The Wonderful Word Cube

Thanks to my friend over at the Momgineer I have now discovered a new website called Teachers Pay Teachers.  It's a treasure trove of activities and things to do. Some of which are free to download and some which you pay for. Grace recently has been saying that now that she knows all her letters and their sounds that she'd really like to be able to read some words. And while, yes, back in the day I was a classroom teacher who did in fact help kids learn to read, I knew that I needed to take a different approach with her when it came to this skill. While we are a family who loves books and while we have surrounded the girls with the printed word and have read to them from the moment they were born, I have noticed that Grace is the type of little who needs a wee bit of instruction. I don't want to create "school at home" by any means but I also don't want her to struggle through this very important skill. So, in pondering how to lay the right foundation for her I took to the internet (as all modern mamas do) and decided to explore Teachers Pay Teachers. I discovered some wonderful materials there that I knew she'd adore (like the word cube and accompanying game pictured below).

This is the third word cube Grace has made.  She absolutely loves creating them!

Once the cube is made you can either play by yourself or you can play with friends.  This particular sheet is for an individual player.  And we changed it up so that you are coloring in the squares instead of tracing the words.  Coloring is way more how we roll (pardon the pun) anyway!

Watching her learn to read is just amazing.  To go from not reading one minute to reading the next has been a true joy to witness.  And to know that we get to be there partnering with her every step of the way just makes it that much sweeter.