last call for the phonemic object swap!

Jo at a bit of this and a bit of that is organizing a phonemic objects swap! The deadline for signing up is January 14th... so get on it if you haven't already! Here's the gist of the swap:
**you must collect 2 sets of 10 tiny objects (2-10 cm) that begin with sounds from the alphabet
**each participant gets two swap partners, so that means everyone ends up with 20 objects

If this swap sounds like just the thing for you and your little one(s), check it out here.

I'm pretty much beyond excited about this swap. Tiny objects are so dang hard to find sometimes, especially if your goal is to find a few for each letter of the alphabet. Honestly, you can never have too many tiny objects handy to use in language games.

Jo has a great picture in her post of the sound pouches she made. It's really beautiful, and you can click on each letter to see what objects she has in each pouch. In my classroom, we have an alphabet box with a drawer for each letter of the alphabet. Each drawer contains tiny objects that start with that letter of the alphabet. This lesson provides great practice for sound/symbol association. Sometimes children take out one drawer and just look at the objects. Other times, they might take objects from two or three drawers, mix them up, and then sort them by sound. The children in my classroom are really into doing this right now, and they often choose to take out the corresponding sandpaper letters, too. If you don't have something like an alphabet box or sound pouches set up, and you want to make one, this swap would be a good place to start.

Also, tiny objects like these are great to use in "I spy" games, beginning sound games, blending games, and word building activities.

Children have a great love for teeny, tiny things, and we have a plethora of phonemic objects at my school. But, alas, they're all kind of the same... and the children have seen them over and over again. I'm hoping this swap will spice up a few of the lessons in my classroom! I think the children would be thrilled to open up a package of tiny treasures from somewhere else in the world... we could even look it up on the map!

And, hey, maybe you'll get to be my swap partner and I'll send you one of these teeny "h-hats" I've been knitting!