Launch of PI Digital Art!

I'm several slices short of Pi Day...but know that I was working on this project during that overlooked special day.

The art "shop" currently consists of digital and hand-drawn borders to beautify your creative TPT products. Each pack comes with 5 borders saved with 3 different fills:

Here are the newest packs (links are below the pictures):

Pack #2

Pack #3

Look for digital papers and perhaps, clipart in the near future. In the meantime, enjoy this free sample.

Pack #1 FREE

I hope you have your pie and eat it too.

Fun with Freebies

In our house, laundry has become a favourite activity. Particularly, when clothes pegs are involved. I decided to add to their enjoyment by making an alphabet game with clothes that are easy enough for small hands to hang up.

We used yarn for our clothesline. Logan suggested that next time we use the clothes drying rack. We also use that for hanging our drying paintings.

I found these small clothes pegs at the dollar store or Michaels craft store…I can’t remember now. Extras from our wedding over 6 years ago – see Brendon, I told you those clips were worth saving. Yes, I’m a craft hoarder. And I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I’ll hang on to anything with a glimmer of potential for a wonderful craft...one day. I digress.

Want to do some ABC laundry?! Not to be confused with ABC gum… It’s free!

The laundry game, not the gum. I wouldn’t just give that away for free.

Click on the picture above for a link to my alphabet freebie! It also comes with an upper case letter maze – free!

We also LOVE this super hero upper case and lower case matching game by B-Inspired Mama! It’s free to download and print from her blog. Click on the picture for a link to her free printable.

Fun with Letters

Here are several variations of the letter activities we do along with Learn with Homer and Letter and Sound Recognition pages. Most can be done without any prep work and with items you most likely have on hand. We focus on one letter/sound a week and refer to it as our “special letter”.

Letter Hunt – Logan walks around the house with his magnifying glass to spy the special letter (occasionally, his treasure map helps us too). We look at food products in the kitchen, a calendar, labels on his toy bins, the mail that comes that day, etc. When Logan finds the special letter, he gets a jewel to put in his treasure box. Then when he is done his letter hunt, he counts the jewels to see how many letters he found that day. I found these jewels at the dollar store in the floral arrangement department. We use them all the time!

A Tisket-a-Tasket – “A green and yellow basket. I wrote a letter to my friend and on the way I dropped it…A little boy picked it up and put it in his pocket.” This nursery rhyme implies that a letter (mail) was dropped, but we pretend it’s our special letter that was dropped around the house. Logan knows where we have alphabet collections (in flashcards, fridge magnets, foam bath letters, building blocks, puzzles, and games). He goes to the collections and looks through to find the special letter. Then he makes his own collection of the special letter.

A Tisket-a-Tasket Variation – We do this activity together and help each other find the letters. Logan uses the special letter of the week and writes a different special letter for me to find. What makes this version interesting for Logan is that some alphabet collections have missing letters, so someone can win by finding more letters than the other person. Although, I think he’s catching on to which letters are missing. I seem to get the short end of the stick when we play these days.

Sound Search and Find – This activity focuses on the initial letter sound of objects around the house. Logan gathers objects, usually toys, that start with the sound of our special letter. We did N last week and he brought a knight to his collection. I congratulated him for finding the correct sound and then we talked about how some words have a silent letter in front. He later found a gnome, which was very helpful in reinforcing silent letters!

Here are 2 more ways to use the letter mats from the Letter and Sound Recognition package:

Do you have letter and sound activities you do with your little one? Please share in the comments! I’d love to hear more ideas.

50% off New Products!

The store I buy the majority of clipart from has a very generous sale on new products. I've decided to extend the same sale to all of you! My Teachers Pay Teachers store now offers 50% off new products for the first 48 hours. Please follow my store so that you can get an e-mail when I post new products. This way you can be sure to get your 50% off.

Since I recently posted a new product Letter and Sound Recognition, I will re-release it in the upcoming days to give you the 50% off for the first 48 hours. Remember to follow my store to avoid missing the sale!

Springing Ahead in ABCs

The upcoming time change has reminded me that I’ve fallen behind on my blog posts – I’m happy to be back from the hiatus. During that time, I’ve shifted some of my focus from second grade down to Pre-K. My little guy is eager for schoolwork and has put in his requests for what kind of worksheets and activities he would like to do. Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to:

Learn with Homer App

If you want an educational app for letter and sound recognition, learning to read, and reading comprehension, this is it. I can only begin to tell you how much Logan loves using it and learning from it. This program focuses on connecting letter sound to upper and lower case letters. Logan’s prior knowledge of letter names was helpful, but now the initial connection he makes when he sees a letter is the sound it makes. It also teaches sight words and allows your child to interact by recording answers and letter sounds. Fantastic! Worth the subscription. Or you can do what I did and wait to get a code e-mailed to you for up to 60% off. Note: I was not paid or perked to recommend this app.

Letter and Sound Recognition

With my 3½ year old in mind, I’ve created a letter and sound recognition package. Every alphabet letter comes with four worksheets:

1.     A colour letter mat with the letter, sound, and 2 words/pictures beginning with the letter.

2.     A black and white letter mat with directional arrows on letter, sound, and 2 words/pictures beginning with the letter.

3.     A practice page to find pictures beginning with the sound, find the upper and lower case letter, and trace the letter.

4.     A more challenging practice page to draw a picture of something that begins with that letter, an upper case/lower case sort or hidden picture, and printing practice.

Follow the cover picture above to find the printables. Logan loves to find different ways to make or find the letter we are working on. There are so many variations that I will have to write a post about it…sooner than later.