Happy Halloween!

I have always loved Halloween, and luckily for me, both boys seem to have inherited the same passion for it. They've been on the spooky train all month, watching movies, reading books and playing all the games that I dug out.

The tradition that I started with Bear, and have obviously continued with The Cub, is to go Booing on Halloween. Booing is basically a reverse Trick or Treat. Instead of going knocking on doors to receive treats, my boys deliver them!

We spent the week making their Boo Packs to hand out, which have included some Halloween crafts, which I made sure to include some different skills in rather than all painting/colouring. They made cotton wool ghosts, painted pumpkins and then cut out and stuck on their faces, and made mummies by rolling conkers in paint over the cut-outs to make their bandages. They had a blast, as both of them love arts and crafts but I never seem to get organised enough to do it regularly. 

It's times like this that encourage me to do it more, because they genuinely do love getting messy and creating stuff.

We also did some baking, making cookies together and decorating them with Jack Skellington faces to add to their bags. I cheated and bought cookie mix in a bag, but they still enjoyed making them, and loved getting to decorate them, proving that it doesn't need to be anything fancy, they just really like being in the kitchen and getting involved.

The boys decided who they'd like to Boo, and we went out this evening with a plan in mind, heading to family members' houses to knock and shout Boo when they answered their doors, giving them their Boo pack which the boys had chosen which crafts to include as well as cookies for them to enjoy.

Bear and The Cub had the Boo packs in their Halloween buckets and took turns being the one to hand out the treat. Several of the doors we knocked on had treats waiting in return for the boys, which they have loved, and been so grateful for. And the ones that didn't have something for them, that was okay too, because that wasn't the purpose for us going out. 

It was a beautiful lesson in kindness, and being grateful when someone had thought of them in return.

They chose their own costumes this year, Bear wanted to be a bat, and The Cub wanted to be a ghostie, so that is what I made happen, and they have loved it. They've gotten more than one wear out of their costumes with a couple of other events on the run-up to tonight, making them well worth it, and I have no doubt that they will get played with when I throw them into their fancy dress box after they've been through the wash.

What do you do for Halloween? Do you have traditions, and are they similar to what you did when you were a kid?

Mama Bear x

Starting Phonics

As Bear would have started FS2 this September, I decided to go in with his official phonics learning. He already knows his alphabet by sounds, and most of their names, so we've gone in with this as a way of learning how to form them properly for writing as well as using them to start blending and making words.

I bought the Learn with Ladybird First Phonics book from work to use as a base, and then intend on creating activities around the sounds from Pinterest and Twinkl etc. The book follows the SATPIN method and I decided to go with three sounds a week, and then a recap after every couple of weeks. So we started with SAT in our first week, read the book and talked through the activities. Used some flash cards that show the correct way to form the letters, and played with magnetic letters and cards to match the sounds to words beginning with the letters.

I also bought a snazzy ink roller that puts the lines on paper to practice writing, and Bear had a go at forming the letters properly, and at a smaller size than he normally writes. He did amazingly well!

We played some games, had a go at writing and did several different activities over the course of the week and then at the end of the week, we revisited the book and filled in the pages, so that I have a physical record of his progress and he practiced writing them again.

The second week, we followed a similar routine for PIN and then in the third week, we covered all six sounds and started using them to form CVC words and blended the sounds to read them. Bear was absolutely fantastic at this and so proud of himself! 

Three weeks in and he is confidently sounding and blending CVC words using the sounds SATPIN to read them. I am so proud of him, never mind him being proud of himself :)

We've done all this with The Cub in tow as he has started to drop his nap, which was when we used to do our intentional learning. He has loved getting involved. Sometimes he's happy to sit and colour, other days he wants to know what we're doing, and has done some matching with the magnetic letters and tracing letters with his fingers.

We will continue to follow this routine while ever it works, and I have no doubts that Bear will be reading in no time :) 

What phonics program have you and your littles used, if you've used one at all...

Mama Bear x