It’s been a while since I’ve shared some Active Learning Journal pages! A quick refresher of ALJ if you’ve never heard of them before, the idea was started by Theresa at Active Learning Playbook on Instagram. Her blog is called Literacy in Motion where you can find all sorts of amazing ideas for children of all ages. She’s really found a great way to make at home learning fun for her kids!
Since most of my work happens without my nanny parents around, I needed a tangible and visible way to show growth with their children. In a classroom setting I loved using portfolios to show growth throughout the year. An ALJ is very similar to a portfolio but also serves as a tool for teaching. All activities can happen in the journal which then becomes a work sample to show parents.
My oldest charge who is 3.4 years old has just started to show some interest in the letter E, which happens to be the first letter in her name. She points it out whenever she sees it without prompting, which makes me so excited! For this page I will give her some Do a Dot markers to stamp the E’s in each mitten. You could also use stickers or crayons to cover each letter. This could be extended for older children by using all the letters in their name.
I extended the last page by using unifix cubes to create a large letter E. We’ve been using these white cubes for a lot of ice and snow related activities this month, so E is very familiar with this material. Again, this can be done with any letter!
One of the most important parts of pre-writing and pre-reading skills is mark making. While a child is using her fine motor skills to work a writing tool she is also working skills needed in reading and writing like, moving left to right and top to bottom. This also helps her to cross the midline. E will use a variety of writing tools to trace the lines to connect each mitten group. Whenever we do this activity she picks four different colors and continues to cover each line over and over! This is definitely a favorite.
One of our focuses this winter will be working on numbers 1-5. E is able to count to 20, which is great, but I really want to work on her one to one correspondence skills, visual representation skills, and subsitizing with just numbers 1-5. We’re starting slowly with 1-3. Using the white unifix cubes or our arctic animals E will fill each iceberg with the correct number of objects. This will help her to connect value to a number.
E will continue to work on her mark making and straight lines by adding arms to the snowman. Pretty simple!
This is another simple free draw page. I’m excited to see what hats E comes up with!
There are a few ways we’ll be using this snowflake page. We have some small blue rocks that E will use to cover the snowflake lines. I might add some Q-tips as well. I also have some winter themed stickers that she’s been dying to get her hands on! They’ll be perfect to add a little fine motor challenge to this page and make the snowflake pretty!
Another simple math introduction page that I’m looking forward to is this measure the snowman page. Using our handy unfix cubes, we will count how many cubes tall each snowman is. This is a great way to introduce measurement to older toddlers.
I hope you were able to find a few new ideas to try with your older toddlers! As always, you can find me on Instagram @rachrunstx or theteachingnannyblog@gmail.com I’d love to hear if you try any of these pages or if you’re interested in more Active Learning Journal ideas!
The Teaching Nanny 
1 Comment