The Mom I Want to Be

The letter H is a dependable letter.  It usually makes the “huh” sound as in hat.  This is especially the case when the letter H is not partnered with another consonant

However, it is sometimes silent (as in ghost or hour).  

It is also part of a number of digraphs:  she,  the,  phonics,  chicken,  when

This variety makes the letter h tougher to teach than the extremely reliable letters (M, R and V).  In the beginning, stick to the typical “h” sound and later move to the exceptions to the rule.

1. Present capital and lower case H to your child.  Talk about the sound that it makes and give examples of words that start with H, such as horse, hay, hello and hamburger.

2. Read A House for Hermit Crab

3. Create an H bag for the week.  Go on a scavenger hunt with your child, looking for words that start with H, such as house, heart, hat, hoop, horse, hammer, helicopter, horn, etc

4. Create an H collage.  Have your child search through magazines for H words, and glue them to paper for her alphabet book.

5. Hearty H’s.  Provide a cut out H and a number of small hearts cut from assorted papers (or use heart stickers) to your child.  Have her glue the hearts to the letter H.  encourage her to overlap them, creating a collage effect.  Glue the H to a piece of paper and place in her alphabet book.

6. Provide a worksheet with H’s to trace across the top and a blank spot below, geometric shapes (that will fit in the blank space) for building a house, such as a triangle, square, etc, a glue stick and markers.  Have your child glue the shapes to the paper, creating a house and encourage her to add details with markers.

7. Other activities: Bake and decorate heart shaped cookies, cut out sandwiches into heart shapes at lunch, play music and gallop like horses, talk about houses and why we need them, make silly hats

Ham rolls
Heart-shaped snacks