The week before school started, I talked to Kason about the need to really start studying the ABC's. We discussed how he needed to learn the lower case as well as upper case, know the sounds, and be able to write them since he was going to begin reading soon. Like I said in a previous post, Kason loves to learn but isn't a huge fan if he thinks it is something I'm pushing him to do or "has" to do. Therefore, I tried to gather a few more fun ideas for practicing this week. His school sent us home with flashcards (which personally I can't stand...they make me cringe), but I know this is necessary. To get little man a little more excited (and confession...get this momma more excited about flash cards too), we made ABC monsters to munch our letters and numbers...
We practiced matching lower case to upper case, our sounds, and our numbers before our monsters munched them away...and yes, we even made gobbling noises to capture his all boy spirit :). While he had loads of fun making the monster, he was still struggling and fighting against practicing his letters. So I added a twist, we pulled up the blinds and I gave him a dry erase marker.
He pulled a letter off the stack and practiced writing it on the window before our monster chomped it up. This did wonders for our little guy...he started having fun and getting into it. Of course little lady had to be right there with us practicing too :)...
The next day I knew I needed to get him outdoors, so I planned an ABC water bomb! Oh, you heard right...
I wrote in side walk chalk around the driveway all the letters he was struggling with. He had to match the lower case water balloon to the upper case on the driveway, then bomb away...
He had an absolute blast...we all did for that matter!
I left a few extras out for all the kids, so we took turns bombing the fence, the grass, and the driveway. Then, I let them loose with the side walk chalk...
Another day we practiced tracing. One of Kason's favorite things to do is write his letters, but he only knows how to write a few so he is always asking me to show him how...honestly, this is one of the only ways he lets me work with him on his alphabet. So on this day, I wrote out the entire alphabet for him to trace over (an activity we do often during quiet time)...
A lot of times I write words (like our family names) and he practices writing them. I wrote down simple words that I knew he could sound out and I talked with him about putting letters together to make words. It was like pulling teeth, but he finally relented and worked with me. When he sounded out the word he did have a little smile play on his lips :). Of course sister thought she needed to practice too when we were all done...
The last day I knew I needed to bring the super fun factor back. Therefore I set up some Styrofoam in a box, grabbed some tees, a sharpie and a hammer....
then let him loose nailing down his ABC's. He had to tell me the letter and we practiced the sound together before he could nail down the tee...
While this week was a little more of a struggle than the other mommy school activities, we still managed to have some fun. Kason has told me several times that he is ready to read and write, but he "just wants to learn from his teacher at school"...not me :). He started letting Daniel read him a chapter book at night. I love to stand in the hallway and snicker at the voices Daniel makes while reading Hank the Cowdog as well as these two sharing thoughts and questions about the story. I'm sure it won't be long until little man starts reading to us!
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