100 followers and literacy download

I just noticed that my blog has 100 followers! I feel so honoured and I am glad that people may find a benefit in what I write and post.

To say thank you to all my followers I have uploaded files for two literacy activities.

The first is Capital and lower case letter matching cards.

These cards should be used once the child has completed the sandpaper letters and worked with the pink series material, but before the child is reading pink level sentences or books.

To make the material print all the pages and join all the lower case letters into a strip [I did mine with cellotape], I joined my letters in two rows so that the activity doesn't take up too much space.

To present the activity: Tell the child that the letters they have learnt with the sandpaper letters are small letters [or lower case], explain that we also have Capital letters that we must use in certain words. Lay out the lower case letter strips, give the child the capital letter cards, ask him to match the cards. If a child can not match a card then he should put that card at the back of the pack. Usually a child will be able to match 60% of the letters without any help. Once the child has completed matching, simply show the child where the other letters go. Repeat the activity until the child can match all letters. As a variation the child can also match the sandpaper letters or moveable alphabet to the capital letters.

The second download is a writing activity that isn't strictly Montessori but I had it in my classroom years ago and the children loved it.

In this activity the child has dotted letter cards on which they can trace the capital or lower case letters. In the photo above the child is using a board pen, however I do not advise the use of these pens and instead we use Chinagraph pencils [grease pencil] which works better for the activity. The children can use these cards after tracing the sandpaper letters and working with the sand tray. To make the file, print all the pages and cut into individual cards.