Environmentally Friendly Puzzles

We put out puzzles today made from the fronts of cut up cardboard food boxes.

The children enjoyed the challenge of putting together puzzles without a picture or guide to help them with the finished puzzle. 

If you have any interesting food box tops to donate for this center please send them in for us to explore!

Environmental Print Alphabet Book

My son has been expressing an interest in alphabet letters lately so I thought it might be fun to create an environmental print alphabet book to keep near the kitchen. Anytime we have labels from our favourite products, I encourage him and his sister to glue them in the alphabet book (which is simply a notebook I purchased at the dollarstore and wrote each letter of the alphabet on a separate page). Not only is Caleb learning his alphabet letters in a fun way, he is also reading the names of his favourite foods and familiar products, encouraging him as an independent reader and building his confidence. 

Our goal is to fill the book as quickly as we can - the kids have been scanning products in the cupboard anticipating what page they will go on in the book once we are done with the food packaging.

This book is kept on our kitchen counter so that we can add to it as needed. I think it would also be a great activity to keep at a snack centre in a classroom so the children could add labels from their lunches to the book whenever possible!

Nature Walk!

We took advantage of the beautiful weather and went on a nature walk today. We paid special attention to the various signs we could find along the way. Identifying and reading environmental print is a great way to help children to recognize initial sounds, to identify common words (e.g., stop), to understand that print has meaning that is real and relevant to the world around us, and to build confidence in reading abilities. Why don't you ask your child to discuss some of the signs we saw together?  Spend the next time you're out for a walk or in the car looking for new and interesting street signs and discussing the letters you see in them and what they mean.

Environmental Print

Environmental Print

Environmental print is the text that is connected to daily living. This text is found all around us on food labels, signs, restaurant names and menus, billboards, logos, newspapers, magazines, and other sources of media.  

We will be using our large black board space as an environmental print word wall. Posting familiar words helps build children's confidence as readers and helps them to recognize many initial sound-letter relationships as they immediately read a word.

Today your child brought home a baggie and attached note. Please spend time searching your house for familiar environmental print words that can be sent to school and added to our word wall.

Thank you for your help with this literacy initiative!