Tot Club: A for Ant

Today, I started EV on the Tot Club, with the letter A. Though I prepared all the materials before hand, putting them altogether so that they are within easy reach, I was still kinda flustered trying to go from one activity to another without taking too long, and yet trying to keep EV entertained.


I began with a greeting song, which is to the tune of Good Morning, from popular classic Singing in the Rain. I just changed the lyrics to:


Good afternoon, good afternoon
It's fun to learn and play
Good afternoon, good afternoon to you


Then I went to introduce the letter 'A' and 'a', using the feely card to show how 'a' is written. I got EV to paste the arrows on to the 'a' card, saying 'round' and 'down'. I did most of the pasting of course, and when completed, EV repeated after me, tracing the letter and saying 'round' and 'down'.

Next, I used a printed A4 sheet to show the two letters again (thanks to LearnTheFunWay for this great idea), and let EV take pictures of 'A' words from a bag. Then I realised I totally missed the phonics part. So I continued and got EV to paste the pictures on to A4 sheet. After that, I told her that we were learning 'A for ant', and asked her to point to the ant, which she did, as you can see here. I also asked her to point out alligator, avocado and arm. 

After that, I played the phonics song, and EV really liked this music part. She is already familiar with the 'a' sound, so it was no problem for her to pick it up. Amazingly, once she heard the word 'ankle' from the song, a word we haven't really used previously, she repeated 'ankle' and pointed to her own ankle. And when I took the picture of the ant and made it crawl up my ankle, she took the picture from me and imitated my action. I was quite delighted with this positive response from her.


EV loves colouring too, so she did enjoy the craft part where she had to colour the ankle and the ant. After that, by holding her hand, we wrote the letters A, a and the word 'ant' together.

Next, I showed her a flashcard with the letters 'A' and 'a', and also the word 'ant'. After that, I took out some letters, and asked her to identify 'a', 'n', and 't'. She had some difficulty identifying them on her own, but with minimal guidance, she was able to do so. I also said the sounds of the three letters, and got her to repeat the spelling letter by letter after me. 

To end the session, we sang the closing song of 'The Ants Go Marching', with the both of us standing and doing the actions. Then I asked EV to give me a hug, and she did so with a smiling face. It really did look like she enjoyed herself, and I'm glad. She seemed to be on a roll, and didn't want the session to end, so I got her to do some other activities such as folding paper and colouring. Later on, she took a book and sat down to 'read'. In total, the whole session lasted about one hour, with the Tot Club lasting about 30 minutes.

While the lesson seemed a little disorganised today, I'm sure I will be able to improve on it for the next one. Important thing is, EV was receptive to it, and enjoyed the activities, and this definitely gives me a confidence boost to do even better the next time round, when we do 'A for apple'.