SMMARTideas

SMMART READING:

Cranberry Letters

No way, you say? ...Cranberries can be THAT FUN!  Oh yes!

Cranberry Letter Snakes:
Set out a bowl of fresh cranberries and a pile of toothpicks on the counter.  Have your child tell you how many letters are in a word that you'd like to practice. 
H-O-P-E has 4 letters, so your child will place 4 cranberries in front of her.  Then, let your child write a letter on each cranberry to spell out the word HOPE.  This is a favorite treat to be able to use the forbidden "permanent markers"!

Now, have your child attach the cranberries together with toothpicks to create their word. 

Keep your child busy learning on Thanksgiving morning while you're basting the turkey by giving your child a list of Thanksgiving words to create with the cranberry letters.  Be sure to make enough cranberry letters to build all the words.  The list lets your child check the list to make sure each word is spelled correctly.

Another fun activity with Cranberry Letters:
Use a black permanent marker and write the letters of a few words you'd like to practice on fresh cranberries.

Remember those water noodles from this summer?  Cut off a one to two foot piece and slice it down the middle in half to form a tube.

Now ask your child to spell or sound out a word.  "How do you spell Turkey?"  Your child finds the correct letters on each cranberry and rolls them down the tube into a bowl.  You can help to make sure he is spelling the word correctly.
Now that you have a bowl full of the correct letters, have your child arrange the cranberry letters into the word T-U-R-K-E-Y.  Voila!  Your child has just spelled a word twice and doesn't even know that he was tricked into practicing his spelling words!

You can also float the cranberries that make a word in a bowl of water and let your child scoop out each letter in order with a slotted spoon.  Double fun!

You can practice sight words or sounding out words too.  Give your child a handful of cranberries with the letters that spell out a word you'd like to practice.  Let her roll the letters down the tube and into a bowl or scoop the letters from a bowl of water.  Arrange the letters into the word you are practicing.  Have your child sound out or recognize the cranberry word.  For some reason, your child will actually have fun reading the word is BECAUSE IT'S WRITTEN ON CRANBERRIES!

Now We're Talkin' Turkey!