(Goblin is 28 months)
We had some more letter fun today. I am trying to sneak letter play into our other activities from time to time just to give Goblin a bit of exposure to letters - or 'A, B, Cs' as Goblin calls them. But nothing heavy or classically academic. The idea is only to help him gain an interest, I don't want to pressure him to learn at a pace that's faster than what is right for him.
To start we did our
alphabet floor puzzle
. I laid out three letter squares at a time and asked Goblin if he could identify one of the letters. He managed to recognise a W when it was beside a Z and a Y, but he couldn't do any of the others. I was surprised he didn't get the M because I thought that was one he recognised.
Once we'd put the puzzle together in order (which was pretty much all me - although Goblin did sing the alphabet song while I was doing it), I took out the letters from a few of the squares and asked Goblin if he could name the letter and find the hole it fitted in. He couldn't name the letters but he managed to find their holes through a process of elimination. This is still good because I get to talk about letters with him, even if at the moment I'm doing most of the 'running'.
Finally we went round the room and found objects and then put them on the right letter. OK let me rephrase that, I put the object on the right letter, Goblin told me what the object was, then Goblin took it off the right letter and played with the object - Combine Harvester, Horse, Tractor, Bin Lorry etc.
Later I decided to put into practice some of my
tips on coping with messy play and test myself with my play material nemesis - Shaving foam. Goblin was already covered in chocolate from an ice cream he'd tried and failed to eat earlier, so I figured we'd play in the bath and then I could just shower everything down.
I started drawing on the walls with the shaving foam and Goblin started asking for letters. I was quite excited because this obviously means he actually enjoys our letter play rather than just tolerating pushy mummy's obsession. He asked for a W, B, P and S. And then the number 3. Which amused me because when we played with counting fish later in the day he couldn't identify a number 3 so he obviously knows the name, but had no idea what shape he was going to get when asking for it.
And I can happily report that doing shaving foam in the bath was successful. No stress and very little uncontained mess.
I'm sharing this at
Looks like he's having great fun with the shaving foam letters in the bath! Love that this activity is messy but a contained and easy to clean up mess too! :)
ReplyDeleteSome great ideas for letter fun - we're just starting letters as J (30months) is starting to ask what they are - before he was interested in numbers (we had seen the numberjack show at the theatre before Christmas)and the mat puzzle seems a great idea as well as the in the bath shaving foam.
ReplyDeletei didn't know the numberjacks did a live show. Did J sit through it ok? I have a horrible feeling Goblin might spend a lot of time running up and down the aisles.
DeleteHe was in complete awe of it - he was 27 months old and I was shocked that he sat through it. They sung, danced, he joined in with the Numberjacks are on their way bit. Luckily no problem blog in it as he's not very keen on that one but I was amazed. I wish we had been able to go and take him to see The Gruffalo later in the month but it's so expensive
DeleteI loved your stressed by messy play post and this is an awesome follow up!! You're such a good mom! I told Boogie today that we were going to do this next bath and he was excited...then went to play with his trains :)
ReplyDeleteI love how you did the shaving cream in the tub--such a great way to contain the mess! And those foam letters are awesome! Thanks for sharing at Teach Me Tuesday!
ReplyDelete