Montessori Inspired Rhyming Work and Chutes and Ladders

I have an extensive collection of miniatures, and I love them as much (if not more) than the kids :)

I generally start with 4 groups or less, place one object from each rhyming group on the carpet/mat, and Spiderman's job is to find the matching ones.

So I placed bed, chair. oar, hook and swing on the carpet, and Spiderman followed up with the rest...

Montessori inspired Object Box

... of the items from the tray.

Rhyming with miniatures

Bed, head, red, sled, bread
Chair, bear, pear
Oar, door, four
Hook, book
Swing, king, ring, wing  
 
Here is our work from another day. We started out reasonably, but then Spiderman kept on adding more, and the mats got a bit crowded. 

   

As you can see, the bed (with its mattress and pillow, and monsters lurking underneath) and the pirate hook is a hit with Spiderman. They have to make a mandatory appearance every time we play with our Rhyming box!

What I have noticed is that Spiderman is not quite as adept at this yet. Let's say that bee is already placed on the mat or carpet, and he picks up a tree. His first instinct is to say as many words as he can think of that rhymes with tree, like me, he, she, gee... If he also said bee during this rhyming spurt, then it is a snap fpr him to put in the tree with the bee (group), but if he did not, and looks at the groups on the board, then it takes him much longer to match it, if that makes any sense :)

I always have to remind him to match it with what is on the mat/carpet. Yes, "he" rhymes with tree, but it is not on the mat. Is there anything on the mat or the carpet that rhymes with "tree"? And yes, "shy" rhymes with "pie", but we don't have "shy" on the mat.

So I needed to come up with something where in just thinking of a  rhyming word is good enough. 
So I decided to amp up the classic chutes and ladders by adding a rhyming element to it.
This way, all he needs to do is think of a rhyming word, and that's it :)

<Click on the image to view the pdf file>

Chutes and Ladders with Rhyming Fun

<Click here to download the game>

Added benefits:
Spiderman also needs to work on higher number recognition. Along with all this, I have seen more conflicts between Batman and Spiderman, and I thought they needed to take turns, be patient with each other, etc etc.

Linked up to:
It's Playtime, Mom's Library,
Tot School Gathering Place, Link and Learn, Stress Free Sunday

Consonant Blends and Star Wars Board Game

We had tons of fun learning consonant blends this week. We focused on the ending blends.

Uh, but are you wondering about the connection between blends and Star Wars? Patience Padawan.
All in good time.

First, we used the object box for our blends. I set it up with the ending blends, the basket of miniatures, and some index cards. Batman is not a complete beginner at the blends, and I wanted to increase the level of complexity for him. The index cards are for him to spell the words, and create his own labels.

Batman is hard at work, placing things under the right group.

Here are the blends ending with k. Batman has labeled the bank.
For -lk, we have yolk in the bowl, ahead of milk. Shark and stork for -rk. Desk, whisk and mask for -sk. And bank, sink, tank, and skunk for -nk.

Batman hard at work, writing....
And we have few more labels for the group ending in t...

For nt, we had plant, tent, and ant. For st, there was nest, vest, chest, and mast (of the pirate ship), for ft, gift (which could also work as present), and for lt, we had belt.



Batman was wearing a storm trooper cupcake ring while doing all this. Which inspired us to come up with a Star Wars themed board game to reinforce ending consonant blends (mostly), although I sneaked in a few digraphs (-ng and -sh). As you can see, the blends are the ones we worked with, except for one or two different ones.


<Click on the image to see the pdf file>

Download the board game

 

Rules are simple.
If the square has an ending sound, and a skip, then you have to say/spell the word with that ending sound (mask for example for –sk), and if done correctly, as a reward you can skip and go to the next square.
If you land on a square that says Skip, or Go back 2, or Ride 4 hops, well then, skip that and go to the next square etc etc. There are two short cuts with blue light sabers.
Because this is such a short game, we made our own modified dice/die with some stickers/labels with just 1, 2, and 3. I drew the dots on the stick on labels.

We had a blast playing with our modified dice, and Lego star wars counters.  We even managed to sneak in a light saber fight (well, it said so on the game, not our fault)!

< Last but not least, Spiderman also worked with miniatures, but we did rhyming, and now, I have a request from Spiderman to make a board game for him as well. Watch out for that post!>

May the force be with you... 

Featured on
speech buddies

Linking up to:
It's Playtime, Mom's Library, Artsy Play Wednesday, After School Link Up, Montessori Monday, Kids Get Crafty and Link & Learn

Toddler Style Montessori Object Boxes

There is no reason why "big kids" like preschoolers and kindergarteners can't play and learn with these, of course, but these are geared more towards toddlers, and beginners. Both my super-heroes still use these for a variety of language work. But they are at a stage where they are more attracted to miniature ones.

 
Look how small the astronaut and anchor are compared to the wooden apple. I have all 3 and some more for "A", but that is another post :)









Here is a snapshot of what Spiderman played with till 2.5 years or so. You are the best judge of your child. You would know best when to introduce them, and when to graduate from these to something smaller, and more complex! These are all sturdy, does not need delicate handling, can't be swallowed, and can even take some gumming and chewing (mostly!)

.

A-M Toddler Object box

A - wooden apple
B - ball (from a b'day goody bag)
C - caterpillar (came with the Very Hungry Caterpillar book)
D - wooden duck
E - plastic or wooden egg
F - feather from craft stash
G - glasses from Dollar Store
H - straw hat
I - wooden Iguana
J - jar (of baby food)
K - wooden kangaroo
L - plastic leaf
M - wooden monkey


I started with one object for each letter.  They should be the short sounds for the vowels, and hard sounds for consonants like C or G. C as in cup, not as in city. G as in gum, not as in giraffe.

Once the kiddos know their letters, and are beginning to learn the sounds, you are ready! 

As a side note, both the kiddos learned their letter sounds by watching the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD!!
They love the catchy song, and I love the painless way they learn the letter sounds. 

The letter cards shown here came with the DVD. These were already familiar to my kids, so I used them. You can let them match uppercase or lowercase letters to the cards, and then introduce one or two object with that sound, or let them choose the object. We also use the sandpaper letters occasionally, so they can trace the letters.

The toddler version of the object box I stored in the cardboard memory boxes, one with the letters A-M (shown here), and the second one with letters N-Z. I would take out a few at a time.

For smaller miniatures, you could use a metal box, like this one, one for every letter, or combine a few and label them.

Storing your miniatures

You will be amazed at how much stuff you already have lying around the house - from every day objects like clip, or spoon or whisk - for sounds ending in -sk, or fake flowers and fruits and veggies, toys, more toys, birthday goody bags, especially the ones that comes from pinata (we got alien, surfboard, maze-tiny plastic ones that don't work very well, but works great for silent e work, fake finger with nails - use it for finger or nail lol, putty, ninjas, rings from cupcakes, tiny erasers....). Raid the dollhouse, or tree-house for more miniatures. Grab a few of their vehicles. I could probably make a whole alphabet object box just with all the transportation themed stuff lying around the house (hmm...).... You just need mindful searching and pilfering...

Linked to Link & Learn, Living Montessori Now, Tuesday Tots, TGIF Linky Party, Show-and-Share Saturday, Weekly Kid's Co-op

Miniatures for language work

I love doing language work with miniature objects, perhaps even more than the kids!

You can read more about using miniature objects here
Making Language Work More Exciting 


The boys use them for a variety of work, not just language:

• Go together objects (what goes with this - great for pre-reading)
• Category objects
• Making compound words 
• Rhyming objects

• Use the objects in sensory boxes and bins
• Alphabet object boxes (not just for the beginning sound, but middle and ending sounds as well) 
• Grammar work with the farm
• Singular Plural work
• Pink, Blue and Green series work 

• Noun object box (and other similar boxes for adjective, articles)
• Use them in continent boxes
• Math work (counting, addition, subtraction)
• Sorting work (like magnetic and non-magnetic, living and non-living, sink or float)

The possibilities are endless!! Do leave me a comment if you have found more uses for them.

I will follow up with posts and pictures soon.

Great places for scoring miniature objects: Tubes like the Safari Toobs, Hobby Lobby,  Factory Direct Craft, Michaels, Dollar Store, stores that sell doll-house miniatures, Etsy stores like HighPie, toy bins at home (you will be surprised at how much you have at home already)!

Find more about where to get miniature objects at my Pinterest board Language Arts

Montessori pre-reading activity for preschoolers with miniatures

But McQueen is not missing a tire!!

Allow me to explain. My 3 year old (Spiderman) and I were doing some pre-reading activities. We were playing "what goes with this?"

So dog-bone, leaf-tree, bird-nest, so forth! What could be the controversy in that? Right? Plenty, if you are working with super-heroes!! 
Check out the comments from Spidey!

Hey, I thought the umbrella is for when it is raining!

But McQueen is not missing a tire!

 That milk carton is way too big for the cow, Mommy!

Is that my old pacifier, from when I was a baby? Can I put it in my mouth? It's too big for the baby!

That is a cool helmet, can I have one like that?

Can I please play with the mail box? And the iron? And the easel? Our paintings are all on the wall, not the easel! I won't break it, I promise!! Any guesses on what happens next?

The good news, he was able to do most of the associations by himself, although he needed some help from his 5- year old "older" brother Batman! But that's a whole new post altogether!!