The Lil Divas love when I combine learning with games, crafts & fun so I am always trying to find ways to sneak learning into our daily fun.
I try to spend time each day working with my Oldest Diva on her literacy skills - whether it be through reviewing sight words, practicing phonics skills, reading books together, writing, etc... I enjoy incorporating these mini lessons thematically & seasonally where appropriate. I just think it makes "real world" sense to the Lil Divas and makes it more memorable/relevant to them.
This week we have been enjoying some
Fall Themed fun so our activities have been geared around that.
Fall Themed Literacy Ideas:
This activity was a big hit with both Lil Divas. It was simple and also something the were able to work on without assistance from me, in a sisterly collaboration. It was fabulous to just take a back seat and watch them work.
-all Word Family Fall Trees
What You Need:
colored construction paper for leaf cut outs
white card stock
brown paint
paint brush
glue
marker
We started with me introducing the dry erase board with nothing on it except for: -all. I told the Lil Divas I wanted them to work together to think of as many -all words as they could and write them down on the dry erase board.
(hard at work thinking of more words)
Next, I told them to copy the words they had come up with onto some leaf cut-outs I provided.
Here are all the -all words that the Lil Divas came up with:
Then, they got to work painting their trees onto white card stock.
Finally, they added their -all word leaves.
They read each word aloud as they added it to the tree.
They were so proud of their little word trees!
A simple and fun way to review a word family.
Another fun activity we did together was to use our large felt tree to review sight words. This time instead of
apples, we used fall leaf cut-outs.
Fall Tree Sight Word Review Game
I am loving my easy, DIY felt tree. I have been getting lots of use out of it.
How To Play:
Prep: For our Fall Tree, I used leaf cut-uts to write the sight words we have worked on.
1. I turned the leaves upside down and the Lil Divas had to turn over a leaf and try to read the word written on it.
2. If they read the word correctly, they got to add the leaf to their basket.
3. If they read the word incorrectly, the other Lil Diva had the opportunity to read the word & take the leaf.
4. If no one knew the word - I kept the leaf and we reviewed those words at the end of the game.
****************
Fall Themed Math Ideas
Leaf Patterns
Using faux fall leaves in green, red and yellow the Littlest Diva worked on patterning.
Fall Leaf Counting Mat
The Littlest Diva is having trouble with number recognition of 10 thru 20 so I have been trying to practice this more with her. She is great at counting so I made this simple counting mat to help with number recognition.
What To Do:
Prep: I drew & cut out a fall tree shape and glued it to a large piece of paper. I cut out small squares with the numbers 10 thru 20.
What To Do:
1. Shuffle the number cards and place them on counting mat.
2. Have child read the number & place the correct number of leaves on the tree. We used faux leaves.
Leaf Math
To practice some basic addition I used these small plastic leaves I found for cheap at Michael's after Halloween and our foam dice to work on addition.
What To Do:
1. Roll Dice, count out the corresponding number of leaves & record number.
2. repeat for the 2nd number in addition sentence.
3. Add both numbers/count total number of leaves and record answer.
I hope you enjoy some of these fall leaf themed math & literacy ideas as much as we did.
Books We Read:
Bern
