Teaching Tuesday: Vowel Review

Landon has been introduced to the name and sound for each of the five vowels a, e, i, o, and u.  He seems to have o and u mastered but a, e, and i were giving him some trouble.  So this week we are having a Vowel Party, which is a fun way of saying a vowel review.  Each day Landon is making a "poster" for one of the vowels.  We are also using more tactile activities to help him commit the information to memory before we introduce more letters and sounds.  For the posters I printed the capital and lowercase of each vowel and pictures of items that begin with the vowel's short sound.  These can be found here.  We used the block formation as that most closely matched what he is learning with the ABEKA manuscript curriculum.  We go over the name, sound, and formation of the letter.  Then he colors the letter and pictures.  Next I cut out the letters, while he cuts out the pictures.  Finally he glues them on construction paper of his choice to make a poster.  Here is the one he made for Aa.  

We are also writing our letters in shaving cream and painting them with jello paint.  For the shaving cream you give the child enough shaving cream to create a thin layer on his or her desk.  Then they can write the letters with a finger, and then spread out the shaving cream again to erase.  A simple jello paint recipe can be found here along with a few other fun "paint" ideas.  You can also mix a small amount of jello or kool aide powder with cool whip for fun paint.  Hopefully this week will be a fun review of the short vowels for Landon.  These activities would work well for introducing or reviewing any of the letters.