10 Embedded Pre-Literacy Activities... Here's some ways we've been doing it!

1. Play with SOUND! So much of decoding words in the future starts with careful listening in early childhood.

2.  SOUND Explore Tables: this table had all things beginning with the /b/ sound. Simply naming the objects in the Explore Table produces natural opportunities to HEAR alliteration.  Some of the things in this set up included "beach sand," books, bears, bugs, butterflies, balls, buttons, large beads, flashcards with B words and letter, and blocks.

In addition to objects beginning with the /b/ sound, hidden magnet B letters and wooden letter B's were in the "beach" to be found and touched as well.  Finally, as we played, we made stories with the toys, like: "The blue bears sit on buttons around the bead table. They are having bumblebee soup!" or "Bugs are riding on the bus all the way to the beach!"

3.  Chatting with friends! It's true that this is a pre-literacy skill because conversation with peers and adults help children's vocabulary grow which is required for reading comprehension in the future.

Role play isn't a waste of time!  It's a natural opportunity to talk, assume the role/feelings/behaviors of another person or animal, and develop cognitive and language skills.

4.  Rhyming pups: we love playing with puppies and kitties! These toys made by Learning Resources allow us to make mis-matched rhyming pups which are terribly silly!  When we fix the pups, we HEAR two words that rhyme correctly.  (See how much hearing factors into literacy?)

5. Letter names, recognition, and shapes: Letters are symbols for SOUNDS, and as children develop, they memorize the names and sounds of each letter.  Pre-literacy includes being able to see different kinds of lines that make up letters. Some letters have "holes." Some letters are completely curvy.  Other letters are made up of straight lines that go in different directions. This peg toy by Coogam helps children look at what kinds of lines make up a letter, and focus their attention on which direction those lines are going.

6.  Read a book, and act it out! Caps for Sale became a huge hit for our kids last week, and we used our rug cushions to pretend to be cap peddlers.  Acting out a story demonstrates the ability to recall the order of events in a story, and understand the plot of the story. Both skills are critical for reading comprehension.

7. Read for fun! During Work Time, the children often choose to look at books or invite the teacher to read them individually.  Young children can identify the difference between pictures and texts, tell their own version of the story based on pictures, and ask for help to know "what do these words say?". 

8. Gross motor development: This seems to be an unusual skill set to include with pre-literacy development, but they are connected. The brain learns to integrate information from multiple senses (visual, tactile, vestibular, proprioceptive, and even auditory) through gross motor opportunities. As the senses become more integrated, the child develops the ability to focus their eyes on targeted words on a page, track words across a page, and even keep letters oriented and in the correct order while reading.  Without well developed coordination and balance, decoding and tracking words becomes SO laborious for the reader, that reading comprehension becomes nearly impossible.

So climb, and dance, and run, and crouch, and jump as much as possible.

9. Scanning: this Melissa and Doug toy is intriguing to young children because they enjoy the cause and effect of dropping in the spool and see it spin down the ramp, but this also helps the children develop the ability to track an object moving left to right and back again.

10.  Drawing: The children have free access to the Art Area during Work Time and are provided multiple choices for mark making (paint, markers, crayons, pencils). The advantage of free form mark making is that it engages more areas of the brain than tracing does. Here is a sample piece of art done by one of our two-year olds that demonstrates she is developing the ability to draw curves, straight lines, circles, and dots.  These are all lines she will later learn to associate with letter shapes, and are a precursor to writing.  Furthermore, she is learning that marks have meaning.

It seems like "just play," but each of these distinct (yet related) methods of developing pre-literacy skills are fundamental for children to experience prior to formal academic education.  How can you bring more of these ideas into your home and environment? :)

Animals in Spring

Some are hatching! Some are growing! Some are changing! And it's been an adventure at Harmony's House this month to watch, study, and play with animals. We worked with critters indoors and out.

We looked at bird nests, seeds, and local bird figurines in our play.

We got brave and found many earthworms, slugs, beetles, ants, a lizard, and even a salamander in the damp earth under our playground mats, not to mention the Daddy Long Leg we caught in the playhouse.

We studied pictures of a variety of caterpillars, talked about their defense mechanisms, and made our own models with play-doh, beads, and toothpicks.

We watched for birds.

We pretended to BE birds in an extra large nest!

We visited birds on the farm! We saw real ducks sitting on their nests, with an abundance of eggs. We pet chickens and got their breakfast ready for them.

We visited the growing piggies who are always hungry! Good thing there is a variety of available food in the springtime for animals to eat.

We adopted classroom caterpillars and have watched them grow faster than seems possible! All of our caterpillars have successfully formed cocoons.  

We've floated our duck toys in the pond and learned a new song:

"Ducks in the pond, QUACK a happy song!

Mother hens cackle the whole day long.

Birds in their nests, and wind in the treetops,

All join in singing, a happy song!"

We have hopped Little Bunny Foo Foo through the forest many many times.  <3

We made our own nests for the birds with baskets and clothespins and pretended that corks were the eggs!

Our butterfly habitat is prepped.  Now we are just waiting for our butterflies to emerge! It is so hard to wait!

Just today we were very creative using tree slabs, bricks, and logs to build a big duck home. It was unseasonably chilly today and it seemed fitting that they should have somewhere warm to go to huddle inside together. What was most beautiful though about this plan was how collaborative the children were. Almost every child helped in someway to build this, by carrying bricks, coloring them with chalk, finding the ducks, and placing them carefully inside. 

Spring is here, animals are busy, and so are we. <3

Spring Breathes Life to the World

After a long Winter sleep, Spring is officially just days away, and we are anticipating the seasonal changes that wake up the Earth.  When the Northern Hemisphere warms up, we expect to see plants bud and bloom.

Today we dissected old flowers from a bouquet.  As we took apart petals, stems, and leaves, we found interesting flower parts like where a flower keeps her eggs!  And, how the pollen is dusty, and sneaks down the tube to find the hiding eggs.  We also talked about different functions of the plant parts: petals are usually brightly colored to attract birds and insects to the nectar, stems hold up the flower and act like straws to suck water up to the top of the plant, and plants need to share pollen so the eggs can grow into more flower seeds.

We pretended to be "flower fairies" to help the garden grow.  Plants grow in order: roots down, shoots up, leaves, buds, and sometimes flowers and fruit.

We used toy butterflies to pretend to drink nectar from our flowers, and carry pollen around.  The flowers and leaves helped hide the butterfly eggs so we can "hatch more baby butterflies" (AKA- caterpillars).

Our Friend "Bride" decided to decorate the tree by adding flowers, and it was exciting to see Spring bring out her blossoms!

Outside, we continued to learn about Spring weather (even though today was very cold!).  The mountain snow will be melting and filling our rivers with fresh water.  We loved simulating a full spring brook with this flowing, specialized, water table.

When the bucket fills enough to tip, it makes a big wave that sends our boats over the waterfall and fills the next bucket.

The anticipation of the bucket flipping is intense!  Well worth the wait, it's exciting to see the wave of water work in a cause and effect method.

And let's remember that air warmed by the Sun doesn't just sit around, it moves!  Spring can be a very windy time as warm air rises high and cool air whooshes low.  What better way to play with wind than by chasing bubbles in a breeze?

Welcome Spring and all the fun, interesting, and colorful aspects you bring to the world!  We might be young at Harmony's House, but we notice you Spring.  In fact, we are learning all about Spring with our whole bodies and all of our senses.  Life just couldn't be more exciting!