Letter "Aa" Activities

I'll be sharing with you the activities we did for Letter "A".The aim of these activities is to learn more about a particular letter. To identify what a particular letter looks like (both uppercase and lowercase letters), what sound it makes, and how to use it to make up a word. And ofcourse in a fun and exciting way.

Lets begin.

Letter Identification.

Identifying capital and small letter "A" using this Alphabet Letter Identification Printable I got from this site  and with our DIY Do-A-Dot Marker. We're now focusing more on the lowercase letters as she's already familiar with the uppercase letters.

Pre-Writing.

Tracing the Letter A using cork board and toothpicks. For older kids you may use pushpins instead of toothpick. This is a great pre-writing activity.

Another pre-writing activity is this letter tracing using a cotton swab and washable paint. My toddler love this activity so much because of the cotton swab dipping part, that she asked for another set of letters to be traced.

Forming letter Aa using clay. This is also a great fine motor skills activity.

Arts and Crafts.

A is for Alligator and a is for apple craft. This activity is also an opportunity to practice her cutting and pasting skills.

Bible Story.

We have this very nice Kid Bible App on her tablet that we love to read. We read about Noah's Ark.

We built a miniature Ark using her empty milk carton, and wrap it with packaging tape, and put a window and door.

 Then I asked her to help the animals enter the ark. We were singing the arky arky song while doing this.

 not an instagram worthy project but I tell you she had enjoyed this diy ark alot.

Letter "A" book

For our letter A book we read about this Ant family who had their picnic on the hill.

Other Activities

A is for Animals. We also did various activities about animals such as this wooden animal puzzle, that is a great cognitive development activity, and this mother and baby animals matching activity.

So that's it. I hope you had fun as much as we had fun in doing those activities.

Animal Themed Activities for Toddlers

My little girl loves animals so much, she's so interested about them, their names, the sounds they make (I remember how she gets stunned with cat's "meows" and dog's barks when she was around 9 months old), their habitat, and more.

So I decided to make a list of the fun activities/plays we had about learning animals so far. These were mostly an introduction on learning about animals, and didn't require a lot of time in terms of preparation. we just basically use whatever animal toys/replicas we have at that time. Of course as much as I want to recreate those bunch of wonderful homeschooling lessons that you can find on the world wide web, it's quite hard to find time. So this working Mommy's solution is to just recreate as much play as we can using whatever toys she have at the moment.

These plastic mold shape sea animals is a great tool we used in introducing her the animals that swims on the water. We had fun using them during our bath-time plays and sand play (during one of our beach trip). Aside from the fun and learning that these plays gives to her, she also acquire developmental advantages for physical, social, cognitive, sensory, and speech.

Next was this animal wooden puzzle, she loves naming each animals before fitting them in their right place. We sometimes use this on our story telling sessions if there are animals involve.

This Melissa & Doug Water Wow coloring book, also helps her in identifying different types of animals and their habitats, as this book has 4 animal-themed pages---farm animals, sea animals, pet animals and jungle animals. This book have faded pictures which shows up when the water pen rubbed over them,  she loves finding those hidden item listed on the back side of the previous page.

My little girl loves story telling so much, even more if its about animals, she always choose stories about animals every bedtime story session. And to make our story telling more exciting & fun I sometimes bought books like these. With these a simple story telling become a playful one.

She loves those big eyes of the insects.

includes a finger puppet head of the main character. 
She giggles whenever I animate the puppet while reading. 
We also have the puppy and mouse version of these books. 

"I got big eyes too, like Mr. Ant, Mommy" --she said

I was so amazed how Jashley was able to recognized all this animals in their silhouette. This was used on the animal hunting activity prepared by my cousins for the kids on our family Christmas party last December. These silhouetted animals was scattered all over the place/venue (under the tables/chairs, behind the trees/plants, etc.), We were given list of the animals we need to find. As we were hunting this cutout animals I was so surprised that she was able to identify almost all the animal we found and when I check the list it's sure does written there. Well I think the wooden animal puzzle is somehow responsible for that.

She enjoys this simple game wherein someone will show her the cutout, then she'll say the color, the name and the sound of that particular animal.

here is Papa (FIL) and her playing that game

there she was making the sound of the lion... ROAR!!!!!

and the elphants trumpet sound... EEEEEEE!!!!

This Cutout Animal Foam-sheets not only helps her in terms of expanding her vocabulary and language skills but also helps develop her cognitive skills and a great visual sensory activity.

She was recently got curious about land, water and sky animals, that she frequently checks on me whether a *insert any animal name here* walks on the land/fly in the sky/swim on the water. So to make her understand more about it I bought an animal replicas, made a land/grass sensory bin using a green colored spaghetti pasta that was break into pieces to make it look like grass and filled a basin with water and add a drop of blue food coloring to make it look like an ocean.

I asked her to sort out the animals in its respective habitats. She had fun doing this activity causing us to repeat it several times as requested by her.  

carefully bringing the animals on their respective home

"this donkey walks on the land, right Mommy?" -she asked

And this another activity that I just quickly put up when she suddenly demand for a play, I grab one of her animal book and ask her to match her animal replicas to the pictures of the animals in the book.

She's busy working with the activity when she noticed that she don't have the replicas of some of the animals in the pictures, She blurted out "Wala ako rabbit (I don't have rabbit), lets buy a rabbit Mommy, Ok?".

This may not much as compared to the overwhelming animal activity on web that I wanted to recreate for her, but knowing that my little girl enjoyed every single activity we did, it definitely made me happy and inspired to prepare more activities/plays for her.  

How I discover Montessori Education

When I noticed that Jashley started to get curious on things around her, when she can already identify things, when she was able to follow a simple instruction, and can speak a few words, I take that as a cue that she's now ready for some simple activities that we can enjoy together. Back then all I want is for her to enjoy, to be entertained and of course to learn, simple as that. I strongly believe in the power of learning through play, that children learn more when they are playing and develop a lot of skills through playing. Thus explains the teaching strategy I do with Jashley, I want her to associate learning as a fun thing to do not a tiring one. Little did I know that somehow I was already applying Montessori Principles on our activities and plays.

Here are some of the example activities she have done, which I just recently realized was also using in Montessori Teaching:

This Fabric Fishing Toy that I made for her. My only reason in making these back then, was because I know she will have fun playing this and because she love fishes so much. I didn't know that it's a great activity in developing physical skills such as hand and eye coordination, gross motor and fine motor skills.

Another one is this Cutting Fruit and Vegetables Set that I got from a toy store. Again when I bought these I just thought that she'll have fun cutting these foods. But beside using it to teach her about fruits and vegetables, I realized that this is also a practical life lesson on teaching her how to use knife and it helps develop fine motor skills too.

When I allow her to play sand the only purpose I have in mind was to let her to experience the sand. I didn't realize that it is actually benefiting her tactile sensory. By digging, pouring or filling the sand into bucket also helps her develop her fine motor skills, it also encourages creativity and imagination, writing letter/words in the sand offers a chance to develop language skills as well.

Even some of the stuffs I have featured on this post were not only helped her learn alphabets, shapes and colors but also develop some essential life skills.

Like the Shape Sorter that develops fine motor skills and helps improved problem solving skills.

As well as Puzzles that develops cognitive skills, helps enhance child's memory, also builds self steem and gives sense of achievement and pride within themselves after completing the Puzzle.

While the Movable Magnetic Letters, Alphabet Charts and Books helps in developing language skills.

Magnetic Sketchboard doesn't only help her practice her three-finger grip in preparation for writing but also helps in honing her creative skills, even encourage hand and eye coordination.

And when I let her engaged in some of the household chores or let her involved in kitchen activities all I know is, it will be fun for her as she gets to play with water, or she'll be able to experience preparing her own snack. What I didn't realize is she was practicing more skills in doing those. It helps refine her movement, provide sense of accomplishment, and most of all its gains independence and confidence.

I didn't realize how much of a skills my little have been acquiring on those activities until I learn about Montessori. Before Whenever I hear that word Montessori the only thing that registers on my mind is a school, because I always thought that "Montessori" is just a name of a school. And then one day while I was looking for activity ideas for toddlers on the internet, the "Montessori" word kept on appearing on my result searches. Thus makes me curious about Montessori education. From then on I fell in love with its principle. And that's how my love affair with Montessori started.