Early Learning Exercises
Patterns Are Fun
You don’t need a printed worksheet for your child to make/practice patterns. Make your own pattern sheet for your child, by using different shapes or pictures and colors. Make them simple or complicated depending on the age of your child, and then let them at it. Ava loved finishing the patterns I created for her. It gave her practice in more than just identifying patterns – she also used her knowledge of colors, used her drawing skills, and even did some spacial planning.
Letter Recognition
Here’s one way to reinforce recognition of particular letters. In this case, we were working on recognizing vowels. I cut a few simple slogans out of a magazine and glued them to a sheet of paper. At the top, I wrote the vowels for her to see and trace. Then I gave Ava a marker and let her trace the vowels while we talked again about the sounds each one makes. Then I gave her time to determine which letters were vowels. Once she began to correctly circle or color-in the vowels, we continued discussing the sound that vowel made.
