Penguin Literacy center Idea

If you are doing a unit on penguins which could be perfect during the winter months, try out this cute literacy center on penguins. It is super simple to create and the kids would have a blast learning letters/words through this game.

All you need is a cardboard box and some colored prints of a penguin and fish. Stick the penguin on the box and make a slit around its mouth. Write letters on the fish and ask children to feed the letter fish to the penguin. They should be able to say the name and sound of each letter. Encourage them to cross out the letters on the recording sheet. 

They can do this activity independently or with you if you are trying to assess their letter knowledge.

Fun With Letters

Do you have kids who wriggle and wiggle and good ol' listening doesn't really help them to learn anything?

Well, then this fun game will get them excited, moving and learning. All you need is few tumblers/cans/baskets, letter cutouts and a ball/beanbag.

Attach the letters on the tumblers. I stuck the letters on clothespins and attached them on cans. The kids had to throw the ball in a can, name the letter and give a word beginning with the letter.

It was a fast paced game which made the kids and the teacher happy. Kids, because they didn't have to be just passive learners and the teacher, because she could do a quick assessment of who knew what in a super fun way.

After this game, I put the letters in a pocket chart and gave pictures of words beginning with those letters to the kids. They had to listen to the sound in the word and place the picture under the correct letter.

You can get the pictures for letters A-Z from my Alphabet Word Wall Cards Pack.

Have a blast doing these activities with your kids.

Problem Solving

I love it when a simple activity takes a complete turn and challenge children to think and come up with solutions. My kinders are still learning letters and we occasionally play games to reinforce sounds. So it was the turn of letter b and I told the kiddos that they would get to burst a balloon if they could come up with a word beginning with the letter b. No where in the plan this activity was meant to teach children to problem solve but it did exactly that and our focus kinda shifted from learning words beginning with b to finding ways of bursting the balloons. I didn't really mind it because problem solving is an important part of executive functions. And research shows that executive function is a better predictor of academic success than IQ.

Reasoning and the ability to solve problems are also termed as fluid intelligence which is one of the components of human intelligence, the other being crystallized intelligence which involves the various memory systems of the brain. Both these components are used by all of us to survive and succeed in the ever changing world.

Children experience many problem solving situations in a day like taking turns, solving conflicts, waiting for their turn etc. As Educators, we can teach them steps to solve problems by discussing in a group, through puppets, stories and role plays.

One of the strategies i like to use in my classroom is called the "De-Bug" System. It is not a novel strategy and has been around for a long time but the ideas for the system comes from the children. And that makes it unique and easy for them to remember it.

You can download the poster for free from HERE

I also have a set of individual cards for the above steps. It has visual cues which children can refer to.

They can use the solution cards and sort their differences or problems.

You can download this product from my TPT STORE

Hope these strategies prove effective in your classrooms.

Sound Muncher

Sometimes an idea gets stuck in your mind and you are forced to leave everything and work solely on that idea till it takes shape. So the creative bug bit me last night while i was on pinterest and couldn't sleep because tons of ideas were playing in my head while i was going on pinning.

I had to force my self to shut pinterest down, but sleep was no where near. So I decided to get up and work on my sound muncher project which was completely not in my agenda of things. Even though i had got my fair share of inspiration from pinterest i really didn't know where to start.

That came from Pinterest too :)

So i got myself ready and voila in one hour flat i completed my Monster themed letter pack.

My previous sound muncher had to be revamped. He is sitting happily next to my brain break basket in this picture !

I didn't have any time in the beginning of school year to make him look fancy, but hey summer breaks for teachers are meant to complete all incomplete projects. :)

So I decided to turn the regular muncher into a monster muncher since my kiddos were super excited about the monster theme during the manners unit. And i think he turned out cute.

I also made a letter monster wand.

Children will use him to find and say the sounds of letters.

After they will feed the muncher with words beginning with a particular letter, i will let them draw all the objects they fed him. Feeding the muncher will be a large group activity and drawing on the paper will be an individual activity. Drawing will help to consolidate the whole group activity as children will learn to focus and observe the words being fed to the muncher.

I will also place my muncher in the center and let children feed him magnetic letters. After feeding him they will circle the letters which they fed the muncher in the sheet below.

In the pack, i have also included uppercase and lowercase monster letter cards which children can match and then feed the muncher.

There are some more cards which i will laminate and put in a binder ring so children can draw various objects beginning with each letter.

 And a fun poster which i will hang next to my monster muncher

Hope you liked all these fun activities. If you would like to download them click on the link below:

Monster-themed-letter-pack