On our shelves

(Goblin is 28 weeks)

I switched out some of the stuff on our shelves this week and added the following:

Number pegs - These are great for strengthening pincer grip while learning numbers: number recognition and number order. Goblin needs a lot of help with the number bit but he's good at the pincer grip and attaching them to the shoe lace.

Leapfrog Fridge Phonics  - as Goblin has been singing the alphabet song a lot, I thought I'd bring this out again. If you hit the note button at the top it plays the alphabet song, and if you put a letter in the hole it tells you the name of the letter and the phonic - although I think some of the pronunciation is very questionable - for example its phonic for L is "ull" as in "pull" rather than "leh" and in "leg"

Letter matching cards (M, D and S) - I made these using Picassa and google images - they took about 15 minutes each (mainly sourcing the pictures). I printed off two copies, Laminated one and chopped up the other.

As you can see I have an upper case and lower case letter and then four things that begin with the letter M. I used stuff Goblin already knows the name of because the idea is to get him to learn the letter through the things he's familiar with - thats why I am on the M card - M is for Mummy.

Here is the S card. I added velcro coins to the back of each matching card and the back of the sheet, this is to enable me to store the cards with the sheet. It also lifts the cards slightly off the ground which makes it easier for your toddler to pick them up.

Tonging bells - This was originally a Christmas activity but the bells make such a lovely noise that I brought it out again. This was Goblin's first choice activity this morning.

Hammering corn crisps - This may sound like an odd activity but its really good for practicing accuracy and its really fun. And it stopped Goblin using the hammer to smash anything else.

Goblin really concentrated on getting every last crisp smashed. We both squealed with delight as pieces of crisp flew across the room. Then he ate most of the smashed pieces.

Although Goblin ate a lot of the crisps this activity did still make a huge mess. But fortunately Goblin decided he wanted to hoover up the mess. He's usually terrified of the hoover so I was quite surprised that he volunteered. Lovely bit of practical life activity there. 

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