A is for Apple. A is for Art.

Rashmi S — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:30:36 +0000

Introducing Alphabet Tuesday’s! Every Tuesday, we plan to do an activity based on an alphabet. We start with “A”, who else!!

We started the homeschooling hour with our favorite alphabet phonic song – a a aaapple , b b bbbat, k k cccat .. The 2yrold can now identify till g. The 5yrold is well past this stage, so we did an animal theme for her. Some of them we came up together, like w- wolf, n – nightingale. Thanks to the books currently in our reading list – Yakity Yak and How the Rainforests Came Alive, both by Pratham Books(Will review them soon), she came up with Yak and Vulture with a little prodding.. Both of us were clueless for “x” and “u”. As expected, we took google baba’s help and decided to use Xerus – a type of ground squirrel found in Africa for X. And Umbrella Bird for U.

Here is the list we came up with:
alligator
bear
cat
dog
elephant
fish
goat
horse
iguana
jackal
kangaroo
lion
monkey
nightingale
octopus
peacock
quail
rabbit
snake
turtle
umbrella bird
vulture
wolf
xerus
yak
zebra

Couple of videos we like watching often..

I had planned to do A is for Address with the 5yrold, but for some reason she was not interested in continuing with us. So, it was self and my 2 yrold for the rest of the hour.

A is for Apple

In the next half hour, we set out to make an apple. I drew the outline in a sheet. We took some tissues and dipped them in red color. The 2yrold was super excited, gluing it all over the shape, inside and out. And this what we got. Ta Da! It has to be either the mother OR the teacher wiping their tears of joy at their baby’s beautiful creation!

We ended with a 2 minute pranayam yoga that was originally planned for 15 minutes Overall an hour well spent.

Long and Short Vowel Sounds

Rashmi S — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:44:29 +0000

Phonics. Long Short Vowel Sound

We got this book – Amazing Animals by Innovative Kids, from a yard sale back in California. A retired teacher had carefully and neatly boxed them. My 5 year old was just 2.5 at that time, but these books were so absolutely awesome, that we could not resist and picked up the whole box. She is now reading by herself and is starting to comprehend what she read. These are a set of 10 books, each of them about 7-10 pages, the pages starting with a 2 word sentence, builds upon the same sentence, making them longer as we move ahead. It is particularly useful for the kid who has started to read sentences and is now trying to remember and comprehend after reading a few sentences.
For example:
Page 1 : The pike.
Page 2 : The pike glides.
Page 3 : The pike glides and likes to ride.
You get the flow.

The amazing animals is a series of 10 booklets, introducing long vowel sound, also allowing the child to note the difference between the long and short vowels. Each booklet also emphasizes on a certain phonetic skill. Like in the example above, it emphasis on the long “i” sound and the consonant blend “gl”.

Since we are on the topic on vowels, here is a quick cheat sheet.

- What sound a vowel makes depends on its position in the word. In most cases, when a vowel is followed by another vowel immediately or after one consonant, it makes the long vowel sound, like in goal. Note the short vowel changing into a long vowel sound when a “e” is added at the end. At Vs Ate. Cut Vs Cute. Win Vs Wine. Mop Vs Mope.
- When one vowel is followed by another immediately, the second vowel becomes silent, like in goal, the “a” is silent.
- When a word ending with an “e” has another vowel in it, for the most part this ending “e” becomes silent. Like in cute, apple, adore.

Here are some words to practice the long and short vowel sounds.

Short vowel sound of “a” as in apple, ant, alligator.
Long vowel sound of “a” as in ape, game, race, lake.

Short vowel sound of “e” as in egg, elephant, .
Long vowel sound of “e” as in eat, seed, meat.

Short vowel sound of “i” as in silk, lips, ship.
Long vowel sound of “i” as in mice, white, smile.

Short vowel sound of “o” as in got, on, off.
Long vowel sound of “o” as in goat, nose, hole.

Short vowel sound of “u” as in lunch, bug, gulp, tunnel.
Long vowel sound of “u” as in mule, tube, cute, tune.

There are exceptions, but these rules can be applied for the most part.

Link to Publisher’s site.

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A is for Apple. A is for Art.

Long and Short Vowel Sounds