With Bella starting school in September (fingers crossed) I have been basing our daily activities a lot around phonics, letters and general writing practice. I’m a massive fan of learning through play and I really believe this method works. If you want to start teaching your little ones how to recognise letters and phonics, check out my top five activities: Number 1: Learning Mats by Little Boo Learning I first brought these learning mats when Bella was just two years old and we’ve been using them ever since. They are built to last, completely personalised and they are a great price! I’ve recently brought Flo her own one so she can start to learn to recognise her name and I want to get a learning mat that spells out the girls surname next. Check out their website https://www.littleboolearning.com
Number 2: The GALphabet Flash Cards by Boss Babs These GALphabet Flash Cards are amazing, they not only help to teach children their alphabet, each card is illustrated with a strong female in an aspiring occupation, for example A is for Architect, B is for Banker and E is for Engineer. Encourage your little girls to dream big, whilst learning through play. Check out their website https://bossbabs.com
Number 3: Match & Spell by Orchard Toys Bella was brought this game for Christmas and she loves it! We are big fans of Orchard Toys and their games are not only simple, they are educational and lots of fun! Simply pick a card with a word written on it and pick a faced down letter at random and the first person to spell their word out first wins. Look at Bella’s big smile, she just loves to win!
Number 4: Reading Eggs We’ve been using this educational app for months now and both girls have learnt so much! Reading Eggs not only teaches children phonics, it helps to kickstart their journey to start reading and writing, plus there are lots of fun, problem solving activities, science experiments, songs and lots of fun, educational videos. I also love the fact that the girls are learning whilst having screen time, check out their website https://readingeggs.co.uk
Number 5: Letterland  Letterland has hands down been one of the best phonics learning tools that we have used so far. Bella was sent a bunch of Letterland goodies including Letterland ABC books, which teaches children phonics and their alphabet by giving each letter a character and personality including Annie Apple, Clever Cat and Golden Girl. Bella can now spell out her name and other words, simply by me calling out the character name or by me sounding out the phonic. Check out https://www.letterland.com