He gon’ learn today!

Translation: My son is going to learn today.

My goal is to teach my children how to read before they start kindergarten. Which means I have 13 months to get my 4-year-old literate and ready.

I’m not ready though. I’m tired and unfocused these days, looking for a remote, work-from-home position and trying to make it through Week 4 of intense kitchen renovations.

So I turn to Pinterest to find quick, low energy, and easy ways to help my son learn to read. My favorite go-to website is BusyToddler.com, written by Susie, a former teacher turned SAHM. Her site is chock full of early childhood learning and STEM activities that require few tools and just a little parental direction to create full-fledged learning sessions.

The activity pictured is my favorite, helping little ones recognize their name and identifying the letters by pasting stickers with letters on the individual pages. Susie’s looked better, with colored paper, but I couldn’t find any so I grabbed a few sheets out the printer, spelled out my son’s name with a marker on individual sheets and taped them on the walls.

I wrote out letters on some dollar store stickers and instructed the kids to put the stickers on the pages matching the letter. Boom! Done. Literacy lesson accomplished.

ABC Quickie: Name and Letter Recognition– courtesy of BusyToddler.com

Tools Needed:

Paper: enough sheets to spell out your child’s name

Something to write with: a crayon will do if that’s all you can find

Tape: put a piece of tape on the top and bottom of the sheets on the wall.

Colored stickers: I got these from the dollar store. Using different color stickers makes this activity more visually interesting.