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..." ...
Preschool Learning
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 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 ...
Homemade Letter Cards
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In general, I don't really think "flash cards" are useful tools to teach little kids anything (though I relied on them endlessly in college and grad school). The idea of drilling children to get them to memorize something doesn't appeal to me. However, my son really enjoyed looking at these cards ...
Homemade Color Cards
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I had fun making these homemade color cards when my son was around 15 months old. I get a lot of magazines (mostly for free through the e-rewards online survey program). When he was that age, he loved looking at pictures and naming things he knew. We didn't use these at home very often, but they ...
Michelle has a PhD in Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree from the California Institute of Technology. 