Sight words are boring. This sight word matching game is my attempt to make them a little bit fun. To give them context instead of just showing the child words written on blank cards. Basically, the game uses a modified version of these illustrated sight word flashcards with the sight word removed ...
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Illustrated Sight Word Cards
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I really don't like the idea of making kids memorize sight words. Sure, grown-ups don't take the time to sound out and decipher words like "the" or "as", but we remember them because it's convenient and necessary, not because someone told us we needed to. I wanted a way to help a child remember ...
Which One’s Different? Cards
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Being able to classify objects is an important skill, and I can't think of anything easier than making these "Which One's Different?" cards (or making new sets once kids get tired of the first set). They remind me a lot of standard worksheets for preschoolers, though I'll admit I wouldn't think ...
Letter Sounds Lift-a-Flap
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I'm not sure what other schools do, but at our local kindergarten, the kids are taught this really cute song to help them learn the letter sounds. The song is sung to the tune of the ABC's, except instead of just singing the alphabet, they sing, "A-ah-apple, B-buh-bear, C-cuh-cat, D-duh-duck..." ...
Pocket Matching Game
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This idea was taken straight out of The Toddler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner (pg. 177). Now that I have multiple kids, I don't need ideas to keep my toddler busy. The bigger kid does that without trying for the most part. However, when it was just me and my first toddler home alone all day, I used a ...
Montessori Paper Seguin Boards
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This is another really clever concept from the book Teaching Montessori in the Home: The School Years (Affiliate Link) that teaches number sequencing. I love that it's a hands on way for a child to learn their "teens" and how to count by tens to one hundred. Ideally, this would be made out of wood, ...
Montessori Number Symbol Cards
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I read about this style of number cards in the book, Teaching Montessori in the Home: The School Years (Affiliate Link), and thought it was a really clever idea. Basically you just stack the cards on top of each other to make any number with each card representing either the thousands, hundreds, ...
Montessori Colored Bead Stair
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I decided to make the Montessori colored bead stair after I had already made my own imitation "golden" (actually white) beads. So far, the colored beads representing each number between 1 and 9 are not actually necessary, since the child can just count out the appropriate number of single golden ...
Montessori Golden Beads
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Being such a huge nerd, when I saw the golden bead material at my son's Montessori school, I immediately wanted my own. They seemed like such a great way to visualize what numbers actually mean. I know they will be extremely useful when my kids are learning more complicated math. However, even now ...
Homemade Treasure Map Game
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I've always thought it would be a fun to make a treasure map for my preschooler. What actually motivated me to do it now was that I know a kindergartener who is having a hard time remembering how to identify certain numbers (like 11, 12, and 13). I wanted to come up with a fun way for him to be ...
Michelle has a PhD in Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree from the California Institute of Technology. 