A while back,I whipped up a little game for my kids to practice making words. I used a photo of them playing on the floor with it in this post over here, and several people have commented on it and asked about it.
The cards are actually name tags from this site. I printed them out, glued them to cardstock, and wrote in the name of the drawing on each tag. I laminated them so that my two year old wouldn't destroy them in the first 3.2 seconds. Then I wrote the letters on some clothes pins.
The kids make words by matching the letters on the card to the clothespins. It's an introduction to some sight words, some practice at letter recognition, and a real confidence builder for the child who can exclaim "Mommy, look! I spelled dog!"
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I LOVE THIS IDEA! I have a Toddler that will be two in a few months and I have a hard time finding Games that would keep him busy yet teach him things. He doesn't know all of his alphabet, or how to read......but he knows what the letters look like when I ask them to find an O or A in a word in books. So matching the card and the letters on the pins would be AWESOME! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteDo you mind saying how old the kids were who did this activity? (Love it, by the way!)
ReplyDeleteHi Carolina! My daughters who play with it are 3 and 4. I think my 3 year old is probably at the perfect stage for something like this...but the 4 (almost 5) year old does enjoy it too. Thanks for your question! :)
ReplyDeletehello Carolina...im so happy with your website....i've learned so many things that i could apply in my home... thanks for sharing your idea :)
ReplyDeleteKelly,
ReplyDeleteYou are so clever and I love the activity. Thank you for coming on my blog and leaving a comment.
So cute.
Fran@kindergartencrayons.blogspot.com
Great idea! I've got two little girls I keep and this would be great to use with them.
ReplyDeleteThis is genious! I can't wait to try it out on my 3 year old. Thanks for sharing this with us Caroline. :)
ReplyDeleteLove it! I made this for my 4 year old son yesterday. He's in pre-school and very resistant to doing anything school-like at home. He loves it! He thinks I should make one for his teacher ;)
ReplyDeleteLove this idea! Thanks for sharing! I am making some for my daughter right now!
ReplyDeleteKelly, this is simply a wonderful idea! So many skills are targeted and so much fun! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea! I want to try this out as a center activity in my classroom. As a primary teacher the only thing I would change is to make the letters lower case. We have so much trouble trying to get the little ones out of "all caps" mode at school.
ReplyDeleteI use a similar activity, but I use lowercase letters in red vowels and black consonants.
ReplyDeleteFor kindergarten aged children you could write the words on cards and leave out the vowels. Clips could have vowels and children could finish building the word by associating the correct vowel with the sound they hear.
ReplyDeleteThis is great! I added a link to my Clothespin Crafts article on Squidoo. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea- love it! I'd like to make this for my son- what word list did you use? Katherine
ReplyDeleteEasy spelling without the hassle of pencil grip - wonderful.
ReplyDeleteFantastic idea, both for letter practice & fine motor control!
ReplyDeleteMy only suggestion is that I learned that it's sometimes hard for kids to transition from all caps to lower case/upper case when they start school. I learned this of course after thinking we were just the cat's meow since my daughter was writing all sorts of things in capital letters. ;) Makes sense, once someone pointed it out to me.
So maybe making the letters in all lower case, if you make it again, or if readers make their own set.
Hi Eryn! we have uppercase on one side of the cards and lowercase on the other. The clothespins are only one sided (and uppercase). So when the kids do the lowercase side of the cards they are actually matching uppercase and lowercase letters.
DeleteGreat idea...I'm going to be using in this in my preschool class for name recognition. Thanks for sharing this with us!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great idea! I teach Kindergarten and First Grade. I think this will be a great center activity. Using clothespins for activities really helps strengthen the muscles in the hand to prepare students for writing. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI just found this and really appreciate your post!! Such a great preschooler activity - we're just getting into 'letters of the week' and trying to be more proactive with games to learn, while having fun. Thank you, thank you!
ReplyDeleteLovely, going to have to give this a go with my boys!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly.
ReplyDeleteLOVE this idea. Thank you for sharing!
I have an educational site, I think you might enjoy. http://www.teachwithme.com/ Everything's FREE.
Hope you get a moment to stop by.
Tremenda idea!!! La voy a utilizar en mi sala de clases con mis estudiantes. Esta fantastica para la adquisiciôn de vocabulario, practica de escritura orden de las letras al formar las palabras...y mucho mas. Gracias por compartir esas ideas. A. Hernández de Puerto Rico.
ReplyDeletethat is a wonderful way to get the children to want to learn their sight words it really help me but you had some that people could copy I can't find them
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly,
ReplyDeleteMy son is grown up and married with children of his own. I homeschooled him and loved every minute. I am planning to use the clothespin idea with my mom. She had a stroke a year ago and we are working on her motor skills, speech and letter/word recognition. I think we will have fun with this. Would appreciate your prayers.
I really liked these ideas, thanks! I'm new to blogging so I hope I've followed appropriate credit-giving procedures when I linked this page in my most recent post: www.havingmycakeblog.blogspot.ca
ReplyDeletePlease let me know if I did anything wrong when commenting on your post! Thanks!
Hi Kelly! Thank you for a fun way to practice sight words with my little ones. They really enjoyed this! You can see what we did with your activity here: http://two-much-fun.blogspot.com/2014/02/sight-word-fun-using-clothes-pins-free.html
ReplyDelete