Secret Messages

Guest Post by Carla of Preschool Powol Packets

Thanks for having me over, Jenae!

Today I’m sharing a fun activity that can be used to reinforce spelling words, sight words, letter and number recognition, and sentence writing!

My kids have been a  little obsessed with pirates, adventures, gold doubloons, and mysteries lately, so when I introduced our Secret Message game they were as excited as a buccaneer with a treasure map!

Before you begin, use a white crayon to write a message to your children. The message may be where a treasure is hidden, a silly sentence, or what you’re about to have for lunch. If you write it in the right light, you can barely see your white message on the white paper, but to the unsuspecting child it looks blank.

Explain that in order to make the secret hiding place of the treasure appear, your children need to color on the paper with a watercolor marker.

After your children uncover the secret (and find the treasure), let them write a note to you!

This activity is especially helpful for children practicing sounding out words because it forces them to look at each letter (and sound) as it appears. You can deliberately include words and sounds your children are working on, and your children can use whatever fun (and often easy) words they would like to include in their response to you. In a group setting, you can also have children write sentences or messages to each other. There are tons of possibilities!

 

 

Carla is a public school teacher turned homeschooling mom of three who also has a small in-home daycare. She blogs about preschool teaching, resources, ideas, science, and more at Preschool Powol Packets. You can also find her on FacebookPinterest, and Google +.

 

 

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