Looking for really cost effective whiteboards? Plastic plates from the dollar store are the way to go! I have used them in the classroom and at sunday school… and now I have used them at home with my preschooler and toddler!
We were outside and not much to do in our condo garden so I took some tools outside and did an impromptu activity. Only two supplies needed from home and very easy to pack and take anywhere. This activity can also be played indoors and can be adapted to whatever you are working on with your child or an interest that you are using to teach.
For my preschooler (3.5 YO) we are working on sight words but very basic… I am starting with him trying to recognize the letter sound that he knows within words. So with each round the words had only one letter different each so he could focus on finding the sound he could hear.
The first round looked like this:
So I would line these up on the grass and then say one of the words. With a rock he collected from the grass he would throw it into the plate with the word I said.
Here are some of the other words we did:
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- un, up, us
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- as, a, at
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- go, to, do
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- get, set, bet
Because my toddler needs to do everything his brother does I did some with him that included shapes, he does not recognize the shapes yet so he would throw his stick first and then I would tell him the name of the shape that he chose. It was short lived with him and that was expected but the beauty of this activity is that i just gave him a marker and let him draw on the plates 🙂
Some extensions:
After we played a few rounds my LO wanted to draw on the plates like his brother so we played a few challenges of letters that he could draw.
You could do anything from colours, to pictures, letters, words the possibilities are endless
Try moving the plates farther and getting the child to throw the rock first, then walk unto the plate and try to read it.
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