Introduction, Helpful Tips, Weekly Planning
1) Introduction: About a year ago, I started a "Letter of the Week" Series for my 18-month old. He learned so much as I worked (more so played!) with him on a daily basis - He learned to recognize all the uppercase letters and sounds, numbers 1-10, major shapes, and colors. He also learned through songs, books, sensory play and tons of crafts. Around the same time we started our series, I had a baby. While the baby took a morning nap, I enjoyed having engaging "one on one" time activities to do with my toddler. We had to be home anyway. You can find the majority of the activities we did last year on our Themes Index. My once 18-month old will turn 3 soon! Follow along as I post what we do each week on our Letter of the Week: Age 3.
2) Helpful Tips: My inspiration in the letter of the week series started from The Measured Mom. Her website has countless ideas and resources (including free printables!) for teaching children. She is a celebrity in my books. If you're just getting started, you'll find this post about How to Teach the Alphabet to Preschoolers very inspiring. As we went through an entire letter of the week series last year, I learned a few things on what to do and what not to do:
3) Weekly Planning: Monday's are busy days at our house (you can read more about that here), but I use that day to plan for a week in advance. Here's what to do:
2) Helpful Tips: My inspiration in the letter of the week series started from The Measured Mom. Her website has countless ideas and resources (including free printables!) for teaching children. She is a celebrity in my books. If you're just getting started, you'll find this post about How to Teach the Alphabet to Preschoolers very inspiring. As we went through an entire letter of the week series last year, I learned a few things on what to do and what not to do:
- Allow your child to explore in his/her own way. Don't have set expectations on what you "think" will happen. I can't tell you how many times what I expected to happen, did not. For instance, there was a time we were doing "Pom Pom Christmas Tree Painting" and I was expecting my two year old to neatly stamp the pom poms to look like a cute Christmas ornament. Instead, he decided to use the pom pom to paint lines all across the Christmas tree. Go with the flow. Don't get caught up in your idea of a perfect picture. Enjoy watching your child be creative (like how my idea of apple stamping turned into apple chucking) and allow them to get messy as they learn. Plan activities your child most enjoys and go at a pace that works for the both of you.
3) Weekly Planning: Monday's are busy days at our house (you can read more about that here), but I use that day to plan for a week in advance. Here's what to do:
- Put library books on hold. If you don't have a library card, now is a good time to get one! I have a list of our favorites books for EVERY letter that you're welcome to use. I login to my library account online and put the books on hold. In a few days, they are ready for pick up. How easy is that? We'll usually do a library class while we're there to pick up our books.
- Create an activities spread sheet. Next, I look at my excel spreadsheet. On the left hand side, I have a list of everything I'd like to do for each week of the series. This list will stay the same, other than the Letter A will change. Your list may look different, depending on what your focus is. On the right hand side, I have the activities listed in black. The "to do or to buy" items are in red and the "to print" items are in blue. Below is a sample of my spreadsheet for Letter A.
- Print the items in red and make arrangements for the blue items (from the excel spreadsheet). Double check you have everything you need for the following week.
- You can also make a list of what you'd like to do each day, but we are going to try going with the flow a little more this year. Some days we'll have more time than others, but every day we'll have options of very fun and interactive learning activities.
