Dear Mr. Blueberry: Family learning activites

Last week we had fun with the book Dear Mr. Blueberry by Simon James. This book is a series of letters between a little girl and her teacher discussing whales. It's super cute and was already a loved and regularly looked at book.

The first day, I read the book and focused on the letter w (for whale). I gave Wyatt (3) his own letter W book. For our letter craft, we made the whales shown to side. The white base is regular printer paper. I cut out the simple whale shape from blue construction paper. The kids glued the whales down, found their W tail fins from an assortment of foam letters I have acquired
(If I were ordering new ones, I'd order these), glued on tissue paper for the water, added googly eyes, drew a mouth, and folded half a iridescent white pipe cleaner into a "W" shape. I glued the pipe cleaners on with felt glue, because that's what I had on hand, but I was planning to use tacky glue.
We also took a look at how long a blue whale is and how big Emily's pond would have to be to hold him. We took chalk and a yard stick to our sidewalk and marked out every three feet. I had the kids count by 3s for the first several, but when they started to lose interest I asked them to mark where they thought 100 feet would be. Some of their guesses are shown below; the thick blue line marks 100 feet. It was fun watching them come up with multiple techniques to make their guesses. Zeke (7) was definitely the ring leader helping everyone while I continued to mark. If I were to do this with only younger kids, I would have shown them what a foot looked like, had them guess and then used a tape measure or rope to find 100 much faster. I purposely chose the yard stick to give the older ones time to watch it unfold and really think about it.
We then went back inside and took a closer look at how blue whales filter their food (mostly krill) through their baleen plates. I placed shredded cheese in a bowl of cool water and had the kids use a basic comb to scoop out the cheese while allowing the water to drain out. Thanks to Learning is Messy for this awesome idea.

The second day, I read the book and talked about letter writing. This activity was primarily chosen for Zeke, but everyone participated at their level. Wyatt's focus was signing his name. I found this free letter writing template that made it easier teaching all my kids at the same time. A quick search on pinterest will give you more options, but I liked that this one was so basic.

I was gone during the day for the rest of the week, so we stopped there, but my other thoughts involved a whale craft made from a paper bag. Simply tie off the end to form the tail, paint it blue, then add eyes and a mouth. Here is a link to a pinterest search if you want a visual.

I've since done some additional work with my oldest on letter writing and addressing an envelope. This would also be a good time to visit your local post office. Our post office requested about 1-2 weeks notice for a small group last time we went. The kids had so much fun seeing how the mail is processed and sorted.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom: Family Learning Activities

My little Wyatt (3) has decided he wants to do school stuff too, so I'm working on a literature and alphabet unit to do with the entire family, but is primarily for him. For the first week, we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault.

We began on a whim last week when Claire (2) was looking at an alphabet puzzle. Wyatt was sitting close by, so we sang the alphabet song while playing with the puzzle. I then grabbed Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and used the puzzle to show each letter as I read.

The next day, I stepped up my game a little and put a construction paper coconut tree on our refrigerator and slapped on the alphabet magnets. The kids thought this was awesome! A nice thing about having slightly older children is that they want to play too, so they end up teaching the little ones. We read the book again and I encouraged the kids to play. I find someone doing something with the tree and letters every day.

We started the third day by watching Leap Frog: Letter Factory. This movie helped my older children learn their letters and sounds; Quinn actually learned the sounds before she could identify and say their names thanks to this video.
As our main activity, we examined a coconut. Initially, the kids drew pictures and guessed what was inside. They were all amazed to hear the liquid sploshing around inside. After we observed all we could of the outside, we drilled a hole to extract the water and split the coconut open. Everyone tasted the water and the meat, then drew more pictures.
After we finished with the coconut, we read the book again -twice. You wouldn't think that reading a book for the third day in a row would be entertaining, but the looks on their faces said otherwise.

On day four, we read the book again and learned a little first aid. The letters get hurt when they fall out of the tree, so my husband showed the kids what to do when someone is bleeding. Using ketchup as the blood, he began with cleaning a small amount of blood and putting a band-aid on it. Next the kids practiced what to do if someone is bleeding a lot (put pressure on the cut and call for help). Then the kids practiced bandaging a moderate amount of blood. (Apply a large bandage and wrap with gauze. If it's still bleeding, wrap it again. Get further help.) My husband went a little further than I originally planned, but he's an EMT, so I can't really blame him. We already have a first aid kit that the kids are familiar with, but if yours aren't this would be a great opportunity to start one.

On the fifth day, we read the book again and made name trees. We used printer paper for the base paper and added construction paper and foam letters. The kids found the letters in their name and put them on their trees. We helped the little ones trace and cut their hands, but they glued it together. 

Some additional ideas:
I like Tasty yet Trying's idea of writing letters on a cardboard tube and having the kids match with letter stickers.
I almost put together a basic sensory bin similar to the one found at Natural Beach Living, but I absolutely love the sensory bin found at Enchanted Homeschooling Mom. The latter bin uses letter beads to thread onto a pipe cleaner tree.

Free Roll and Read Beginner Word Family Worksheets

I have two kids working on word families right now and after scouring the internet for resources to help them practice in a game-like setting, I ended up just making my own. I've had to divide them into smaller files to offer for free on Teachers Pay Teachers, so I currently have two options featuring beginner word family fluency sheets for free. I also have my entire collection of 30 word families available in one easy download for $1.

These word family sheets are great for some aspects of speech therapy as well. Quinn (5) has a range of speech delays including some beginning and final sound deletions and these worksheets are great practice for her.

I made these without pictures, but there is enough space that your kids can have fun drawing a picture or two to go with the group of words.

To play, have your child roll a die and read the words in the line with the same number. Repeat as many or as few times as your child wants. We do a minimum of three rolls, but probably average five.

I am a fan of keeping these sorts of activities in page protectors in binders with other activities that work on similar skills. I keep all of my short vowel words together, because it makes it so much easier to work on the skills, because I can always flip over to one more activity if they need the work and attentions can handle it.

Click here for the beginner a,e, and i word family sheets.
Click here for the beginner o ad u word family sheets.




These are the items I use with these worksheets.



What's your favorite way to practice word families?