Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Trash turned into a teacher's treasure!


My littlest learner, Nixon, is really into "opposites" right now.  Anything that he can open/shut or put in/ take-out will keep him busy for a good 10 minutes! (enough time for me to teach Jackson a quick homeschooling lesson or start some dinner)

My husband keeps asking my WHY I am collecting trash in a Target sack in our kitchen!  Plastics with a lid are my favorites!!  My answer...just turning our trash into my teaching treasures!
 Here's a great example for recycling trash AND help build your littlest learners fine motor skills...

All you need is:
1 Clorox Clean up Wipe Container with lid (once it was empty, I washed it in the dishwasher to get all the cleaner out of it)
ALOT of babyfood lids, milk lids, large magnetic letters or just about anything that makes a fun noise when you drop it into the Clorox container. **Just make sure it's not to small!**


I usually dump out the contents, then put the yellow lid back on.  Sometimes I sit with him and count as we drop and other times I just let him explore on his own.  I've even added a magnetic wand that he can use to pick up the lids.  He LOVED using that and so did Jackson! 

Wanna "bump it up" for your older Learners? 
 Use 2 different containers for a Letter Sort: one container holds lowercase letters 
while the other container holds uppercase letters
Start with a mixed-up-pile of upper and lower letters.  

OR

To segment words and hear their sounds use 3 different containers: 
Drop letters in each as you "sound spell" the word.  
1st container - /c/ (drop in magnetic letter C)  
2nd container - /a/ (drop in magnetic letter a)  
3rd container - /t/ (drop in magnetic letter t)

Then ask your child what word you just stretched out..."cat"!  Dump all the letters out of containers and put the letters together to spell the word c-a-t!

Something so simple~ that I haven't seen on Pinterest, yet :0)
Enjoy learning with your littlest Learner and all of your little Learners!

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