Early Literacy/Sensory Activity

This activity was used in a child drop-in centre. I set it up so that the child could participate with minimal adult direction, depending on their age, of course.

The bin is filled with foam pieces and are mixed together with letters that have magnets on the back of them. So the children have the sensory experience of looking through the foam to find letters to stick to the small whiteboard.

The directions are for the guardian/parent to read to the child. Usually the child just enjoyed pushing the foam around to find the letters under it.

Teaching Numeracy with Ants

One of my favourite songs to sing as a child was "The Ants Go Marching". The person who wrote it is unknown, but if anyone knows who did please let me know. I have created visuals to go with the song as the children are singing the verses.

Here are some shots:

Number six picks up sticks. . .

Number three climbs a tree. . .

Number four closes the door. . .

This song is great for teaching the order of the numbers through chanting and rhythm.

"Go Away Big Green Monster" book review and activity

"Go Away Big Green Monster" by Ed Emberley, has to be one of my all time favourite children's books. It simple in design with black background pages and bright colour for the monster.

What makes this book even more fantastic is that each page has a cut out part missing, so the reader can make the monster appear and disappear as they read. Every child group that I have read this book to was transfixed on the book and anticipating the physical outcome as the pages were turned.

As an extension to the book I cut out and laminated a monster face, and used Velcro to attach the various parts to the face.

Using this monster face allowed me to tell the story and teach parts of the face to the children. And also allows the children to take over the role of storyteller and tell the story using the vocabulary they've learned. The entire face is protected and durable, so the monster should last a couple of rounds in little hands.

The added great side to this is that the children can use their imagination to create a different looking monster, because we all know that not all monsters look the same!!

This is just one idea to use with the book.