M is for Magnets!

A fun morning full of magnet-ificent activities!   :-)

Using words from our reading lessons....

I printed sight words plus a few others that we've learned in our lessons from the book Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Englemann onto paper and cut out using the word configuration concept.  K. chose one, read the word (this is a great review because she is seeing the word how it looks in reality vs. having the sound dots and other visuals to give her a clue on how to sound out the word), created it with Magnetix and read it again.  We are going to do a couple each afternoon this week.  Building things out of manipulatives is not something she naturally chooses during free play and etc so this is very good practice for her. 

Magnetic Marble Painting
Well, this was on our plans but we'll do it tomorrow afternoon as we had an hour out of our afternoon due to realtors here and then K.'s ride came about 50 minutes early.  So didn't get to the magnetic marble painting.  But...marble painting is always a hit around here with all ages.  An "oldie" that is always a favorite.  So we'll just vary it a little and use our magentic marbles and a magnetic wand to move it around on the tray.  :-)

Magnetic Number Memory

This was nice for T. (2.5yrs) also.  (Excuse the backwards three...we did notice it and corrected it!)  We talked about the magnetic numerals as we put them on the tray.  Then I removed one and K. guess which one was missing.  We also reviewed our numeral formation verse with each number writing the numeral in our sand tray before moving on and we also manipulated the numerals to make larger numbers 10-20. 

Found a Letter!

This was such a simple activity but she told me it was her favorite of the morning activities.  :-)  Anytime I add a song...it's a point of interest.

I placed magnetic letters inside of our sensory tub and encouraged K. to find them and put them in alphabetical order.  I did have the alphabet tray for her to use as a clue when she needed it.  The little song that we sang reviewed the letters sound also and went like...
Tune:  The Farmer in the Dell

You found the letter (B), you found the letter (B)

/b/ /b/ the letter (B)

You found the letter (B).

Obviously a very simple to remember song that they learn very quickly.  I like to reinforce the letter sound in that second verse.  After we sang the ABC and ABC sound song and reviewed our vowels. 

Magnadoodle:

Another simple way to reinforce number formation and counting.

Magnetic Foam Tower

I've had strips of foam that I purchased quite awhile ago and beyond using them for scissor snipping and collages I really hadn't used them for anything else.  Well, they are a perfect size for my magnetic strips so I simple created a set of strips for the children to explore with.  (Seriation, counting, patterning, etc)

Another way to make a tower.  Those two colors together appealed to her.  :-)

We also created a little book out of Mailbox publication, I Can Make It, I Can Read It: Science titled Margie Magnet.  Booklets make great scissors activities and a booklet like this helps conversation lead to the workings of the material you are working with...so in this case...magnets!

The little black rectangles are magnet strips so the hands can "attract".

We did a series of "tests" about what attracted and what didn't.

All in all...a profitable morning.  :-)

(Sometimes I wonder about this blog...I get it to how I want it and click on post...because I can't preview first for whatever the reason...and pictures and text are moved and spacing and font is different.  Weird.  Anyone else have this issue?)