Phonics - Where is the Sound?

Today I'm playing catch-up, as you can see above. I'm behind on Mary's Letter of the Week stuff, and I have some other things that need to be laminated. So, this is what my living room looks like when the unexpected happens. This time, the 'unexpected' was a day-care-closing-with-insane-rock-bottom-prices sale (thank you, God!). So now, our once-empty school room (not our dining room, but our real school room downstairs) is full of all sorts of art supplies, bins, bookshelves, and other schooly stuff. Cleaning, arranging, and organizing has kept me busy the last few days (pictures coming soon!), which is how I got behind on Mary's LOTW work. But, things will come up. Life happens. And this has all been a good lesson for me on flexibility and going-with-the-flow (and if you've read this post, then you know this is not my forte). 

After Calendar Time, Mary asked to do a reading game. I saw this game in the amazing book Playful Learning by Mariah Bruehl, and I knew this would be good for my big girl (however, I had not put together the game yet, so I clicked on a movie for the girls to watch while I worked my magic. Yes, a movie on a Tuesday morning. I'm human, okay! ;)  ). It's called Where is the Sound (p68), and it's super-easy to make. All I did was take a piece of cardstock paper and fold it up a bit. I cut out 3x5 pieces of construction paper (orange for consonants and yellow for vowels), laminated them (because almost everything made out of paper gets laminated in this house!), and viola! If you want to make it even simpler, just use index cards. 

Mary (wearing her bling-ring from the dentist, of course) enjoyed making different three-letter-word combinations and sounding them out. We also used this time to discuss vowels vs. consonants. (If you can't tell, Mary recently got a haircut because she wanted her hair to be "as short as Tangled's at the END!" Yikes! But I let her, because it's just hair, it's just hair, it's just hair - that's what I have to tell myself over and over to make it okay. ;)  )

For more three-letter-word fun, check out this amazing review game I saw on Pinterest:

Read then pop! Read then pop! How much fun! (I apologize for not giving credit where it's due for this picture and game. I clicked on the picture on Pinterest, but the site is blocked on my computer. :(  )

In other news, TONIGHT is our CC orientation! I. am. so. EXCITED! I really feel like this is such a big year for our little family. I can't wait to see what God has in store for us!