Alphabet Object Boxes

The boy uses these to sort beginning sounds.  He pulls the object out of the box and places it below the glued letter inside the lid.

Materials Needed:  Dollar Tree foam letters, Walmart $.94 pencil case, glue, paint pens, and a crapload of objects from Dollar tree, Michaels, Hobby Lobby and the like.  I tried to do six per sound.  Our book (100 Easy Lessons) does the phonics in this order 

1.  The "mesa" box.  I say it MAY-suh, but it should be MEE-suh.  Anyhoodle, it's M, long E, S, and short A.

M: milk, monster, moose, makeup, monkey (ignore alligator, he belongs in the last row--quality control stinks here)

long E:  equals, easel, evil, eagle, earrings

S:  star, stapler, scissors, spoon, sea horse, school house, snake, sewing machine

A:  ambulance, antelope, ant, astronaut, apple

2.  The "dirt" box:

D: disk, dish, daisy, dragonfly, dressform (something is missing.....hmmm.  Oh, it's a dinosaur.)

short I:  insect, infant, inchworm, igloo, iguana

R:  rock, rhino, ray, record, rice, ring

T:  turtle, takeout, tree, tiger, tractor, and a missing teapot (currently serving a fore mentioned dinosaur)

*The kids don't usually use these for what they are intended, but retrieving them from the correct box and returning them to said box is kind of like sorting, right?

3.  The "CONTH", which is now the CON box since I can't find a darn thing in the word that uses the second sound of TH.  This, that, them...not very object friendly.

C:  cow, cactus, cat, crown, cookie, camel

short O:  olive, ostrich, octopus (still working on this pile)

N:  needle, necklace, nail, nickel, nuts, nail polish

Literacy: How to Build Object Boxes

I use object boxes A LOT.  I totally stole it from Montessori schools, so don't think I invented this at all.  However, building object boxes can be EXPENSIVE.  Lemme tell ya about how I did it on the cheap and then I'll tell you about what's in the boxes.

Finding cheap objects:

1.  Michaels Craft Stores:  The majority of my objects came from there.  You want four different things:

• the mini flat wood doodads for gluing on something else wood, usually a display of a hundred tiny drawers.(bus, sun, pig shown above)
• Crazerasers at $1 each 4-pack assortment (bag, bin, pin, and hat shown above)
• The kids necklace section (dog, cat, shown above)
• The 3-d wooden doodad section (egg, pot, bat shown above)

2.  Dollar store:  Only the rat above came from there, but I also got squirty sea creatures for the ray and whale and others, and the bug pack, and some snake and rats.

3.  Hobby Lobby:  Dollhouse miniatures that work out to less than $.50 per usable object. (see mop and lid above)  The tool pack, mops and brooms, pots and pans, food pack, dishes and silverware and a couple of others were the only ones on budget.  

4.  Junk drawers:  screws, bit (shown above), clips, etc were found in piles of nonsense around my home.

TYPES of object boxes:

• Kindergarten initial sound sorting boxes
• K-1st grade phonetic word building (cat, pig, bin)
• Four letter phonetic word building (belt, bell, etc.)
• 2nd grade multi-letter phonogram and spelling rule boxes (dish, shop, shin, etc.)

Materials needed:  objects, lots of plastic bags, sharpie, set of dollar store foam letter puzzles in lower case.

1. Sort objects by beginning sound.  

2.  Separate out those that are multi phonogram, harder to spell words and use them for your initial sound sorting.  Ex:  "Whale" has two things going on.  WH and the silent E.  This makes it really too advanced for teaching the wh or the silent e or using for spelling purposes.  But since initial sound boxes are NEVER spelled, a little kid can sort that into a W column for the beginning sound, so my whale went in the W bag.

3.  Toss in a foam letter for sorting purposes.

4.  Next sort out all objects that are three and four letter phonetic words (pig, cat, dog) and put those into a bag for elementary word building once all the letter sounds are learned.

5.  Next sort out all objects that have a single multi-letter phonogram or demonstrate a single spelling rule according to your phonics scheme.  Since this gets pretty complicated trying to find single phonogram words, I will sometimes use objects that have two phonograms but one was already learned a while back.  Ex:  "juice" demonstrates the ui phonogram AND the c,g,job 3 silent e rule.  Since I taught the silent e rule after the "ui" sound, it went in the silent e bag.  Below you can see that I had already taught oy, oi, and er before this lesson, so I didn't mind having those phonograms in my c,g, job 3 bag.

6.  Finally, fill in your bags with leftover doubles and random crap from around your house.  I try to get at least three object per Kindergarten initial letter sound and at least one per multi-letter phonogram (hopefully more).

7.  Put all the odd objects that aren't going to fit your scheme into church busy bags or something.  Crazerasers are a big hit around here.

Literacy: Phonogram Rocks

Materials Needed:  Dollar Tree river rocks, Dollar Tree knick-knack trays and/or empty Dollar Tree Zen Gardens, two paint pens(red for consonants, blue for vowels), matte clear coat spray

How to Make

1. Sort rocks according to size and how many you can fit in your storage system.  You want at least three rocks for vowels and two for each consonant.  I only do one rock for multi-letter phonograms.

2.  Draw on rocks and allow to dry completely.

3.  Spray with hubby's acrylic coat spray stuff.

I use these for teaching introducing new phonograms.  I don't use them for mass word building.  There just aren't enough rocks.  I use a printed alphabet for that.

In addition to the phonograms themselves, I also made a few rocks for symbols.  Our program has you underline long vowels and put numbers below your silent "e".  See an example below.

But the thing that I use them MOST for is our daily phonogram dictation.  Below, she is quizzing herself on the sounds, and only those she knows are invited to the "party" at the top of the mat.  The first picture in this post is another way we quiz.  I say, "Put all the "er" sounds in the box."  Or I say, "Put ch, k, sh away."

I could just have her write or do phonograms orally, but I find that the rocks provide a fuller sensory experience and make everything stick better.

Literacy: Movable Alphabet for Word Building

In Montessori language learning, there is a stage between sound learning and reading.  It's a word analysis exercise that allows the child to build the word without having to read the word.  They can hear the sounds and pull those phonograms from the box, but aren't required to deduce the word from a visual list of sounds.  

This is MAGIC for my daughter.  She is NOT interested in reading.  She is only interested in writing her own story.  I give her objects and she builds the words and arranges them as she sees fit.  

The words shown in this post are too easy for her, but she deigned to build them so I could take a picture.  

Later in the week, after the initial phonogram lesson with the rocks, we use objects or pictures and practice building those words that use the phonograms or spelling rules we're learning.  

If you want to make your own set, and you use Spalding like me, I recommend printing out this set rather than making your own like I did.  I first printed out this set because I'm a sucker for their colors and font, but Montessori doesn't do the phonograms the same way that we do in our program, so every week I have to cut and paste and build rather janky looking sheets (which you can find in my individual phonograpm lesson posts.)  Whatever you do, print out at least 6 of every letter/phonogram and ten of the vowels and common letters.  (I never have enough L's.)

Phonics Unit: Silent "e" Job 2,3

This week, we did silent E: c, g, job 3 and v, u, job 2.

1.  We started with the a few objects (fence, cabbage, soy sauce, plunge, glue, blue, glove, etc.) and my phonogram rocks.  From there I built a few more word examples without objects. *Note: we'd already mastered OY and AU so I didn't mind having to use them in this lesson.

2.  The next day, I got out my word matching cards: c ( mine ),  g ( mine ),  v ( mine ),  u (mine).   I set them up in groups by rule and she did them one at a time.  

3.  Further exercises:  Mix the cards and match, word building with pictures and objects.

Phonics unit: er, ir, ur, wor, ear

This week, we did er, ir, ur, wor, ear.

1.  I never got good objects for this unit, so we stuck with the cards: er, ir, (lanternfish),  wor, ur (mine, mine) and I haven't found a good set for EAR yet.  I might make one soon.   I set them up in groups by phonogram and she did them one at a time.  

2.  Further exercises:  Mix the cards and match, word building with pictures from the cards.

Phonics Unit: ai, ay, au, aw, ee

This week, we did: ai, ay, aw, au, and ee.

1.  We started with the a few objects (crayon, pail, bee, saw, haunt, ray, deer, spray, etc.) and my phonogram rocks.  From there I built a few more word examples without objects. 

2.  The next day, I got out my word matching cards: ai ( lanternfish ),  ay ( $ ),  aw ( lanternfish ),  au ( $ ), ee ( lanternfish ).   I set them up in groups by rule and she did them one at a time.  

3.  Further exercises:  Mix the cards and match, word building with pictures and objects.  Above you see a "secret word" activity I learned from Montessori.  I put the objects in a pretty box and wrote a word on a slip of paper.  She hunted through the box to find the word I was thinking of. 

Phonics Unit: oy, oi, ew, ui

This week, we did oi, oy, ew, and ui.

1.  We started with the a few objects (fruit, coin, boy, screw) and my phonogram rocks.  From there I built a few more word examples without objects (coil,  jewel, etc.)

2.  The next day, I got out my word matching cards: oy (bought),  oi (mine),  ew (lanternfish),  ui (mine).   I set them up in groups by phonogram and she did them one at a time.  

3.  Further exercises:  Mix the cards and match, word building with pictures from the cards.

Sorting, Literacy: Object Boxes

This is an example of my initial sound object sorting boxes.  We use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  The first time the letter E is presented is with the long E sound, which is why you see an easel, earring, and an evil monster.  I usually use Dollar Tree foam letters for the sorting columns, but I'd lost my letter E and had to use my Montessori sandpaper letters.  Also, you can see I hadn't quite acquired all the objects I needed so I improvised with things from the pantry:  apricot and italian seasoning.  Pitiful.

Below is another version that I printed out from Home School Creations.

I have these "boxes" grouped in  baggies by three letters at a time in the order presented in the book.  Each week, I retire a few letters and introduce the new ones.  In a Montessori classroom, all of the letters would stay out.  I don't have room for that, so we just have out the letters we're working on in Little Kid's school crate each week and he does them with me.