ABC Video

My son is not at all motivated by memorizing letter names and sounds. It's such an abstract task that I think he doubts that it will ever lead to anything more interesting. To make practicing fun, I suggested that we make our own movie. He suggested a superhero theme, and then he drew a superhero for each letter. When he finished his drawings, we sat down and I used my video camera to record him saying the names of the letters and the sounds that they make. Then I used iMovie to edit my three-year-old and myself out of the video as much as possible. The result is far from professional, but we had fun making it, and it got my son excited about his letters for a few hours!

Introduction

I am the mother of two little boys, one who is three and one who just turned six. My six-year-old is in kindergarten, and he's a fun, smart little boy who has a hard time learning things that aren't fun or clearly applicable to his life. His teacher wanted him to do tutoring on Tuesdays, but I think that the last thing he needs is one more hour of school each week! What he needs is time to play, and if I can sneak some learning into his play, I figure that's a bonus.

I have a background in psychology, and I work part-time helping develop early childhood and achievement tests, so I might know a little bit more than your average person about child development and academic skill development, but I'm not a teacher. Basically, I'm just a mom trying to make learning fun for my kids, and I want to share my ideas with others, hence the blog.

Enjoy!