We had 12 inches of snow here in Kansas City this week, and we are due for more in the next few days!
I'm always extra grateful for a warm house and snuggly kids on snowy days, but sometimes, my snugglers become wiggle worms and we need a change of pace.
I'm a big fan of working a bit of learning into play activities. I came up with this
Alphabet Mitten Matching Game to help the kiddos recognize that each letter has a "big" version and a "little" version. I thought it would be fun to use pairs of mittens to help us pair together the letters.
Each pair of mittens is decorated the same. I did it that way because I wanted the kids to have those silent hints as they learn which letters make a pair. My theory is that if they see the upper and lowercase letters together enough, they will absorb that information even if they just start out matching the designs.
So, how did this work at our house? Well, initially, I put the mittens on our quadruplets' little table so that we could work on them altogether. You'd think I'd have figured out by now that this type of activity is hard to do with four two-year-olds... Oh well!
Elijah got bored pretty fast since he doesn't like to sit still for anything, Ellie wandered off because there was too much going on for her to handle in that small space, but Abby and Caleb hung around to play for a bit. This activity is a bit of a stretch for my kids, but I think in four or five months, it will be at the perfect learning level for them.
The next day, I took Ellie aside individually to see if she wanted to try again in a quieter environment. I set out 8-9 "big" letters at a time, and handed her one "little" letter to match. Sure enough, she LOVED the game as much as I thought she would. Yay! That lowercase "q" is a bit confusing, but other than that, she nailed it!
The best part? They see it as a game, while I see it as so much more! Sneaky Mommy!
I have two versions of Alphabet Matching Mittens for you to print out! The first link is my
decorated mittens as seen in the photos above. The second link will let you
print blank mittens with nothing but letters on them.
I hope your family has fun with these! Let me know what you think about them below! And if you love them, I'd LOVE for you to Pin or share them with your friends. :)
We had 12 inches of snow here in Kansas City this week, and we are due for more in the next few days!
I'm always extra grateful for a warm house and snuggly kids on snowy days, but sometimes, my snugglers become wiggle worms and we need a change of pace.
I'm a big fan of working a bit of learning into play activities. I came up with this
Alphabet Mitten Matching Game to help the kiddos recognize that each letter has a "big" version and a "little" version. I thought it would be fun to use pairs of mittens to help us pair together the letters.
Each pair of mittens is decorated the same. I did it that way because I wanted the kids to have those silent hints as they learn which letters make a pair. My theory is that if they see the upper and lowercase letters together enough, they will absorb that information even if they just start out matching the designs.
So, how did this work at our house? Well, initially, I put the mittens on our quadruplets' little table so that we could work on them altogether. You'd think I'd have figured out by now that this type of activity is hard to do with four two-year-olds... Oh well!
Elijah got bored pretty fast since he doesn't like to sit still for anything, Ellie wandered off because there was too much going on for her to handle in that small space, but Abby and Caleb hung around to play for a bit. This activity is a bit of a stretch for my kids, but I think in four or five months, it will be at the perfect learning level for them.
The next day, I took Ellie aside individually to see if she wanted to try again in a quieter environment. I set out 8-9 "big" letters at a time, and handed her one "little" letter to match. Sure enough, she LOVED the game as much as I thought she would. Yay! That lowercase "q" is a bit confusing, but other than that, she nailed it!
The best part? They see it as a game, while I see it as so much more! Sneaky Mommy!
I have two versions of Alphabet Matching Mittens for you to print out! The first link is my
decorated mittens as seen in the photos above. The second link will let you
print blank mittens with nothing but letters on them.
I hope your family has fun with these! Let me know what you think about them below! And if you love them, I'd LOVE for you to Pin or share them with your friends. :)
I bet you have fun thinking up these learning games and then observing them to see how they like them. Good idea, but I think playing one at a time would probably be best at this age. When they get older, then they could play together and compete after they all pretty much know all the letters.
ReplyDelete