Number Cards

Hello! Hello!  You may be wondering if I am going to post something crafty soon.  Well, I am working on knitting my first pair of socks, knitting a baby hat, and just finished crocheting another swiffer cover.  I don't want to post a pic of the swiffer cover, because it is the same pattern as the last one I did.  My socks are far from being finished, but I am hoping that my baby hat will be done in the next day or so.

I have been trying to focus a little bit more on my children, too.  I designed these number flash cards for our preschool board that I am envisioning, but as I was pondering what I wanted to work on with My Princess, I realized they would suit that purpose as well.  You can find the cards on my website, daris-corner.weebly.com.  You can also link to my website from the right. 

Anyway, these very versatile cards have been helping us with number order concepts.  I chose 3 cards in order 1-2-3 and layed them out in order.  We counted out loud while pointing to the cards. I had My Princess close her eyes.  I took one card out and placed it with 2 other cards above the others.  Then, I had her open her eyes and pick the card that went into missing space.  She really impressed me.  This wasn't challenging enough for her so we added up to 5 and then she wanted 0 in there, too!

After a few minutes of this, I cleared the floor (our work surface) and selected 10-11-12.  These are the numbers I feel she needs to work on at the current time.  She can count really well up to 10 and has a pretty good sense of one-to-one ratio, but when she counts past 10, she gets the numbers all messed up.  She really enjoyed this game.  I am going to continue using this method for a little while to strengthen/build her counting on abilities and her number sequence mastery.

I recently read, "You can be as happy as you decide to be."  What a great bit of advice.  We may not be able to control everything in life, but we can control our attitude.  Hope you have a wonderful day!  

Floor Size Phonics Mat

Hello! Hello! I have been a little frustrated, because My Princess has not been as attentive to my attempts at the Phonics Mat I painstakingly created.  Then it hit me.  How could I make it more fun?  It only took a minute before this idea came to mind.  I quickly ran into my fabric stash and grabbed the biggest heaviest piece I could find.  I layed it out on the floor and grabbed my scissors.  In just a few minutes, I was able to cut out the vowels from white felt.  Of course, My Princess was looking over my shoulder saying, "What are you doing mommy?"  Me- "It's a fun surprise sweetheart."  Well, as soon as it was done I said, "Can you jump on the letter that says, 'ehh'?"  She immediately responded by jumping to it.  We went through the vowels this way.  Next I jumped on a letter and said, "What sound does this letter make?"  She nailed it.  Then I asked her to jump on the corresponding lowercase letter.  After she grew bored with this, I grabbed hold of her hand and together we started from left to right jumping on the letters and saying the sounds.  We did this a couple of times.  What a wonderfully simple idea to whip up.  So glad I had it.  Too bad they don't happen all the time!

We have used "My Phonics Mat" as well.  I have found that she is learning, but I think it uses a lot of brain power so she gets overloaded very quickly.  We are now blending CV and CVC sounds.  Each little baby step adds up.

Hope you enjoy!