One of our favorite companies- Learning Resources- has another great product I wanted to share with you all. You can read about their great game- Crocodile Hop- here. I’m always looking for great learning materials that we can use at home, especially now that my 4 year old isn’t in preschool. I wanted something that was going to help her with letter identification and sounds as well as something that would help with counting and number recognition. I found these educational puzzles that we have been loving and I wanted to share them with you!
First of all, these puzzle cards come in really sturdy cardboard boxes. They velcro shut and have a carry handle. These pieces are not going to fall out and get lost and they will store well. Thank goodness! This mama does not have time to be hunting down pieces and transferring puzzles from crumpled boxes!
With both the three-letter word cards and the number cards kids are getting practice with their fine motor skills with putting the pieces together precisely. The pieces don’t work with pieces from other words or number cards, so kids really have to get them right.
Why I love the word cards: there are so many ways to use these. With early learners you can start with recognizing the images and putting those pieces together. A next step is noticing the letters that make up the name of that object and naming them. Draw attention to the order of the letters next, and work on letter sounds. Eventually you can talk with your kid about first letter and last letter sounds. You can also use it them with kids who are learning to spell! You can break them into word families, talk about rhyming, and match up words that have the same first, middle, and last letters as well.
Why I love the number cards: There are cards from 1 to 25. You can use the number sections without the images to focus on number recognition or use the image sides only if you want to work on counting. It’s really hard for kids to touch one image, say its number, and then move on to the next touch and number! When the kid is ready, you can put those concepts together and count the images on the cards and match with the number that represents that number of objects.
These have been so great for us while we have this time at home together. At 4 my kid can use these independently, and she will do it willingly. She feels smart and empowered that she can be successful at this on her own. To mix it up, sometimes we turn it into a matching game and play together, too, which adds another layer of enjoyment for her. There are several other sets that you could check out as well- we are already looking forward to getting an other set for 4 letter word puzzles next!