April 15, 2008

Teaching Phonics to toddlers

Dominique Recommendations Phonics, Toddlers

How to teach Phonics at home? This question has been raised by many parents of toddlers that I know.

Before you decide on the which phonics activity to start with do look at the Phonic Skills chart to assess the stage of readiness your child is at.

There are many ways- online and offline where you can assist your child in learning phonics.

Online

Starfall.com– is the best website I know that teaches children the phonetic pronouncation of the letters of the alphabets, there is also focus on consonant blending. There are also short stories for reading there.

Reading n Phonics- There is a shooting game where you shoot down the correct alphabet which is being ‘targeted’

Scholastic has a rhyming & matching word game which you can try with your child when they are able to identify the basic sounds of words.

Offline

Gigglepotz.com has printable/downloadable phonic cards. There are also PDF phonetic storybooks which you can print out and read with your child.

Here are some products which I have listed in my A*store which you can consider.

Reflective Monday #7

No, this post is not about the benefits of using vegetable cooking oil but the kitchen chaos that has resulted because of it.
In short – Toddler + Cooking Oil = Massive Disaster
Last Friday I had a rude shock when I entered the kitchen . Oil was spilled all over the floor and Roy was seated happily on it splashing away. He had earlier sneaked into the kitchen when I was busy putting away the folded laundy in the room. Never in my wildest imagination would I expect him to overturn and unscrew the 5L of vegetable oil onto the floor. It was a real nightmare trying to extract him from the mess without slipping and falling on the extremely slippery/oily floor.

I had to use 2 rolls of paper towels to soak up the oil, degrease, mop and re-mop a few times…and the floor still feels oily!!! Any suggessions on how to get the floor back to normal?