I have been postponing teaching Ko the letters till she was about 2 years old as I was still feeling the remnants of the exasperation with Imm when I was teaching him reading. But I realised I better get started. Also, she does not show much interest in letters in the beginning unlike for Imm. She enjoys singing and catches on easily in singing both Eng and Chinese songs but runs away when she sees letters. Maybe because I started to act like an anxious kiasu Sinaporean Shichida ex teacher filled with anxiety that it started to rub off on her, even though I always tell myself to chill. Anyway, my motto in teaching is always to have fun. Only when Imm had chicken pox and is stuck in Spore, I started to spend more time to teach her. Maybe that's how it is with the second kid. Always having remnants of the time, energy etc. 

I started doing these alphabet cubes sometime ago. They are used from the Happy Meal Macdonald Boxes. As I mentioned from another post eons ago, they have other uses (from another game). I love these. Each letter will correspond to each picture and we will try to throw it together. Sometimes, Ko will go "vvvvv" (sound) witch!" which makes me collapse on the floor with my hands in the air or she will give a gleeful "ffff" tiger! And we start to redo our alphabet dice again.

One thing I did lately was to think of a simple game like these. Found these magnetic paper in my stash. They are bought from daiso and I finally have some use for it. What is good for these paper is that they can be printed directly on it. But I didn't as I wanted my alphabets to be mixed up. 

I printed these alphabets from http://pdf.mrprintables.com/mrpac02-lc.pdf and cut them out before pasting them with derision onto each B5 piece. For each card, there are letters with sounds she already knew, thus it would not look absolutely foreign to her. Also, I made sure not to put "b" and "p" together for less confusion,

I cut out some shapes from magnetic paper as I was planning to play this game on the magnetic board. I then "hid" each letter behind the shape. I will ask her in Chinese, "who is hiding behind the red triangle?" And she will remove that particular shape. Then I will say the letter sound. I did it in an extreme high pitch voice of excitement to stir interest. What surprised me was that she enjoyed it so much that she wanted to play all of the cards. Which was good. :)

I printed out these worksheets from www.overthebigmoon.com and used our do-a- dot markers to play to emphasize the letter I wanted her to learn that day.

I found out recently that she enjoyed tracing and could follow dotted lines these days.

Or focused on themes regarding the Earth and planets.

The one below is on healthy eating and I introduced word games like word searches for him.

Overall, I like how the worksheets are colourful so that it does not look too boring and I can input different things. Even on days when I am too lazy to print, we would just read the magazine on the ipad together and see different stories, Ain't that great? It also gives me idea of themes I can focused more on to teach. :)

I didn't do much of word building initially because I just wanted to introduce all the 3 letter word with different vowels. We played a lot with LMA and I helped him in word building as he was not confident yet. Because of the amount of reading he did at the same time with emphasis on 3 letter words, it started to click into his brain. :) So now I feel he is more ready for word building after having gone through most of the 3 letter words with different vowels in the middle. I know of mummies who will do word building at the same time as recognizing and reading the words but I just didn't want to stress Immanuel up earlier as he will say "I don't know how to make the word".

So now he is more confident, I will ask him what sounds he hear in the word "cat", choose the letters and arrange them. He likes this unifix cubes a lot!! They are also in red and blue,  vowels in red and consonants in blue, just like for LMA. They also have small and big letters depending on how you turn the cubes. I also purchased the cards on the left from Amazon for word building.

This is the last part I did when I took out all the words of middle letter "U" with different endings like "un, ug" etc and he matched the pictures to the words.

Currently, I am doing more of exercises from books for more revision before moving on to the Blue Box. It has been really fun trying to make the activities that cater to Immanuel's needs. I am the type who will keep thinking which part is difficult to understand and bring it down to his level to teach him and reach him. Make it fun, make it varying, let it be enjoyable. Hope you enjoy this sharing as much as I did and it can encourage other mummies to be more creative with their children as well!

Next, we did reading of short sentences together. This is from the pink box but you can also make your own short sentences like how I did when I did my games. I will try to use words that I have already taught. Simple sight words like "and", "the" etc was taught during reading activities. Thus, reading might not be a sit down "I teach you" kind of activity. But reinforcement of seeing the same sight words through reading daily is also important.

Some games I created to spike interest during initial stage. Bingo game! I will have hub to read the word and we cancel the words as we hear them. Have a list of words ready to read so that no one will win at an early stage. :P I would shout Bingo! very loudly like a mad woman. This is what children like right? Enthusiasm!! :) Remember to play with your kids as though there is no tomorrow.

More of writing and matching activity. Immanuel actually like such matching games. I have tried with other worksheets like matching different furniture to their names/ camping words in the past and he has enjoyed it. I did these activities for words with different vowels in the middle, varying them.

Now we have done various activities and we will get ready for the next stage,

However, letters like that were not so interesting to him. So I included my own games by making my own sentences and using alphabet pasta to make the words. It is also to train his eyesight (and mine) since the letters are so small. This also allows him to understand short sentences and their structure.

I started using the LMA at times after capturing his interest with my own games. As he grow more confident, it is ok to be more "boring". 

Some Pink Box activities. This comes more towards the end when he has recognized more 3 letter words with the letter "A" in the middle. Using tangible objects captures his interest more. It is good to invest in tangible objects when you first start as the children are still relatively younger.

Then there is also the match the pictures and the words type.

I further developed the reading part by alternating this set from Amazon at the same time. There was a dvd which I played. During the first time, it would show and read the word. Second time, it would show and there would be a significant pause before reading the word. So I will tell Immanuel, "faster faster! Let's see if you can say the word before the "auntie" does!".

After watching the DVD, I went over these words in order. Next I will skip and point. There were certain words in which he just couldn't get it. This got me quite frustrated! But I also understand that even for me, there are some things I will never understand (like certain maths concepts), so this thought calmed me down. 

There were interesting stories that has words that will be repeated, plus using these words we have just learnt. It is all about reinforcement!!

These were the extra little books that I read to Immanel after he finished all the 3 letter words with letter "A" in the middle. Like "can, tap" etc