Thursday, April 17, 2014

Learn To Spell Your Name Activity for Preschoolers


When teaching my kids the alphabets, I always like to start with letters from their name. That way, the first thing they can spell is their name.

Here is one activity I found that helps them spell their name. Have them arrange the letters of their name to form a snowman. I'm a bit lazy here and opted out of making snowman hats and a scarf. But if you want cuter snowmen, I'd encourage you to do that. I guess we could do the same thing and make caterpillars too.

Gluing and pasting is ideal when kids are still don't know how to write or are still struggling to control their pencil movements. My little girl here really enjoyed this activity. She wanted to do more. This helped her learn not only to put the letters of her name in the right order but also to put the alphabets the right way up.

Friday, April 04, 2014

Strengthening Basic Multiplication Skills in Children

Yesterday, as I presented my student with a worksheet of basic multiplication questions, she started to yawn (unintentionally, of course). I've been working with this kid for the past 2 months to really strengthen her multiplication skills. We've already worked on the individual times tables: 2 - 12. Unfortunately, I only see her 3x a weeks and I doubt she even looks at the multiplication tables the other days. BUT the only way any child is going to be an expert with basic multiplication is to practice, practice, practice everyday until they get it.

The problem is, how to make them practice without boring them out of their minds?

So, this is what we did yesterday... We created a game out of the multiplication grid.


She wrote in the ones that she absolutely knew... ones that she could answer in 2 seconds. The ones where she hesitated, we put a colored paper. So now, she can take home this game, and fill up the missing blanks with counters that show the correct answer. This way, she only practices the ones that she has been having problems remembering. It is sort of like 'target practice'.

So if you have a child that has already learned all the multiplication tables but are still struggling to remember certain ones, this is one way to target those troubled areas and have fun at the same time.