Education resources for parents and teachers
Have you see our free letter book collection? We're moving through the alphabet and sharing a collection of six rhymes and songs for each letter - perfect for your toddler and preschooler. I hope you enjoy this free letter book! Letter Y Rhymes & Songs - free letter book! Okay - letter Y was pretty tough. There isn't exactly a huge repertoire of songs about yo-yo's and yaks. Many of these ... Read More
What to do for a sensory activity with Y? Somehow I didn't think my kids would get too excited about a box of yarn. We're pretty limited with letter Y.... hey, how about yuck? I searched Pinterest and found a lot of fun ideas for yucky sensory play. Finally I narrowed it down to this timeless activity that many moms do at home and that I did in my classroom as a science lesson. I have ... Read More
Did you know that we collect math ideas for each letter of the alphabet? Some are simple -- it was fun to create transportation printables for the letter T. But the letter Y... what were we going to do, count yaks? Thankfully I realized that yarn can be a great math manipulative -- for measuring, of course. So today I'm sharing a few ways to teach measurement to kids using yarn. I decided to do this lesson after ... Read More
It's absolutely frigid here in the Midwest, so I thought that a winter spelling activity would be just the thing. The best part? You can adapt this game to any word list! To play, you'll need: the gameboard (I laminate mine for durability, but you wouldn't have to) spelling word cards -- with a spelling word printed on each card winter playing cards playing pieces a die Here's how to play: 1. Put your playing ... Read More
My three-year-old is moving right along with his beginning sounds - and this learning center has really helped him along! These picture mats and letter cards have been just the thing to help him master those tricky sounds. (This post contains affiliate links.) This is Set Three in my series of Beginning Sound Match Mats. If your child already knows a lot of his letter sounds, use the sets in whatever order ... Read More
Before we can expect our new readers to sound out words with confidence and success, they need to have a strong handle on beginning sounds. Some kids pick these up with little or no effort from us. Reading to my oldest two kids (now ages 6 and 5) , singing alphabet songs, and talking about the sounds letters make was all I needed to do . Their next sibling (now age 3 1/2) hasn't picked them up as easily. He has ... Read More
My Five is such a busy boy. It makes me glad he missed the kindergarten cut off by just a few days, because he really needs time to mature and learn to control his energy! Doing seat work is not #1 on his list, and he's not always thrilled about the activities I have him do that I share on my blog. But do you know he's never once complained about doing Read 'n Stick mats? Must be that Velcro. :) If my read 'n ... Read More
Hurray!! We're on our final set of short vowel word family houses. Short u word family houses Word family houses are so versatile! Follow the simple assembly instructions and use them in a few different ways: 1) Have your little one read a few before you dive into a decodable book. 2) Let this be your phonics practice before you start reading a stack of sight word or leveled readers. 3) Practice reading ... Read More
The great thing about this free spelling game is that besides having kids practice writing their spelling words, it gives them the opportunity to analyze and compare the words in their list. Read on to learn how! Here's what you'll need: a copy of the game board (get it at the end of this post) a die playing pieces each spelling word written on a piece of paper and put in a cup a complete spelling list to ... Read More
7 Letter Y Crafts and Process Art for Preschoolers Y is for Yellow My Three had fun finding miscellaneous craft items to glue to his yellow Y. He's known his colors for quite some time, but it was good to keep talking about the word yellow and the sound we hear at the beginning of it. Y's sound is a hard one to master because you don't hear the sound /y/ in the name of the letter. (Don't be surprised if your ... Read More
