds (thanks to the Leapfrog Letter Factory video).  Both the girls (but especially L) have been displaying other signs of reading-readiness as well, but I didn't want to push anything.  To my surprise, thanks to the video series they now know approximately 40 sight words!  I'd love to take credit, but it really was all from the video.. 

To re-enforce the sight words they've learned, we do a variety of fun activities, most of which involve physical components like hitting sight words with fly swatters, running to the other side of the room to fetch sight words and then putting them into a box, or jumping over the sight words.  Here is Linnea demonstrating:

She doesn't get them all right, and some of her pronunciation is a bit off (I think she says 'hat' instead of 'had' and 'here' instead of 'her'), but it's a lot of fun.  Sometimes we put the flashcards in a big circle all around the house and the girls will go around and around jumping over them. 

The best part about learning sight words is that now when I read stories to the girls, I can point at words that they know and they understand the context - that they haven't just memorized random patterns, but that they know words that will help them to read (and we LOVE reading).

We're also doing a lot of activities that involve phonics, identifying what letters words begin and end with, rhyming words, etc..  I have a feeling that over the next year as we continue into homeschool preschool, everything will just click and I'll have two very young readers seeking out new books to absorb...