Early Literacy Challenge 5: I Like Your Hat

Our kids have always loved playing with hats. Right now, M is particularly obsessed with playing dress-up with hats. Both A and M think it is the silliest thing in the world when they put on a hat. So, we keep hats laying around our house and we all play dress-up with them.

A and I have recently started having pretend tea parties while wearing hats and then having a real tea party with lemonade and whatever "petit fours" I can whip up in two minutes- toast with cheese, carrots, peanut butter power balls (from our freezer). I put all the food and drinks on actual plates and tea cups (A usually eats off of plastic), which makes it extra special.

Not only is this game fun, but it helps picky eater A eat more food during snack time. We spend our whole pretend and real tea party talking in funny voices and making up stories about the food we are eating- "this [piece of toast] is a mountain and then there was a giant avalanche and now it is a tiny rock [after we take a giant bite]". This is such a fun game because it is just A and me together. It is not a daddy thing and we do this when M is napping. It always starts with a hat.

I love this type of play, because it is completely directed by the kids. M will crawl or stagger (because she is still getting her walking feet) into a room with a hat on and a big grin. All we have to do is say, "I like your hat" and she gets a look that shows how proud she is that we noticed her hat. A will say, "Let's have a tea party. You wear the princess crown and I will be the cowboy." It is magical.

ECRR Early Literacy Practices: PLAY & TALK
Early Literacy Skills: vocabulary, imagination, creativity, bonding, social & emotional development

Early Literacy Challenge 3 & 4

Early Literacy Challenge 3: Homemade Play Dough

I know this has been done and redone over and over again in the blogging world, but it is just so good- making homemade play dough with your toddler or preschooler and then cutting out shapes with cookie cutters. It is just so fun, cheap and easy to do. I got my recipe from The Imagination Tree. There are a lot of play dough ideas on this site. Check it out when you have a few minutes.

Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) Early Literacy Practice: PLAY & TALK
Early Literacy Skills: narrative skills (recipe reading), vocabulary, shape recognition, fine motor skills, creativity


Early Literacy Challenge 4: Alphabet Books

Today I went home on my lunch break and after sharing a bowl of soup with my 18 month old, we went upstairs to clean up and read a book. I shared the book Now I Eat My ABC's by Pam Abrams. M loves to eat and she loves to sing. We flipped through the pages and I only read the words and letter she pointed to. She had total control over the read-aloud. When she flipped to the last page, I sang the alphabet song to her. She flipped to the back page two more times and gave me a huge smile every time I sang the song to her. It was great. I love having these lunch time moments with my kids.

ECRR Early Literacy Practice: READ & SING
Early Literacy Skills: phonological awareness, vocabulary, letter knowledge, print awareness (letting Maggie turn the pages of the book)

Early Literacy Challenge 2: Window Painting

I was doing some early literacy research for work a couple days ago and I came across a really easy recipe for making window paint. My mom got the kids tempura paint  for Christmas, so this was super easy to whip up on a cold morning when A wanted to go to the park. The recipe is two parts washable tempura paint for one part liquid dish soap. I got it from another blog written in English and French- De tout et de rien: Activites pour le Prescolaire.

Here's a grainy picture of A painting and making a mess : ) M hasn't done it yet, but it should be a lot more messy when she paints the window, but just as fun.

Every Child Ready to Read Early Literacy Practices: WRITE
Early Literacy Skills: writing, gross motor skills, creativity, learning colors

Early Literacy Challenge 1: Reading Eric Carle

For a year, I am going to attempt posting 365 early literacy activities I do at home with my kids (one for every day of the year). Since I am obsessed with early literacy at home and work, it seems like we are doing it non-stop, so I am hoping to get a lot of blogging done. My husband is reading 365 books this year as his challenge, so this is going to be my 365 day challenge. Mine will end on February 23, 2015 instead of December 31st (my husband's last day for his challenge). I may not post every day, but I will make up for it with more than one post on other days. Here I go...

This morning I sat on the floor reading Eric Carle's Very Busy Spider with my 18 month old, M. She has loved this book for a couple of months. We read the book and she repeated some of the animal sounds. Before she lost interest, I was able to sing three songs that tie into the book and use the book as a visual while I sang to her. We started on the last page and moved backwards through the book, singing a song or part of a song for each illustration.

Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Song: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

For all the other pages of the book, starting with the owl, I sang Old MacDonald Had a Farm while we turned the pages backwards. I pointed to the animal while I sang the song for each one.

It was a great bonding experience for M and me. She sat in my lap, we read the book, did the sounds, sang the songs, and I didn't spend any money (yay!). At most, it all took about 10 minutes.

Every Child Ready to Read Early Literacy Practices: READ, SING & TALK

Early Literacy Skills: phonological awareness, print motivation, fine motor skills (turning the pages), listening skills, vocabulary, social & emotional development

Felt Doctor Kit

This year, my husband and I decided to scale back on Christmas. We are very fortunate and our kids have a lot of people who love them and love buying toys for them too. So, we felt we could do some homemade projects for the kids this year and actually stick to a budget for buying a few items too.

When I hurt my knee late in the fall, A started playing doctor and trying to fix it. So, I decided he needed a doctor kit. I found the pattern for this felt doctor kit in Big Little Felt Universe: Sew It, Stuff It, Squeeze It, Fun! by Jeanette Lim. I was really proud of myself because I actually finished it in time to give it to him on Christmas morning.



The only drawback to the pattern in this book is that there is no blood pressure cuff. So, I made that piece up on my own. I did not make the light thing that doctors wear on their head because I have never actually seen a doctor wear one of those. I made everything by hand sewing. I think you could use the machine for some of the pieces, but I like to do this kind of stuff while I watch TV with my husband. All in all, it turned out really well and both my kids like playing with it. There are some other really cute patterns in this book, so I definitely recommend it.

Activity Wall

One of the great space savers in our house is to hang toys that can done standing up or on a lap on the wall. When we bought our house, I installed a long flat board (very cheap and ready to go from Home Depot) on a long wall we have between our kitchen and eating space. I put scratchy Velcro on the board and then attached soft Velcro to all the toys.

My kids use these toys all the time, but we don't have anywhere to put them for easy access. Displaying them like this on the wall makes them attractive to use and fun for kids who come to our house to see. Since I use Velcro, kids can pull the activities off the wall to use them in a different part of the house. Then, I just hang them back up on the wall when it is time to clean up, which seems like never at our house.

I like to hang toys that help support early literacy development on the wall. As you can see, my kids are developing their writing skills, vocabulary, fine motor skills, comprehension skills and storytelling skills. I will be adding more activities soon since we just had our first round of Christmas with my in-laws.

Since M is learning how to walk, she likes to stand at the wall to do the activities.

 I try to change out the felt board with seasonal activities. I got the ornaments ready to cut and put sticky Velcro on the back from Mel's Desk. I made my flannel board by wrapping a large piece of felt I already had on hand around an old scrap of foam board. I secured the felt to the back of the board with duct tape. I used the removable sticky stuff for hanging hooks to hang the board on the wall. This one has stayed on our wall for about a year and a half and shows no signs of falling.

M is very obsessed with our Melissa & Doug latch board right now. A has mastered the latches and is now using it to recognize his numbers and counting. This activity is a mainstay and I have never switched it out for something else. They never seemed to get tired of working with it.

M loves to scribble. This is the activity that gets pulled off the wall the most. We still have the magnet shapes that go with it, but since they are a choking hazard, I have put them away until M is older. A is also practicing his writing skills, but he stills prefer pretending to be a truck or a race car over learning writing and drawing skills.

We have a lot of different magnets that migrate between this cookie sheet and the refrigerator. The kids don't use this as much as the flannel board, but they still enjoy the animals and learning the different names and sounds of each animal. I should probably switch out the animals soon with something like construction truck magnets.

Parenting Resources

These are some parenting resources my husband and I have employed in our own household. I recommend these books and the CSEFEL website at the library all the time. My husband and I are definitely not experts when it comes to child rearing, but as we like to say, we try our best and we keep an open mind so we can keep learning about parenting every day from our kids, our parents, our friends and the resources we know are available.

I cannot stress enough the usefulness of the book Beyond Bedtime Stories: A Parent's Guide to Promoting Reading, Writing, and Other Literacy Skills from Birth to 5 by V. Susan Bennett-Armistead, Nell K. Duke & Annie M. Moses. I read this book and then had the opportunity to see Nell K. Duke talk at a professional development lecture series at the University of Denver. She really walks the talk. She has wonderful ideas for daily interactions and making your home a learning environment in every room. Please read this book if you have not. It will help you at work as a librarian and at home with your young children.


Another book my husband and I swear by is Brain Rules for Baby by John Medina. This is a great book for parents with children of any age. It talks about how having a healthy relationship with your partner is the foundation for a child's brain development. A child must first feel loved, secure and safe in order to learn anything. One of the things we learned in this book is that your children need to see you being nice and loving to your partner. This loving foundation is what stimulates brain development and will help your children do all the early literacy activities early on and the learning activities in school later in life.

One more resource my husband and I use is the CSEFEL website. We go to parent trainings on the Pyramid Model in order to support our children's social and emotional development better at home. This website is full of practical strategies, research and ideas for social and emotional development, which are tools your children will use the rest of their lives. Please browse this website if you have not. You will learn about child development and what you can be doing to enrich the lives of children.