Welcome to a Micro Training with Experience Curriculum
Today, I’m going to explain how to set up a filing system for the Cube Cards that you will collect all year long with Experience Curriculum. Cube cards are the cards that slide into the clear pockets on the foam block. We call this block the “Pocket Cube.”
Each month with Experience Curriculum, you will add to your card collection so that by the end of the year you will have a full set.
Let me show you the cube card sets that you receive every month and that you will want to save.
- Letter Cards
- Phonic Photo Cards
- Vocabulary Theme Builders
- Movement Cards
Each month you receive three letters. In total, this makes six cards because you receive both the upper and lower case of the letters.
You also receive nine Phonic Photo cards. Notice how the photos are something that begins with one of the same featured three letters. Each phonic photo card comes with a word card as well. See how the background color of the word card matches the letter card background color. Consider making a word wall with these larger Letter Cards that also come in your curriculum. Under the large Letter card, post the words with their pictures. This helps children begin to gain phonological awareness, concepts of print and even begin to look at the words while trying to write them in their journal.
To expand on the photo cards, you also receive 9 thematic vocabulary words each month to add to the cube or to your word wall. Again, the background color of the word card matches the beginning letter card.
Next, you have six movement cards. Each card describes a fun way to review one of the basic concepts of the month. This includes the number, letters, shape and color.
But this isn’t all.
Each month you also will collect specialty sets of cube cards that may not repeat again all year – so be sure to save these! Examples include:
- Shape cards
- Number cards
- Emotion cards
- Relaxing stretches even!
You will see in the Farm unit on Lesson 7, page 27 that you receive the Emotion Cards. Today, children will imagine they are cows, roll the cube and then move around the room like a cow with this emotion.
Great! So you have all these cards even just after two months of receiving Experience Curriculum. But how will you keep them organized? Here is how to make a filing box.
First I used an empty box I found in my pantry. Then, I made tab dividers with stiff paper. I wrote the type of card on each tab:
- Letter
- Phonic photo
- Family vocabulary
- Farm vocabulary
- Movement
- Shapes
- Numbers
I filed my letter cards and phonic cards in alphabetical order. That way, it is easy to both quickly find the cards I’m looking for and also identify which are missing. Don’t forget, we list which letters are featured each month on the website.
As a final tip, I like to write the theme, activity name and lesson day where I used the cards so that I can easily go back and repeat the activities if my children need a little review or rainy day distraction.
Have fun building your collection of cube cards this year and don’t miss a month so that you have a full collection of ideas that support your child’s literacy, math, social and physical development.