The twins are starting more of a preschool type programme this year. Lots of counting, letter sounds and recognition and the like and on to three-letter CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. A nifty little tool for teaching these three-letter words is the spinny speller. I have seen nuts and bolts versions and some very nice commercially produced Montessori products, but here is my home-made version. A little rickety perhaps but they will do the job!
Often spinny spellers have a random assortment of consonants and vowels. The children spin the blocks and sound out the resulting combination to practise reading 3 letter words. I separated mine into one for each vowel so that every word will always have the same centre sound to make it simpler for beginners. The letter combinations I chose make as many real words as possible but occasionally nonsense word combinations will come up which is just part of the fun.
I used a small wooden craft dowel from Spotlight with 2 wooden beads glued to the ends to stop the blocks falling off. The cube blocks are cut from a length of wood and I hand-drilled the holes. (Thus the wonky alignment – couldn’t be bothered measuring the centres and just did it by eye – should have measured!) Just thread the blocks onto the dowel, leave a little space for them to spin around and glue the beads on the end. Write your chosen letters on with a permanent marker and you are done.
Filed under: Workjobs & Montessori activities for highchair, mat or table time(mathematics, language, practical life & others) | Tagged: 3 letter words, beginning readers, cheap, consonant vowel consonant, cvc sight words, hands-on homeschooling, home-made Montessori, make your own, Montessori for preschoolers, reluctant readers, sounding out, teaching reading, tray activity, wooden spiny speller | Leave a comment »
angathome 