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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Help - Starting Letter Of The Day/Week + Edu. Activities
momneedscoffee 07:20 AM 08-18-2015
I have a very small fam daycare: I care for a 3 yo and a 1 yo + my own kids are 3 yo and 6 mo. I am really wanting to get into more learning activities, esp since the weather will be cooling down in a few months. I was thinking about starting by introducing a new letter each week. My son knows all his abcs, big and small and a few words for each letter, but the other 3 yo doesn't know any of that, just the abc song. So I thought that would be a good place to start? I thought I could try to spend about 30 minutes a day, since they really struggle to pay attention. I am looking for some fun, creative ideas to get started. Things that have worked for other providers, online resources, anything really!
Thanks!
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CalCare 09:06 AM 08-18-2015
Honestly, I think even a half hour is too much to have 3 and 4 year old sit and do academics. They do really well learning in the context of everyday life - which is sort of the corner stone of family child care. For example when setting the table you can ask 'how many napkins do we need' and count the children and count the napkins. I like this lady's website: http://www.janetlansbury.com/2010/11...ic-preschools/ this is an article on early academics..
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momneedscoffee 09:37 AM 08-18-2015
Thanks! I will check out the link!
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kendallina 10:46 AM 08-18-2015
I agree with PP, at 3 years old, they don't really need 30 minutes of academics. But, it is a great time to start learning about letters/exploring letter magnets/letter playdough toys/recognizing their names (recognizing, not writing yet), etc. There are a lot of great hands on learning activities on pinterest. I specifically like Irresistible Ideas for Play Based Learning (they also have a website) and Teach Preschool (they have a website too I believe).

ETA:

http://www.teachpreschool.org/

http://www.playbasedlearning.com.au/
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Unregistered 11:09 AM 08-18-2015
For summer we had reduced organized activities so we studied one alphabet letter a day. everyday we did a letter shape craft. B is for buttons so I cutout big letter b's and they glued buttons on them. Lots of ideas on Pinterest. We did alphabet sponges in the water table, alphabet stampers for play dough, alphabet letters hiding in sand just to name a few. Kids have loved it and they learned them really fast. My kids are a little older though. Almost 4 and almost 5 but would still be good for them.
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momneedscoffee 12:19 PM 08-18-2015
thanks for the websites! I wasn't planning on doing 30 minutes of a lesson or anything, I was thinking more along the lines of doing a craft project involving a letter, talking about different words that start with the letter, simple things like that.
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momneedscoffee 12:20 PM 08-18-2015
Thanks! Those are the sort of things I am looking for.
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renea 04:22 PM 08-23-2015
The mailbox has three books I use for letter learning.

*centers from a to z
*arts and crafts from a to z
*alphabet puppets from a to z

The books have great ideas, most of the patterns and several ideas for each letter. I will also look online but like the convience of the book in my hand.

Good luck!

Renea
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lblanke 04:50 PM 08-23-2015
When my little one was born, I had visions of going for walks or activities daily, the reading a story about what we saw then having a craft even just to color/paint a picture about it. I never exactly followed through with it, but I do read books about what we did/saw during the day. My child is 3.
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Josiegirl 03:23 AM 08-24-2015
http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2...preschool.html

Wow, this lady has changed her site all around but it still looks good. Anyways, hopefully it'll give you some good ideas.
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