DIY Touch Boards

I recently made some sensorial touch boards for Z

The first one is a rough and smooth board. I had found a rectangular piece of plywood at a craft store a few months ago and decided to use that. I stuck sandpaper on one half of the board but couldn't leave the other side as is since it was grainy , so I used what I had on hand and first stuck brown paper and then contact paper

The second board comprises of alternating rough and smooth strips. I had the carpenter cut out a piece of laminated chipboard to the same measurement as the plywood piece used before, then stuck 4 strips of the same grade of sandpaper at equal distances

The third board has 4 strips of sandpaper and they vary in gradation so that it's roughest at the top and smoothest at the bottom.

Colour Mixing

Z is 3 years 6 months old

We read 2 books recently that dealt with mixing of primary colours to give secondary colours and so forth- The Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown and Curious George's First Day of School. 

                          

Z was so intrigued by the concept that we decided to do our own colour mixing experiment. Here's our set-up

Z thoroughly enjoyed it and was amused by the way 2 colours would mix to give another colour. This also made a great fine motor activity with all that dropper squeezing.

Work Trays

transferring acrylic jewels

wet pouring

matching button magnets by colour

pulverizing egg shells

sawing styrofoam sheet

counting with glass beads

transferring water with a syringe

What We've been Reading (Little Golden Books)

I came across a set of second-hand Little Golden Books and bought them for Z... a lot of them are vintage with beautiful and detailed illustrations...Z  and I have been reading them every night. Sigh...these books evoke such strong memories of my own little golden books I had as a child : )

Action Book

Z is 3 years 4 months old

Although Z goes to a preschool where English is the medium of instruction and also hears a lot of English at home as well, it is still her second language. One area where she still stumbles is when saying things in the present continuous form. So she says 'dolly sleep' instead of the dolly is sleeping or 'boy cry' instead of the boy is crying.

To help her out, I decided to use pictures to elicit and practice sentences with her. I have done this with my EFL students before- using pictures from magazines to elicit target language and extensively practice so that they get comfortable using those words and they begin to come naturally to them.

I scoured my magazines for appropriate pictures and stuck them in a spiral sketchbook to give them a book feel since Z loves poring over books. Then we both sat together and looked at each picture while describing it - the baby is sleeping, the boy is digging, the woman is vacuuming etc

I also had a sheet of stickers with action pictures that she stuck onto cardstock while saying out loud the actions in sentence forms (she needed help with that) which I punched holes into and bound with ribbon.

I intend to keep coming back to both the books with her till she becomes proficient with the sentence form. I also intend to build upon sentences with the same pictures to further enrich her vocbulary and sentence forms InshaAllah so that she can say The woman is vacuuming the carpet, the girl is brushing her teeth , the girl is swimming in the water etc. Later, these books can also be used for writing practice as well.

What method did you find effective to teach your child action sentences?

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