"Teaching Your Child To Read" Guest Post Series - Andrea

 For those that have are stopping by, thanks for joining us. On our amazing & helpful series of  "Teaching your Child to Read.". Today we are blessed to hear from Andrea. Andrea has a wonderful idea: A Reading Activity for Snack Time. 

A Reading Activity for Snack Time

Are you interested in adding a reading game to your box-of-tricks for your child?  Here’s one you can pull out at snack time.  I’m Andrea from No Doubt Learning and thanks to Tiffany for allowing me to guest post today so I can share a quick and easy game that we play to practice reading words.  It’s super easy to set up and my girls always enjoy the mystery snacks they uncover.
If you’re like me, you already have a stack of 3x5 cards containing words your child is working on reading.  If not, create a stack of 3x5 cards that contains a mixture of words your child can already read as well as some new words of focus.

      While your child isn’t watching, create a path of words starting in one room and branching off to other rooms (or areas) of your house. (Think of Hansel and Gretel, only you’re dropping word cards).

     Now for the element of mystery:  Randomly throughout the path, place two or three small snack items for your child to nibble on throughout his or her course.  I’ve used 2 or 3 Cheerios, raisins, nuts, and fruit snacks, as well as other themed treats near holidays. You can put the morsels in nontransparent Tupperware, baggies, or plastic eggs throughout the path.

      When you are ready to start the game, explain that your child’s mission is to start at the beginning of the path and follow the cards, reading them aloud along the way.  When they get to a snack item, they must read the word on the card before the snack is uncovered.  Feel free to help with any words your child is having a hard time figuring out because it’s practice!  My daughter reads the word, jumps on the card, and then reads the next word in the path, so she’s hopping from word to word. 
I’ve found it’s a great game to pull out here and there to switch things up and get my kids moving,  reading, and enjoying a “mystery snack” at the same time.
Feel free to come visit No Doubt Learning for other fun activities.  Or, just let me know you stopped by from A Country Road!

Andrea lives in California with her husband and two young girls.  She left 11 years of teaching public school to homeschool and she hasn’t looked back!  Connect with her on at her blog No Doubt Learning, Facebook, G+, Twitter, or Pinterest.