Making Early Literacy Fun

Goblin is 5 years old

Before Goblin started school in September he couldn't read. In fact he didn't know that many letters either. I try to follow his lead, and as he never showed much interest in letters and reading so I didn't push it. Occasionally I had a little wobble and worried that I was disadvantaging him by not getting him started early. But Hublet came to the rescue pointing out various pieces of research that show that early reading doesn't reflect on later attainment. What is important is a love of reading - and that only comes when a child doesn't lose interest. So now that he is being introduced to reading through school I am balancing a tightrope, trying to support his school based learning, but not wanting to force things or make it boring. So we've been playing games. Goblin really enjoyed sight word hide and seek.

I wrote a little bingo grid of simple sight words that have been showing up in his reading books frequently. Then I made another set which I chopped up and stuck (with blue tac) around the house - mostly at his eye level.

I sent Goblin off to find them, bring them back, attempt to read them, and match them to the bingo card. Even when he wasn't able to read the word, the letter recognition and matching are still important steps to literacy. Matching them to the bingo card is also self correcting as he can see if he's got all the words I hid.

Some other games we've been playing include sliding words, haunted house word matching, fishing for letters and making our own simple reading books.

After school archeology

Goblin has discovered the TV series Time Team. Its all about archeology and it appears to fascinate our little guy. So I thought I'd leave him a little excavation of his own to try after school.

I got a big plastic container and filled it with playdough (this is hand made using Nurturestore's fail safe method which takes about 2 minutes - mine is made with wholemeal flour to add texture and black food colouring to make it look like clay/mud). I buried some dinosaurs in it - but you could use any toy that won't get damaged by playdough.

I covered the dinosaurs with playdough and added a layer of stone - I intended to use sand but we've run out and our sand pit is currently full of old aquarium gravel so thats what I used.
I tied some string over the container to provide a grid and marked it out on paper - this will provide a simple maths element to the game if Goblin feels inclined - although I suspect it will be more a frantic digging session.

Taking it out of the classroom

(Goblin is 4 years old)

Kentwell hall holds a recreation of Tudor life for two weeks each year, and we take part and play at being Tudors while schools and the public visit. You can read more about it on this blog here, here, and here and on the official Kentwell Hall website here. 

Life 'in the 16th Century' offers a lot of freedom for Goblin to develop his own friendships, and make his own choices about how he spends his time.

We were sottling on the barn sward (cooking on an open fire for a group of about 100 people) so we needed to work. But we had many eyes watching our son including our extended family (my sister and her husband, and my mother in law) and many friends on the manor who know Goblin and would happily redirect him if he looked like he needed it. We checked on him from time to time if we couldn't hear him playing, but only once did he actually disappeared - untraceable for half an hour because he decided to go into the coppice wood for an adventure but forget to tell us first - anywhere else I would have been beside myself with worry, but on the manor after checking all the standing water, I was only mildly concerned.

One day Goblin found a polystyrene spitfire plane and played with it in the morning before the manor opened to visitors. He was so obsessed with the plane that he kept trying to talk about it during the day - a strict 'no no' as we mustn't break our 16th century character. So I suggested instead of a plane he referred to it as an eagle. I picked up a pinecone and a bean pod and lashed them together with twine.
"Look Goblin an eagle".
The next thing I knew he had commandeered a group of school children and had them making eagles for him. Some might think that this group of children were there to learn about 16th century living, not make eagles for Goblin. But what they learnt was how resourceful children would have been in the 16th century. They couldn't pop to the shop to buy a toy, they had to make their own entertainment, and that is something Goblin excelled at.

He did take advantage of the opportunity to learn to shoot a bow, practice swordsmanship with the soldiers and play skittles with the children of the barn school. But for the best part of the week he made his own entertainment, whether it was rummaging in the midden, fighting with sticks, building eagle nests with yew tree branches, or herding the sheep.

Interestingly Goblin didn't just play all day. He wanted to help us work. He spent a good portion of each morning helping us shell beans, make crumb from yesterday's bread or chop vegetables - he focused on apricots and mushrooms (the softer things he could cut without too much help). Then he'd disappear again when his work was done.

Sometime he'd return when he heard the school parties arriving. As the large school parties of eleven year olds rounded the corner, he would halt them and addressing their teachers ask them to spilt into two groups. His confidence and clarity surprised the teachers who did as this little four year old instructed. He would them take one group and show them how to shell broadbeans, handing out the pods and explaining how to snap off the top and find the thread that runs down the back of the bean. 

He worked hard and played hard. A week of living and playing outdoors coupled with late nights on the campsite made for a weary little fellow by the end of the week. But his experiences will stay with him long after the smell of woodsmoke has cleared from his hair and a weeks-worth of grime has been scrubbed from his fingernails. I hope we will be able to repeat this adventure next year when we will have to justify to the state why he should be doing this rather than sitting in a classroom.

Interesting 16th Century Fact: Goblin's Kentwell name is Creature. Creature of Christ was a common name given to children who were not expected to survive childbirth. A midwife would take hold of any part of the baby from inside the labouring mother and christen them. It was the only time when a child could be christened by someone who was not a priest. This practice was to ensure that babies who died in childbirth were able to go to heaven (and be buried in the church yard cemetery) but many actually survived and kept their name into late childhood.

World War II Diorama

(Goblin is 4 years old)

The other day Goblin announced that he wanted to make a model of the D-Day landings. I thought he just meant he wanted to play with his WWII planes and soldiers but when I suggested it he 'tut-tutted' me and explained that he wanted to stick the 'model's onto a scene so we couldn't use his toys as that would be "a waste". 

Fortunately we had quite a lot of cardboard kicking about, so following Goblin's instructions I set to work making an array of WWII vehicles. Over the years of working with my son and cardboard, I have come to realise that less is more. He has a great imagination so I don't need to spend ages painting and decorating and making things look accurate. So I did the minimum to depict the vehicles requested. 

To my surprise Goblin took on the decoration himself. He started by drawing Rondells on the Spitfires and used a double pen hold to scribble camouflage on the tanks. Then he asked me to show him how to draw Swastikas for the Messerschmitts. For a child who doesn't like colouring and feels pressured if you ask him to try and write his name, he sure can draw detail when its something that interests him. I experienced a strange mixture of pride and discomfort when I saw how accurately he'd managed them. Lets just hope he doesn't start drawing them at nursery or we'll have some explaining to do.

We even got him to draw soldiers. The one above I'm told is Goblin - he wanted to feature in his own diorama.

 We put all the models together in a big beach and sea scenario with the planes attached to kebab sticks. And Goblin even added some extra detail of planes on fire (on the "baddies" side obviously).

While playing with his diorama he may have reinvented history, in Goblin's version the Allies had a bit of help with their invasion, in the form of birds of prey!

Further reading:
Goblin's fascination with World War II originally stemmed from visiting Duxford Imperial War Museum. Find out more here
We have been building on his interest through further visits, reading books and imaginary play, you can find an example here
Two excellent WWII resources are the Usborne WWII flap book and Second World War Cards
(The two Usborne links above are affiliate links which take you to Amazon. If you purchase products I receive a financial benefit)

Birds, birds and more birds!

(Goblin is 4 years old)

Sometimes outings lead to Goblin discovering a new interest - like a visit To Duxford Imperial War Museum which led to his fascination with WWII planes. Other times his interest leads us to seek out good outings to support the subject and build his knowledge.
Anyone who reads the blog regularly will know that Goblin loves the Octonauts. This has sparked an interest in sea creatures. However a recent episode about Pelicans has sent Goblin off on a different tangent - birds!

We have been looking for opportunities to support his bird interest. The zoo is an obvious place to start. They have a great penguin enclosure and a twice daily bird display. During the week we are sometimes the only people at the bird display, and we were lucky enough to be able to chat with one of the keepers about the barn owls. I think he was quite surprised by how many questions Goblin had.

We've also taken Goblin to the local nature reserve that has hydes for bird watching. We took a monocular for him and binoculars for us (Monoculars are easier for little kids to use). The more experienced bird watchers in the hides were very understanding of our rather loud and enthusiastic ornithologist. They helped point out interesting birds to look at - including a kestrel.

Near my parents there is a place called Bird World. I mentioned it to Goblin and of course he insisted we went there. It was a good opportunity to catch up with the Grandparents and Goblin could share his enthusiasm with them too.

Bird World has not one but two different types of penguins. Goblin has recently learned that there are 17 different types and he is interested in where they all live so it was cool that we had African and South American (Humboldt) ones. We even got to see the Humboldt's being fed.

As well as outings we have found puzzles, matching games, books and documentaries to support Goblin's recent interest. 

Learning about the body

Goblin is 4 years old

This post contains Amazon affiliate links meaning if you click and buy something I receive some money. I only ever recommend products I use with Goblin. 

Goblin has shown sporadic interest in how his body works. I've been collecting various resources to help show him. My favourite is an excellent Usborne Flap Book 'See Inside Your Body' . This breaks down the different systems into bite sized chunks and as well as Goblin, I have learnt a lot from this book. 

Another recent acquisition is a Human Body model. One of my current 'go to' bloggers An Everyday Story has a much larger version for her kids which I covet. But the big version is extremely expensive and I didn't feel I could justify the spend so I settled on a cheap smaller version. Unfortunately it means that Goblin can't really use it on his own because the pieces are too fiddly to handle, but he likes to watch me put it together and tell me what the different organs are. 

I wanted to give him an opportunity to handle some 'organs' himself and put together a body. So I decided to make some organ coloured playdough. Between us we created our own model of the inside of a human complete with heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, stomach and intestines. We ignored scale incase you are concerned!

Once complete Goblin fetched his toy Octonauts and we sent them on an "InnerSpace" style journey through the digestive system (as well as through the respiratory system). Kwazi got stuck in the stomach and Captain Barnacles had to rescue him before he was melted in bile. Goblin thought it was hilarious when Kwazi reached the colon and we had to use peristalsis to poop him out.

I taught Goblin a little song to the tune of Frere Jaques, it goes

"Peristalsis, peristalsis, 

pushes food through, pushes food through, 

Pooping out the pieces, pooping out the pieces, 

in the loo, we did a poo".

Quick and simple Imaginary play

Goblin decided that he wanted to make stew.

"I need ingredients" he declared. 

This was new. We'd done regular baking before but he hasn't done pretend cooking since he was about 2 years old. I love spotting changes in his play. I never know what it signifies but it intrigues me. 
Our kitchen is a treasure trove of ancient things that have been crystallising or gathering dust for decades, so I went off to find some fun ingredients for him. When I got back, Goblin has already found some for himself, including the star anis and cinnamon sticks we use with playdough, and some actual playdough. 

I offered the addition of some salt, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, curry sauce, bacon salt, the contents of a few (nasty) herbal tea bags, used coffee grounds, and an old tub of white pepper with a shaker attached (his favourite).

Goblin gleefully added all the random packets and jars, stirred enthusiastically and then fetched a jug of water to round it off. I also found some packets of cool aid in the back of the cupboard. When we added these they fizzed excitedly. We were both rather excited by this discovery.
Saying yes to this unexpected bout of imaginary play gave us a great opportunity to connect and have some simple fun. The only down side is that Goblin is so proud of his concoction he won't let me throw it away, and its very smelly!

Counting past ten

When Goblin was just a bit over 2 years old he learnt to count to 12. We'd been trying to teach him to count to ten and one day he lay on the changing mat and spontaneously counted to 12. "Whoop Whoop" we thought. Fast forward two years and Goblin can now count to .... wait for it .... 13! Yup, in two years he has learnt one more number. That's not entirely true. He knows the other numbers that come after it but always mixes up 14 and jumps to 16 and then just randomly dots around in the teens until we help him out.

So I wanted to provide more opportunities for Goblin to practice counting those big numbers. But he won't do anything unless he's interested. I can't just suggest we count pasta - his response would be "Er, no thanks!" So I needed to make up a game that would grab his interest.
His current obsession is Octonauts and the idea of helping them out would definitely capture his imagination. So I made up a sheet to encourage a bit of reading. It named a character and the sea creatures that character was counting. I asked Goblin to help his favourite character Peso to identify what each of the four characters were collecting, help the character collect them on their sticky back plastic "collection tank" and count them, and finally help Peso to write the correct number in the box.

The game provided opportunities for

• letter identification/reading 
• number writing practice
• fine motor pincer grip (picking up the objects)
• sorting
• counting beyond 10

I used simple objects we already had: plastic sharks; sea shells; pompom sea urchins; and manta rays that I found on google images and printed off. Goblin stuck them to the plastic sheets provided and I helped him count them up.

When he'd arrived at the right number I wrote it down and he copied the number. We counted three of the four sets of objects and he wrote down two of them. That was pretty good going for us. We stopped because he got distracted when he discovered he could colour the inside of the sea shells with a felt tip pen!

Easy Peasy Puppet show

(Goblin is 4 years old)

The other day Goblin came down in the morning and said he wanted to put on a puppet show. 

"Hmm! OK" said I and we set to work creating some puppets. He is currently mildly obsessed with the Octonauts so our puppet theme was easily settled on. 

Fortunately we have an Octonauts sticker book so I was able to use that as a reference to copy the characters. I nearly fell off my chair in surprise when Goblin agreed to colour them. Goblin flat out refuses to do colouring in usually. I have never insisted he 'stays in the lines' when colouring, but its obviously something he has picked up, and because he feels this is too tricky he normally just won't give it a go. He actually only agreed because I explained that we would cut them out afterwards so he didn't need to even attempt to stay in the lines. 

We attached kebab sticks to the back of each character and then hid under a chest to perform our show for Hublet. Below is our re-enactment of the Octonauts and the whale shark - one of Goblin's favourite episodes. 

You can watch clips of the actual Octonauts on the cbeebies website.

Make your own matching cards

(Goblin is 4 years old)

WARNING: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click through to Amazon and buy the product I get a teeny bit of finanical reward

There are lots of wonderful blogs that offer printables to help your child with learning. Goblin and I like doing matching and I have scoured the internet looking for good printables over the last 4 years. However I have come to the conclusion that finding a good printable that fits your child's interests and ability is probably about as time consuming as making your own.

Matching cards really aren't that hard to make.

Step 1: choose a subject
Step 2: Use google images to find decent pictures and save to your computer.
Step 3: Use Picmonkey (or Picasa) to upload inmages and make a collage
Step 4: If you used Picmonkey collage you need to save the collage and reopen in edit picture to add text
Step 5: print out 2 sets (laminate if you have a laminator - they last longer) and cut one of them into single images

When Goblin was younger we did colour matching with tractors and counting with rescue vehicles. His latest interest is marine animals so we made matching cards for sharks. I ordered a selection of plastic shark from Amazon, then looked them up on wikipedia. I used a selection of images saved from Google images and Wikipedia to make the cards. Because the images are someone else's property I can't share the matching cards as printables for others, but making them for my own child is perfectly within acceptable use for other people's photos.

Happy making!