ABC Mat Fun!

Do you have an ABC mat in your house?

We do.

Henry learned his ABC's with this mat.

Other than that, we haven't expanded upon what it could be used for.

Until I realized that Henry always put together small foam blocks to make a road at his Great-Grandma's.

Let's make a big road for his big trucks!

We also have a couple sets of the plain large foam squares.

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Proud Mom Moment

Last night, while I was dressing George for bed - Henry was playing in his room too. He got out his First Words Flashcards and starting reading the letters of the words on the back, then flipping it over and saying what it was.

I actually had my camera with me (I'm starting to make it a habit to carry this around with me throughout the day) - so I got a picture of him "reading".


He often did not read the letters in the correct order (left to right) - sometimes it was right to left, other times it was completely random. And he often screws up a, d, b and e, g, j -- but that didn't matter.

What matters is that there was one time when he said: 

m-o-o-n : MOON!

I felt like he was in a spelling bee.

It was perfect.

ABC = abc

I found this marvelous (not a word I normally use, but thought it was necessary) site: File Folder Fun - I'm in love with all the printables for learning! And they fit nicely in a file folder for easy storage (I'm already overstocked in craft/activity supplies and stuff).

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Matching lowercase to UPPERCASE letters.

I really wasn't sure if Henry knew his lowercase letters, 
so I thought this might be a nice test.
Plus they were hearts so even more fitting for Valentine's Day coming up!


Henry surprised me and knew probably 75% of the lowercase letters.
He had troubles with some - which was mainly because of the font of the letters (I was just a straight line, J had no line on the top, q had no curly q of a tail), so I markered over them.

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I got an awesome green file divider, that Henry picked out, in the $1 aisle at Target (though I think it was $2) - and these file folders fit perfectly in there for storage and Henry has easy access to them and I have a great place to store them now.

I'm kind of excited to try out some more fun file folder games from that site! Yay!

Scavenger Hunt - Indoor

Henry and I did an Indoor Scavenger Hunt. I came up with a list of things that he could find around the house and put in a bag... this was our first scavenger hunt and I wasn't too sure how well Henry would do, so we started out simple.


First we did some objects:
- Spoon
- Pen
- Mitten
- Comb
- Piece of Paper
- Ball


Then I tried to be a little pickier with those objects:
- a PINK car
- the letter 'V'
- a DIRTY sock
- THREE books
- ONE Kleenex
- a picture of your BROTHER


Then I tried just using descriptive words for items that were open ended as to what he could find:
- Something that keeps you warm
- Something blue
- Something that makes noise
- Something you put on your head
- A tool you use to measure things


I was impressed with what he knew to bring. 


The only fault I see to this - what do you do with the items once they've been collected? I felt like it was very open ended and needed something to be done with them.


So, I'm trying to come up with a 'daily' scavenger hunt to prepare for the day ahead.
- a book you'd like to read with Mom today


However, that's all the further I've gotten... everything else I've come up with, he can't get himself... I've thought about making flash cards with the choices and he could pick which one he wanted. But that takes out the 'scavenger' part of the game. Got any good ideas?


Eventually, I want to get into hunting for objects that start with a letter that I tell him, but I know we're not there yet. He does know what some objects start with, but that's only because we have books that say - L is for Lion - and he has those memorized. 


I didn't get any pictures of our hunt - but Henry really liked the challenge of looking for stuff. This is usually a problem he has when he thinks of toy he wants to play with - he doesn't usually try to look for it... he just assumes he can't find it. Hopefully this will teach him that sometimes you have to look around and dig to find what you're looking for.


Have you guys done any indoor scavenger hunts? I'd love to hear of objects that you have them look for.