UP! BUILDING A CHILD'S LOVE OF BLOCKS

We all know kids learn best through play! 

They learn when they are actively engaged in their learning and I am happy to have co-authored another book that focuses on promoting hands-on playful learning - UP! 

The UP! ebook takes a child's love of blocks and building and provides more than 30 projects to extend their play across the curriculum making it a fantastic resource for anyone working in Early Childhood Education or playing at home with their children.

WORD FAMILY I SPY MATS

Make learning how to rhyme fun with the help of our I Spy Rhyming Short Vowel Sound Word Family printable mats - ideal for Daily 5 Word Work or literacy centre work stations.

Developing phonemic awareness in the Early Years is key to learning how to read and spell. 

What is phonemic awareness? Basically it's understanding that the English language is an alphabetic system in which the letters represent sounds either singularly or in combination. 

Children who have good phonemic awareness are able to take apart words, recognise the sounds being used and be able to put them back together or manipulate them to create new words. 

Being able to identify and produce rhyme is a key component to phonemic awareness at preschool. Many young children still require practice at hearing rhyme when they start school so I've recently added these fun Short Vowel Sound Word Family I Spy printables for our literacy centres in class.

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STEAM KIDS - WATER PENDULUM PLAY

Introducing a fantastic resource for any classroom or home, STEAM KIDS! With over 50 engaging projects to try with your children, you will want this book on your shelf!

Working in the Early Childhood Education sector, many of the hands on activities we plan already incorporate STEAM. 

What is STEAM and why is it important to how I teach young children today? 

Education experts are telling us that to help prepare our children to be the successful innovators they need to be to be part of our 21st century workforce, they need to be actively engaged in their own learning and have plenty of opportunities to engage in subjects such as Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM) to succeed. 

Having fun is, of course, a large part of ensuring they are engaged in such learning so I am very excited by the launch of STEAM Kids! An inspiring new book with over 50 STEAM projects to try at home or in the classroom.

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DIGRAPH SOUND MAZES AND I SPY GAMES

A fun hands-on way to learn digraph sounds, just print these I spy games and sound mazes to add to your literacy centers or Daily 5 word work.

Literacy centres, or word work if you do Daily 5, are a regular part of our classroom timetable. 

Literacy centres are a fantastic learning tool to use in your classroom. They can help build independence and social skills working in small groups while allowing young children to practice concepts or skills already intentionally taught in class. Your literacy station activities should not just fill in time. 

I've been using them since I started teaching and have have found them to be very effective but that means having to constantly find suitable resources to use in our literacy circles. You can find plenty of ideas for your literacy centres here.

Recently my class has been learning the digraphs sounds and needed some practice 'hearing' these sounds in words.

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