Mini-Bingo Strips - Phonics or Speech Game

The reading program we're using (which I will review soon - promise) wants us to practice reading words that begin with the letters d, h, p, b, r, and s followed by i or a and ending with t, p, n, m, g and d. They provided a flip book format for that practice, but I wanted to do something a bit more creative.

First I made the word wheel which is fun, but only gets you so far. I wanted to make a game. I decided to make a kind of mini-bingo game.

I made strips with five of the six beginning letters on them. Then I made several sets of all twelve possible word endings. Finally I took colored dots to match the six colors of the beginning letters and stuck them on a die.

I roll the die and call the color. Anyone who has that color on their strip gets to pull word endings out of the cup (and practice reading the word that is made when the beginning letter is combined with the word ending) until they find one that makes a real word. We repeat the process until someone has made words for all of their letters and calls "Bingo". They win the game and then we get to start over. The game is simple and the strips are colorful. The game goes quickly enough so you can play several times and everyone gets a chance to win.

It seems like you could use this same game for speech practice by putting initial or final consonants you want to target on the strips and making your word endings (or beginnings) simple sounds that the child can produce easily. You'd just need to be working with children who are at least early readers. I'm sure their teachers would love the bonus phonics practice. If I wanted to use this game with Michael for speech, I'd make the beginning sounds /f/ and /s/ on different colored rectangles. I could use the same word endings I've already printed. Even if the words turned out to be mostly nonsense words it would still be great speech (and phonics) practice.

Networking on the behalf of preschoolers

Our neighborhood is full of boys. Without thinking too hard, I can think of 6 boys besides Michael between the ages of four and six. At least three of them will enter kindergarten with him. Well, if I decide to send him to kindergarten they'll go off together.

For a complete contrast, there are no other little girls in the neighborhood. On the occasions when Ava finds a great playmate at the park or in a playplace, I so enjoy watching her bond with other little girls. I really do need to find a regular playmate for her. Completely by coincidence, we ran into a preschool classmate of hers at McDonalds a couple of weeks ago. The girls played together beautifully and we lingered well longer than usual to let her play. I made a point of introducing myself to her parents and exchanged email addresses with her mother. We met once more a couple of weeks later, but I haven't heard from them since.

Yesterday we ran into twins (boy/girl) from Ava's preschool class at the park. Again, I made a point to introduce myself to their mother and exchange email addresses. I dutifully sent an email expressing our openness to setting up a playdate.

To be honest, the entire process feels a little artificial and awkward, but I do it anyway. I want Ava to have the opportunity to develop friendships and this feels like a first step. If I decide to homeschool, I'll need to reach out to a new community of people and try to provide opportunities for my children to interact with other children in settings other a traditional school. I suppose this is good practice. I just wish it felt a little more natural though. A bit of ongoing success would be nice too.

Project Round-Up

Without further ado, here are several random projects from this week.

Project 1 - Word Wheel

I was getting ready for a reading lesson (the one homeschooling curriculum I have not reviewed yet, but intend to get to soon) and was inspired to make a word wheel. Our lesson called for reviewing 12 different word endings and I didn't want to make 12 different spinners, so I modified her design a little and came up with this. Six additional word endings are hidden under the smaller paper plate, but are revealed as you spin. You can practice by matching each of the 12 word endings with a single initial consonant or by sliding all 6 initial consonants by the same word ending.

Project 2 - Glass Gem Suncatchers

The children wanted to "do art" with some decorative glass gems I had around for playing on the light boxes. I remembered a project I saw at Play At Home Mom. I set the kids up with inexpensive frames on their light boxes. I slapped Mod Podge all over the outer surface of the glass and let the children stick glass gems to it. After they were dry we hung them in the windows. They are quite pretty.

Project 3 - Pattern Strips

The RightStart Math kit came with some great colored square tiles. The kids were having a blast playing with them. We used them as pattern blocks to make houses and other designs. We made patterns. We built towers. We made paths for squinkies to walk on. The kids were having so much fun playing with them I decided to make some pattern strips to add to the mix.

I spent about 90 minutes during nap one day making pattern strips. I couldn't wait to show the kids. They played with the strips for about 90 seconds before deciding they were quite boring. Guess every project can't be a win. :-)