Alphabet Balls

Some of you may know, George started school in September and since then we have been working a lot on phonics. Well actually let me re-phrase that, i have been working hard on thinking of fun ways to get George interested in phonics. I ordered these coloured ping pong balls from Amazon and used a sharpie marker to write the alphabet on them. I popped them in a bowl and presented them to George. He picked one out and asked me what it said. I told him the letter and the sound and we carried on like this for a while.

George soon extended the activity himself by swirling the balls around and mixing them all up...

He pulled a few out after swirling them with his hands and then he held the bowl and mixed the balls by moving the bowl around and around...

Lots of concentration went on when manipulating the bowl and balls, just look at his tongue sticking out- a true sign of concentration!

George picked out a few balls he was unsure about, but he was confident enough to have a go at what they were and to ask me if he had no idea. He was very pleased with himself when he picked one out that he recognised. Below is him picking out a 'm'.

This activity was cheap to create and once the balls arrived it was very quick to put together. It can be adapted too. Once George had had enough of swirling the balls around in the bowl, he tipped them all out, picked them one up and tried to identify it before throwing it back into the empty bowl. He carried on this play until all the balls were back in the bowl.

More recently we have done a bit of bowling with them, bouncing them on the kitchen floor and had them in the bath.

In the bath he picked them out at random and tried to name them and then I picked one out and then Daddy did.

George then decided to shoot the ping pong balls out of his pirate ship's canon. 

If you fancy making some of these, it'll probably cost you around £5 if you go through the amazon link above. It would cost you a little less if you brought plain white ping pong balls and be just as fun but perhaps not as appealing to your little one! 

This activity stimulates learning in the following areas:

Language development- as he talks about what he is doing, asks questions and labels the letters

Physical development- manipulating the equipment he uses

Literacy- labeling the phonics

Creative Development- using his imagination to extend his learning and introduce role play

Friday Night Fun

Tonight's Mummy and George Friday Night Fun consisted of eating doughnuts, constructing a Brio track, sorting out toys to go to the charity shop or to be saved for 'the baby' (I must add here that there is no baby, yet, but George is desperate for a baby sister and we have to save everything for her, even his used toothbrushes)!! Once we'd finished our play downstairs we came up for a glitter bubble bath! A glitter bubble bath is basically made using some great bubble bath stuff from Lush. It comes in a block which u take a chunk off of and then run under warm water. It is great because George can be in control of how much, or how little he puts in and its very environmentally friendly as there is no plastic packaging and all the Lush products are free from Animal Testing. When going through his book bag tonight there was a not I there from the teacher to ask us to get George to practise his letters and sounds. There were two more work sheets for him to do over the weekend 1) colour in a picture of a sink and tap for the letter 'g' or the sound 'g g g glug' 2) practise writing the numbers 2 and 3 on an A4 piece of paper. So, not wanting to do 'homework' first thing at the weekend, for his sake as well as mine, I thought I'd help him with his letters and sounds another way. I added glitter letters to bath of the phonics he has learnt already 's' 'a' 't' 'e' 'i' 'p' 'n' 'm' 'd' and 'g'. They quickly sunk to the bottom and then my role was to put my hand in and search for a letter, pull one out and then George would try to tell me the sound it makes! He really liked this activity and I also quite enjoyed it. There is far more to learning letters and sounds than I thought. I think that parents of children in reception class should have a lesson on it first so that they are fully equipped with the knowledge that is needed to enable them to support their children's learning at home!

George has the privilege of looking after Fudge this weekend, the class pet. He has him because he had the neatest handwriting. George is very excited about this (having Fudge to stay, not the handwriting award)! We had to give Fudge his tea, brush his teeth and hair, put him in his pj's and then he had to listen to some bedtime stories. Tonight's story sack was based around Dinosaurs. There were dinosaur books and a selection of dinosaur soft toys, all of which got settled down into our bed for the night along with the rest of his cuddly toys or 'the boys' as he affectionately calls them!

The Glitter Bubble Bath

It creates great Bubbles

Mmmmmmm

Fudge the Class pet ready for a sleepover!

The Dinosaur themed Story Sack

The whole gang ready for a sleepover!

When I came up to bed this was the sight that greeted me, lovely!

I'm loving our 'Friday Night Fun' time. It's not going to be possible to do it every Friday night but i'll try my best. It's so important to spend some special time together. With George at school and both Adam and I working full time the days and weeks just fly by. I can't think of a better way to end my week than with a snuggle next to my little man

xoxo