Phonics update

Daniel has been working very hard at learning his phonics lately. And the best part is: he has no idea! He thinks that Mommy is making up games just to spend time with him. :)

This idea originally came from something I read in one of Peggy Kaye's books. I don't exactly remember which one. (fair warning, you are probably going to get very tired of hearing about her soon!)

The game board is something I made up a long time ago for Nate for something or other. It's just your basic game board with firetrucks for spaces. I don't know if you can tell in the picture or not, but the firetrucks are numbered. Abbie was very put out with me because she thought it should be sheepies on the board and not firetrucks.

Along with the board, I put two erasers, which I got for the little kids when school started. The big kids got some, too, but they use theirs, and so they aren't in very good condition anymore. We also had a die, which they rolled, and we counted out the correct spaces and mentioned which number they landed on.

Now, here's the phonics part. I accepted Wal-mart's gracious offer of free paint chips, and tucked in my pocket enough to write the entire alphabet on (and more besides, but that's another game). I pulled out the letters on which we are currently working (a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and o, although not necessarily in that order), and put them in a stack. After they rolled and moved their marker, they drew a card (paint chip) and told me the name of the letter and the sound it makes.

The rules of the game are that if they only get to move forward if they get it correct, but they are still so new at this that we would NEVER get to the end if we played so strictly. So they attempted to "read" the card, and if they got it wrong, I would give them the correct answer, they would repeat it after me, and then we would go on.

After two rounds of the game, we learned that Abbie knows the sound of "b", although not it's name, and Daniel has "d" and "o" down pat. He is hit and miss on "a" "b" and "f" and has no clue on the others.

P.S: I got the paint chip idea from Snail's Trail.