After a morning with Cora at our busy monthly moms’ group meeting, I found I was really looking forward to my “quiet time” with Maddy and Owen after lunch. I knew I wanted to do some rhyming work, since Owen can really use the work on his enunciation, so the first thing we did focused on rhyming.
- Rhyme Bingo: My kiddos love Bingo—in any shape or form—so they were totally psyched to play Rhyme Bingo. On small 9 x 9” boards divided by 3 x 3” squares are pictures of words that rhyme with other pictures that are on a set of cards. I drew a card from the pile, then we all checked to see if it rhymed with one of the pictures on our boards. We played ‘cover-all’, since our ‘tokens’ were pieces from a set of Foamies that I bought a few months ago. (My kids love these little things--I wish I would have invented them myself--so I try to figure out as many uses for them as I can.) Maddy and Owen loved the game, and we played a few times, but I could tell they were more interested in the penguin/ snowflake Foamies, so I switched gears. . .
- Dice Match-up: I asked Maddy and Owen to put all of the penguin/ snowflake Foamies (we only u
sed about 1/4 of the huge tub) into a pile in the middle of the table, then I grabbed a set of dice and gave one each to Maddy and Owen. I asked them to shake it and roll it on the table (this was actually very interesting--I'm horrible--but have you ever seen a 3 year old roll dice? Yikes!). Then I asked,
Okay, now each of you count the number of dots on your die and then take that number of Foamies and line them up under your die. . . Awesome! Maddy, your die has four dots, and you have four penguins in a row! Good counting. . . Owen, your die has six dots. How many snowflakes did you line up? Right--six!
- After having them each use one die for a few times, we mixed it up a bit. Here's what we did: each used two dice; tried to choose all snowflakes/ penguins; made patterns with the Foamies they chose; rolled one die, lined them up, then rolled the other and took that number away, etc. It was fun.
A bit more info: One of the best books on word study is Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction 3rd edition (Merrill Publishers, 2004). They have released a newer edition, I believe, in 2007. A ton of the resources that I do have and use regularly comes from this text. A CD accompanies the text, and on it are hundreds of print-outs, games, and sorts that are organized according to spelling stages: emergent through most advanced. I highly recommend it for anyone, and the Bingo game came from this resource.
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