Sometimes Simple is Best

Who would've thought a deck of cards would be so effective, and fun, in teaching preschool lessons?! I bought the cheapest deck of cards I could find and started out teaching my daughter to sort the cards by color and suite...until I realized we could do so much more. So I taught her how to play Slap-Jack, except I had her read off the numbers as I threw them down. She didn't mind having to identify each number out loud because the joy she got when she finally saw a Jack was so gratifying!

 Inspired by "Fun with Cards" in The Mailbox magazine, Aug./Sept. 2012, page 23.

We also tried adding some math into this activity...which I was nervous about trying, but it went smoothly! We each got two cards and added them up, and whomever had the greatest total won. I think this was the first lesson we've done in learning the concept of "greater than/lesser than."

This week we also tried a couple timed activities, which my daughter had a blast with since she loves racing and being under that kind of pressure. My son, however, was a whole different story... Anytime he was asked to wait his turn or if his sister grabbed a card before he could (which was totally okay since there were so many other cards to choose from!) he'd pout, sprawl out on the floor and decide he didn't want to play anymore. Did I mention he recently turned two? Anyway, the first game we tried involved matching shapes (which was mostly for my son's benefit but, because he threw a fit on the floor, turned out to be a game only my daughter enjoyed). Basically, you place a few cutouts of different shapes into a pocket chart, then place a pile of a few matching cutouts of each shape at the other end of the room. The goal is for the kids to run from the pocket chart to the pile, run back, and place the cutout in its appropriate column. Like this:

The Mailbox magazine, Aug./Sept. 2012, page 43.

We didn't use a timer for this activity because Aislin had fun just racing against herself! Maybe I'll try this activity with my son again, like when Aislin's at preschool, and see if he enjoys it then? As much as I'd love to teach him the concept of taking turns, I want him to enjoy games like these. I wonder at what age toddlers are developmentally ready to understand the concept of taking turns?

The other timed activity was just like the previous one, except it involved upper- and lowercase letters. Instead of shapes in the pocket chart, I used six capital letters...and their lowercase counterparts were dispersed around the room. The goal was to have the kids search for any lowercase letter they could find, and then run back to the pocket chart and place it under its matching uppercase letter...all while under a 3-minute timer. Like this:

Aislin LOVED this game. She'd grab a card I had set on the couch or somewhere else around the room, identify it, and then race back to the pocket chart to find its pair. After each set of cards she'd ask if she could do it again, so I happily placed six more cards in the chart while she waited in the other room for me to  "hide" the lowercase letters. We got through the entire alphabet with this game! And she was always so excited to check the hourglass to see if she "beat" it :)