Numbers & Letters Week: Days 3, 4, & 5

February 1, 2019 /
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We’ve really been having a blast with our numbers and letters week – if you didn’t catch the first post, this is more a preview to letters & numbers since my three are still so young, but were showing some interest. I don’t expect my kids to have mastered much of anything besides exposure, but have been really impressed by just how much they’ve been picking up through our play!

Letters:

There are lots of options for letter play and toys when it comes to your babies and toddlers – we had this awesome puzzle that came in a case (honestly this is the best when you’ve got twenty-six pieces for your kids to otherwise dump and throw everywhere). The letters actually clicked in to provide a little more pressure for little hands and also ensured they couldn’t just dump and run which is a favorite pastime with most kids & puzzles. What I liked was while they had the outline of the letter to find its place they also had little hints that taught them beginning word sounds – many of which were exciting favorite characters which motivated them unendingly and some were simple day to day words i.e. under the O is Oscar the Grouch, under the T is a tree. The case and lack of free falling pieces also makes it a great option for travel!

Of course there are so many toys you can go to and we’ve seen letter puzzles everywhere from the dollar section to Melissa and Doug ones with options from animals to lower case letters to word builders. Magnet letters are also a great way to play – we use ours on the fridge when mom is cooking or on the chalkboard during playtime – talking about things like whose name starts with which letter or trying to guess what letter we’ve found! I’m always amazed at how much my 2 ½ year old has picked up as he is able to name/ recognize several letters from throughout the alphabet.

Mailbox Letter Matching

If you missed the first post of this theme week let me tell you quickly just how obsessed my kids have been with getting the mail and looking at mailboxes for the last few months! It’s actually become the treat of the day whoever gets to go outside with mom or dad to get the mail or throw the junk mail to the recycling – practicing ripping it up along the way. So while we are able to see lots of numbers on all the mailboxes in our neighborhood I thought it would be a fun way to work on letters as well! I created a few “mail boxes” using small boxes we had around the house which I covered in scrap paper. I wrote each letter nice and big on the top (by the mail slot). Then I cut out squares of “mail” that the kids could match the address (letter) on to the mailbox thus delivering the mail! I also made the letters match in color which helped them as they began, but once they understood what the letters looked like they were able to match without the colors matching. They had so much fun playing postman that I’m saving the boxes to have some more fun with on valentines day! Waste not, want not!

Snake S’s

This was a fun follow up to our bumblebee’s from earlier in the week as the kids kept asking to make more letters. Although it’s much simpler because it was a strategic “what can we do when they finish their snacks” set up. I simply cut out the S’s and let them paint them! While they were painting I cut up a pipe cleaner (construction paper would work great here too) which we attached using the wet paint and of course was reminded that we couldn’t forget the eyes by my middle child! A simple way to get them familiar with the shape of the letter S.

Letter Sounds

This was a fun activity that was a challenge for my kids but an easy way to start them thinking about word/letter sounds – we started by comparing two letters (A&B) and I had a box of objects which we tried to place in either pile. We started with very easy sounds to differentiate (think about the shape of your mouth when you say them and make sure both shapes are different) and they were able to pick up on it or remember certain ones from our reading in our theme library. I often used the letter sound before the word as a prompt especially on the first round as I took things out of the box. Then we just had a free play with some of the random toys. It was interesting to see how they used them differently out of context (i.e. one pop bead instead of the box of pop-beads).

Letter Smash

Another great way to work on letter or name recognition is this fun egg smash game that we found on @theboredtoddler. After making breakfast we saved our egg shells (washed and dried) and used a sharpie to write the letters of each kids name on the half of a shell. We laid these out in the yard and asked them to smash them with their toy hammers naming the letters of their name as they hit each one. I can’t tell you how much excitement there was around this activity and even once they were done hitting they enjoyed jumping on them and crushing each piece of shell so completely we ended up just leaving them in the grass as fertilizer. Such a fun way to combine our learning with motor play and get some energy out too! The research says the more you can get your whole body/all your senses involved the better you learn. So many studies have shown kids do better on tests if they were participating in learning with their body movement and that movement improves cognitive development – especially with memorization retrieval. There are a lot of links between the parts of the brain that retrieve/process information and the parts that control your body that I won’t get into here, but do google it if you’re interested like me!

Numbers:

We were pretty lucky with a few beautiful winter days and spent some time outside which made our number play much more physical too. Whether it was counting pushes on the swings, how many times we could jump or how many sticks we could find! We even learned a little basic fraction breaking our sticks in half so we could share them.

Sticker Counting

This is pretty similar to the counting squares we did earlier in the week only this time we did it backwards. I gave out some stickers and let the kids put them on their papers however they wanted. Once they were done we counted the number of stickers on each one together and wrote the number on it! Playing through this activity both ways is great practice for those school math skills like working backwards or double checking your work, and it teaches them how to use numbers both to figure out how many you’ve got or how many you want!

Number Matching

I also created a popsicle stick and clothespin game that touches on so many important concepts – we are always seeking activities to improve our fine motor skills, something my kids have struggled with. The clothespins are great for building hand coordination and strength. Again, I used various colors and lined these up with the numbers so that they were using skills they already had (color matching) to improve on the ones they did not – number recognition and matching. So simple and yet it kept them challenged and exploring for a long time. Afterwards we were even able to use the popsicle sticks to continue to our other favorite activity putting sticks in a bottle and dumping them out! While we tried a little bit to do the numbers in order, we ended with lots of free play and Mommy helping them call out whatever number they had put in. Again this is something so simple to adjust and play at whatever skill level your child has – whether counting up, number recognition, counting backwards – you could even adjust it to addition/subtraction to keep an older sibling involved.

Valentine's Day Activities
Numbers and Letters Week: Day 1 & 2

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