Montessori Inspired Blue Series - Learning about Consonant Blends

With Vito reading CVC words and sight words, we are now moving to the Blue Series.  The Blue Series is a Montessori approach in learning consonant blends and digraphs.  I made an entire set of blue series materials for Vito to use in the course of his learning.  We will work on these materials  and move on to the next set as he progresses.  In this post, I will give you an overview of the materials and how we are going to use them.

It is important to note that the blue series (blends and digraphs) comes after the pink series.  Once the child is familiar with letter sounds and can basically read CVC words (pink series) then he/she can move on to the blue series.

Beginning Letter Sound Picture Mats

Here's a fun activity that Vito and I would do to practice identifying objects and their beginning letter sounds.  I usually integrate this in our letter of the week activities or just play it on its own.

FREE Beginning Letter Sound Posters and Cards (SAMPLER)

We are starting a new approach to our literacy activities.  To have some variety in our literacy activities I decided to pause our usual pink series (Beginning Letter Sound Activity Sheets) and move to Jolly Phonics.  Jolly Phonics is a curriculum used here in Ireland (and UK).  My eldest loved it, especially the action sounds that went along with the letters.

Thanksgiving Themed Rhyme and Beginning Letter Sound BINGO Game

My 4 years old absolutely loves our Thanksgiving rhyme and beginning letter BINGO game!  He loves rhyming words, so I just have to come up with some activity to feed this interest.  Since we’ve been exploring beginning letter sounds, I also added this to our game.

The Alphabet Sound Books for Learning Letters

I am so excited to share our Alphabet Sound Books!  Vito is currently in a sensitive period for letters and I knew I just have to provide him with these booklets which I also made for Mavi years ago when he was learning his letters.

B4FIAR: Jesse Bear What Will You Wear

We are continuing our Five in a Row because Vito is loving some of the stories in the book list.  In this post, I’m sharing activities to go along with the Jesse Bear What Will You Wear by Nancy White Carlstrom.  Note, I only make or prepare activities in line with the books that he loves.  So when I read Jesse Bear to him, he immediately love it because he can relate to the story.  He has routines too similar to Jesse Bear (playing, eating and waiting for Daddy) and staying with his Mom all day. 


Anyway here are the activities we worked on to explore the subject areas of Jesse Bear What Will You Wear.  Note, this was a 2-week long of rowing.  The activities here were mostly done in the morning and we only worked on one activity a day, and the rest we spend it outdoors or Vito would do something else (like work on his traditional Montessori materials).

Building Words with the Moveable Alphabet and Objects

Vito is 43 months old.

I am so excited to share that we’ve finally started building words using our moveable alphabet!  I had fun working this with Mavi long time ago and I can’t believe I’m doing this again with Vito.  This is the part of Montessori language arts that I love the most, teaching kids how to read! In my previous post, I talked about how we are using objects and miniatures in learning about letter sounds which is essential in reading. 

Beginning Reading: Language Objects and Activities

Language activities are a favourite in the house now as Vito’s interest in reading has peaked.  We are using language objects more often to practise letter sounds through games (aside from sandpaper letters).  These language objects that we have were collected through the years, starting from Mavi’s time and it has been very useful now in Vito’s journey on beginning reading.

Beginning Letter Phonics Cards

Hello everyone! I wanted to share with you Vito’s current favourite printable, our Beginning Letter Phonics Cards.  You might have seen these in some of my letter-themed post.  These are card strips which contain letters and their corresponding objects (real images matching the  beginning letter sound).  The product comes in two sets: control cards and the activity cards.  Below is a glimpse of how we use the materials, which Vito would work on every day (sensitive period for letters)!

Montessori Inspired Phonics Mystery Bag Game

Vito is 40 months old.

I’m always in search of new learning games and activities to try with Vito.  Vito is quite a challenge.  He’s a little bit picky with activities, he always wants it to be interesting, some sort of a game.  He is currently in a sensitive period with letters, always singing the song, identifying letters in books, pretending to read words, completing his alphabet puzzles and more.  He knows the letter sounds and can identify uppercase and lowercase, so I’m moving forward to phonics and CVC reading practise in our language activities at home.  To start with, we are practising how to identify beginning letter sounds of “objects” in picture format.  I know, I should be doing objects, but Vito is always distracted with objects.  He sees them as toys, not as language learning materials. We don’t get things done whenever I use objects because we end up playing.  So I’m sticking with picture cards for now, it’s working on his part.  Whenever he sees a picture card, he would name it and emphasize the beginning letter sound.  This was our first try, and we’ve been doing this activity occasionally.  Lately, I acquired an extra tiny bag from my Stereognostic material and I made use of it in this game.  We often use moveable alphabet but Vito insisted to use the Hape Uppercase Puzzle (he loves this puzzle!).

Sorting Game Using Alphabet Sound Cards

Vito is 38 months old.

I am so excited that I finally found a way to keep Vito engaged in the alphabet sorting activity.  You see we always sort out objects according to their letter sound (see it here), but my problem is that Vito is more interested with the objects rather than participating in the activity.  The moment I opened the box for us to sort, he would take away one object at a time and he refuses to do the activity and would play instead.  Now this is fine, I have no problems with it.  In fact, this happened to Mavi too.  I let them play with the objects first but then would ask them to participate in the activity right after.  It was temporary for Mavi, he loved sorting objects according to beginning letters rather than playing with them.  As for Vito, it’s different.  He is still in a stage of being “playful” so our sorting activities are sometimes a struggle.  He knows how to do it, but refuses because of the object.

My solution:  I tried using a printed image instead of the objects and tada, he finished everything in a matter of seconds!  With this, we are going to work on printed materials for now, and maybe mix them with objects occasionally just to test whether he has overcome his obsession with tiny figures.

Learn to Write Letters for Preschoolers Using Sandpaper Letters

Vito is 36 months old.

Our sandpaper letter set has finally arrived (yehey before Christmas!) and it’s been a favorite ever since!  If you follow me on Instagram, I recently showed a picture of Vito working with Schleich animals and sandpaper letters.  But that’s just one activity we can do with the letters.  The main use of this material is for Vito to use it as a tool in learning how to write alphabet letters.

FREE Beginning Sound BINGO Sheets

Available now for download!  You can enjoy these sheets as much as we do.

Language Lessons for Preschoolers: RAMFBITG

Vito is 36 months old.

Vito is currently working hard learning his letters, sounds, and expanding his vocabulary. Due to weather constraint we are mostly stuck at home, therefore the lack of outdoor nature studies. So our mornings are mostly spent for his “homeschool”.  We are busy reading books, learning letters, doing writing, and practical life activities.

In this post, I would like to share Vito’s language lessons which you can try in your homes as well.  Remember my post on booklets?  I mentioned in the post that at home we’re learning letters and their sounds in groups (color coded).  First group is RAMF-BITG, second is CUSN-POLH and lastly DEXQY-WXZKVJ.  This idea came from My Montessori Journey, one of my favourite blogs dated back in 2010.  Read more about this grouping here.

Preschool Letter A

This was the week that Vito wasn’t in the mood to work on any letter activity. Yes, it happens.  You can see the result of it in his work, which you will see when you scroll down.  But anyway, I just wanted to share these activities and the materials we used so you will know where to get some alphabet sheets resources.

Beginning Sounds Through Language Objects

This week, Vito and I are exploring beginning letter sounds through objects we can find at home.  This is very similar to the Alphabet Sort Montessori Inspired activity, but in our case we are not sorting the objects yet.  What Vito and I are doing is to just  name or identify the objects and match them to our control sheet.

FREE Alphabet Cards

I’ve been searching high and low for alphabet cards doesn’t have cliparts or pictures in them but I can’t find one.  So I made one for Vito as he usually gets distracted with images.  The sole purpose of these cards is for him to familiarize with LOWERCASE letters. He knows their sounds, all of the 26 letters but can’t recognize some of the lowercase, thus these cards are born!

Favourite Phonic Games

I always find it hard to get Vito to do alphabet activities with me.  Mavi was already learning how to spell 2.5 years old and although Vito knows the letters and sounds they make, he’s still not at it when it comes to doing the activities.

So I started reading my favourite blogs (since 2010) and came across these activities from NurturingLearning.com.  These activities requires movements which Vito loves to do to keep him engaged in alphabet activities.

Object Baskets for I to P

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This object basket series has been a popular post and I’m glad that it gave so much inspiration to all Moms and homeschoolers.  Before the year ends, I’m sharing with you our second set of the object baskets and this includes letters I to P.  But before you dig into this post, I suggest that you read the first part of this series to understand what it is for and how we use them at home for learning.

Object Baskets I to L

I Basket: foam letter , upper and lowercase letter, iguana, insects, ice, island 

J Basket: foam letter, upper and lowercase letter, jeans, jigsaw puzzle, jug

K Basket: foam letter, upper and lowercase letter, kangaroo,  knife, keys

L Basket: foam letter, upper and lowercase letter, leaves, lion, lemon, DIY sandpaper letter

 

Object Baskets I to L

M Basket: foam letter, upper and lowercase letter, medicine, monster, monkey, DIY moon

N Basket: foam letter, upper and lowercase letter, nuts, nine, DIY sandpaper letter, necktie

O Basket: foam letter, upper and lowercase letter, owl, orange, oval, DIY sandpaper letter

P Basket: foam letter, upper and lowercase letter, pig, pens, paint, DIY sandpaper letter

This is my guide for next year’s activities on learning letters.  This will be fun!

For letters A to H, click the images below:

    

 

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Object Baskets for Letters A to H

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I’ve been working hard for the past days organizing our object baskets for Vito’s phonics practice.  Vito knows his alphabet and numbers, he names half of the alphabet with their phonics sound.  Like he calls letter B as “bah”, and H as “huh”.  I guess this is the result of me teaching Vito the sound first, before the name of the letter itself. Something like “this is mmmmmmm, M” or “this is ssssssss, S”. 

What is an Object Basket

These are baskets that contain a letter along with 3 dimensional objects to match to the letter by beginning sound.  The concept behind this is similar to the object boxes of Montessori (for reading)  , but we are not going there yet.  The object baskets are simply for exploration, vocabulary and learning phonic sounds.

Assembling the Object Basket

Each of my basket has an uppercase and lowercase letter.  We are using the letters from Hape Uppercase and Lowercase puzzles and the Munchkin foam bath letters.  I wanted to add the magnetic letters from Melissa & Doug but I was thinking that there’s too much letters in basket already, so I’ll just reserve those for my future object boxes (reading). 

I wanted to add sandpaper letters but mine is a DIY years ago and its incomplete. I plant to get a set this Christmas as gift to self LOL but still waiting for the discounted price (hoping!).

Gathering objects is the most exciting part.  I would search in the kitchen, bedroom and my kids’ toys for appropriate objects to add in the basket.  Since Vito is only 2 years old, I limit the number of objects in the basket, maybe 3 – 5 only.  They don’t have that stamina and attention span for 10 objects so better keep it simple and avoid overwhelming the little ones. 

Object Baskets from Letters A to H

So I just completed these baskets, took photos and print the set so that it’s easier for me to assemble once we start with the activity (we’ll do this after the holidays).  Will display this on top of our shelf and worked on it after we do our daily routine of reading books.

A Basket:  alligator, ambulance, A foam letter, apple, A picture booklet

B Basket:  book, banana, block, B foam letter  and B picture booklet

C Basket: cow, carrots, C foam letter,  car and C picture booklet

D Basket:  dinosaur, diaper, Duplo, DIY sandpaper letter, letter D

E Basket: eye (McDonalds), elephant, egg (McDonalds), DIY sandpaper letter

F Basket: feather, four, letter F, upper and lowercase F, fork, flower, fish, fence, DIY sandpaper letter

G Basket: grapes, giraffe, goggle, upper and lowercase F, F foam letter,  DIY sandpaper letter

H Basket:  upper and lowercase F, DIY sandpaper letter, horse, heart, hanger, hippo, hammer, H foam letter

Ideally, we will work for on one letter a week, but this doesn’t always happen.  So I usually schedule the next change of basket after 2 weeks.  I am still gathering up objects for my second batch.  Hopefully I can finish it soon so I can share it with you.  And that’s it for the first set of my object baskets! Stay tuned for second set from I to P

Hope you find this inspirational!

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