Lessons taught from Bertie Bee: Troubled by the Letter “b” by, K.I. Al-Ghani:
Becoming Alphabet Smart
Phonics
Difference between b and d
Bullying
Bees
Day Two: Phonics
Review of Alphabet Smart:
In the back of the book, there is a section giving tips on how to teach the alphabet and phonics to children. A tip is to teach lowercase letters first. Another tip is to give letters a personality. As we reviewed the alphabet in lowercase letters, we also assigned personalities to some of the letters. You cannot focus on all 26 letters in one week. So, I decided to focus on b and d in particular.
Activity: My children drew letters and added faces, arms and legs. They also drew things that started with the letter represented in the picture. My artistic daughter had a wonderful time doing this and continues to make pictures of letters like this. She has expanded making letters together to form words so “cat” looks like a cat. Try it with your child.
Phonics:
I mainly focused on b and d due to the story. However, in the back of the book it has a song about letters. We would sing the song on the Alphabet Smart day and review day. When we studied phonics we sang the letter sounds instead of the letters. Once we were finished with song we focused on b and d again.
Activities:
Have your child collect items in the house that begin with b and d.
You may want to ask your child to draw pictures of things that start with the letters you focus on.
Try typing up a simple sheet of letters. Use only a few and type several of the letter you are focusing on. Then have your child circle or mark the letter you are studying by saying the sound of the letter.
To be continued.