Alphabet Forest Paperback

Description

Acorn to Oak’s Alphabet Forest is an Early Learning Curriculum
that brings education to the child’s whole being. Each letter is experienced through music, poetry, art, yoga, nature crafts, guided nature walks, fingerplays and recipes. Alphabet Forest also includes a phonics and letter-building program which teaches reading and writing in a way that is intuitive and child-led.

Along the way, learn about animals, herbs, trees, bugs and other wonders of the natural world through nature studies, guided walks and nature crafts.

Each letter guides you through:
– A Book List
– Songs
– Morning Baskets
– Poetry
– Waldorf Inspired Letter Drawings
– Animal and Plant Studies
– Guided Nature Walks and Nature Journal Prompts
– Finger Plays
– Nature Crafts
– Yoga
– Prompted Drawings
– Phonics Lesson
– Letter Building Exercise

Acorn to Oak has created a new method of teaching reading called the Rhythmic Reading Method. Children will learn to read using poetry. This method of reading is a collaborative process between caregiver and child using language-rich literature.

First, we introduce the living alphabet. Letters are introduced through stories, poetry, morning baskets, letter drawings, characters, nature walks, nature crafts, nature walks and recipes. Letter sounds are reinforced and mastered while engaging in these activities.

Poetry is the integral tool used in the Rhythmic Reading Method. Reading poetry is a collaborative movement between caregiver and child. The caregiver reads the unbold text, and the child reads the text in bold.

The poems are used to reinforce letter sounds, to discriminate between long and short vowels, hard and soft letter sounds, and to reinforce words that have been learned previously. Reading poetry reinforces the development of auditory discrimination. Poetry uses devices such as alliteration, rhyme scheme, assonance, and onomatopoeia, to convey an image. The child is able to naturally pick up on these sound patterns, and predict words based on the patterns they hear.

In the Rhythmic Reading Method, children learn to read using real-world text. There is no transition between reading levels. The child reads real poetry from the start. Rhythmic Reading is taught in combination with phonics with sight words, setting the foundation for fully understanding our written language and how it functions. The Rhythmic Reading method combines the child’s natural curiosity and captures them with engaging text. The child learns to read new words intuitively, and is given the opportunity to become a natural reader from the very start of their reading journey.

Alphabet Forest was designed to make homeschooling or supporting your child’s education at home affordable, sustainable and accessible. Every craft is comprised of recycled materials and materials found in nature. The recipes are made with simple, minimal ingredients.

You will also learn how to create your own learning resources such as:

– Loose Parts
– Phonics Manipulatives
– DIY Moldable Beeswax
– DIY Beeswax Block Crayons

Free sample lesson available here.

500 pages of content.

Photos by @ourkindredadventures and @theschoolingtable