Bed time reading with chubs

I have been working with chubs on the topics, Shapes & Colours. He is finally getting more of the colour names right.  We have this Melissa & Doug colour puzzle for him to work with while waiting for our Montessori Colour Boxes to arrive. Of course, if you guys already know me by now, that's not the only thing I have to work on colours, aye? 

Share with you guys this other great material I bought for chubs to work on his colour sorting practice. I was so pleased that I finally got my hands on the Counting Bears from Learning Resources that I have been eyeing for so long.. 

Just this one material can be used for so many other concepts, like patterning, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, counting in groups/sets, rote counting to 100 (since there are 102 pieces/counters in this set) and so much more!

I secured a good deal over a forum bulk purchase for about $34.20 inclusive of 6 corresponding coloured plates.

The bulk purchase promotion is now expired but if any of you are interested to purchase any of the gazillion fun items from Learning Resources, you can still get them from her... my new-found friend, who shares the same fetish as me when it comes to quality hands-on materials... Starry Mummy, if you have a facebook account. I had the most pleasant shopping experience with her. Highly recommended seller. *Two thumbs up!*

As for when chubs and I am working on shapes/shape recognition, we play fishing together. Yeah, we play fish-the-shapes-game when the lil brother is taking a nap. Why? Cos that lil one is at the phase where he puts everything in his mouth. Besides, dangling interactive games like fishing games help chubs work on keeping quiet while I breastfed his brother to sleep. He'd either nicely wait for me to come out of the room (after putting the baby in the cot) on the sofa, watching the telly or he would play with his trains first. There were some days where I was lacking sleep and breastfeeding the babe was like cuddling a nice warm cuddly pillow... and *gasp*... this bad mommy fell asleep! However, I was pleasantly happy that instead of crying or screaming for me, chubs daintily walked into the room and softly nudged me whispering, "Mommy mommy.. wake up. Don't *sweep..(He meant *sleep*) lol!

Here's our fishing game. 

Got this from Learning Thru Play from IMM, Jurong East during DD1's time. Yes, I keep my materials in pristine condition so they last real good till today.

Two weeks ago, he took a purple triangle (from this shape matching set above) and put it on his daddy's back and he said, "Wook, mommy.. Daddy has perwple pwickles all over his back!" His daddy didn't know what he was talking about unfortunately...  ...but I thought it was clever of him to apply what he read from his Gruffalo story book..

This week, on one of our evening reading time, chubs suddenly quipped... "I will read to you, mommy." He told me to take his current favourite : The Gruffalo and tried to read the pages like he knew how to really read.  

Hear out the *perwple pwickles bit! 

*purple prickles*

This video was taken the following morning with him in proper attire. The night before when he read to me, he was in his *jumamas. He meant *pyjamas, of course.

Fun Phonics Resources

Learning Phonics is never dull with fun materials like these! 

These two products were recommended by a spree-organiser cum resource-addict (like me!) whom I had the pleasure of being acquainted with over Singapore Motherhood Forum. She has good eye, scouting value for money resources to share with other fellow mothers and she takes time to scour the net for fab deals. Clear and precise with regards to payment, shipping costs, delivery at the point when you note your interest in certain products amongst the troves that she had already brought in! 

I helped a friend to purchase this from the last spree I joined. Looks so fun isn't it? Cost about $45 plus split shipping and delivery with some other stuff I got.

This item is called - Rhyme Sorting Boxes, the one I mentioned that my friend got for herself.. I meant... for her kiddies. LOL! 

Ahh.. that one another resource-addict. Item came at my doorstep, neatly packed and sealed.

You can get this item from this ultra cool webbie called - Oriental Trading Company and if you have other resource addict friends you can hook up with within your community, you guys can share the shipping fees amongst yourselves.

Next is this item from Lauri called Phonics Centres. Word sheet and cards are made from foam and box comes with drawers so you can easily and neatly store the little square cards in without having to run down to the store to get one. The innovation alone deserves a thumbs up! 

These sheets and cards are also somewhat something similar to what the Montessori Phonics (Pink Scheme) has. This will be a great follow-up game after or during the time the child is at the three letter phonetic words level.

Pssst... Lauri Toys is currently having a sale now it seems, so check them out or if you wanna compare prices and/or don't mind some used/preloved Lauri Toys, you can always count on eBay.

Learning Phonics using fun ways and materials of course, are the best ways to start any child on the road to reading.

Fun Vocabulary Practice!

Vocabulary practice can be a pain. It can be an enthusiasm-killer. Especially to a child so young who understands-not, why he has to do so. Children in lower primary mostly find that if the way they speak and write is easily understood, it is good enough. Children of this age have vague comprehension of the importance of varying their choice words (in the way they speak and write) once in awhile. They may not necessarily relate regurgitating those bombastic words forced upon their memory banks to better grading of their written work. In fact, some children may not even be that interested in the scoring rubrics.

Vocabulary practice to them is not exactly as interesting like reading books. Vocabulary practice to my kiddies can mean sheer boredom. Seriously! You can literally tell from the looks their faces like they're telling you... "Here we go again."

Reading brings meaning to them even if they are unsure of what some words may really mean. They can somehow just go on guessing the meanings of some of the difficult words based on the genre of the story books they read when I go, "It is more interesting and meaningful when you actually know what the words really mean." The worst that can happen is that they will reply with a curt, "So, how about a quick one here mom... errr... what does 'impatient gesture' mean?" Frustrating. I know.. I am forever going to be treated like a walking dictionary if this keeps on. I wonder sometimes why I actually got them dictionaries.

To children... a word is just a word. The variation of words thrown at them for variety's sake are a waste of their precious free time, because in actual fact, the words they are forced to learn mean the same with the regular ones they have been using all this time aniwaes. So why bother, right?

Here are some stuff I concocted to work the kids around those vocabulary practices.

Show, not tell.
Whoa yes, we have heard this once too often. But nope, I'm not going into that kind of showing in writing. I'm referring to showing what those words really mean. Here's one way.

Playing charades. 

Yes. Charades are fantastic organized games encourages children to concentrate on facial expressions and gestures and at times even hinting winks, to get the right answers. There is also the element of familiarity based on what they have seen, read or heard to get their answers spot on.

Say you need em' brats to use other words other than "said"...

You can print out some words (that you wanted them to learn) on colourful paper, or just write them down on whatever scrap paper you can find for impromptu study breaks.

Here's a sample I am using to share this game.

My first attempt to get them guessing these words will be to show gestures.. to act out.. For example, in the case of the word "accused".. I might raise my arm and gesture it pointing to someone beside me with my eyes glaring and my eyebrows in a frown.

If the children cannot get it at the first attempt, I would use a sentence or two as hints. Using the word "accused" once again, I might say something like this, "I did not do that! Gosh, how could you?" while simultaneously still repeating the same actions I did at the first attempt.

For the word, "begged".. well, this is super easy. Just go on bended knees and place both hands into a tight fist in the centre of your body and rock it forwards and back in a pleading puppy-eyed expression or easier still go to one of your kids and go for the killer action of all actions. Hug Buddha's leg action!

If still blur then just wail, "Pweeeeze!" 

For the word "confided", you can pretend you were listening to someone whispering into your ear, nodding softly then put your arm around a an invisible shoulder assuringly and pat it or give a comforting rub with your palm without saying anything.

Hints can be a liner like this. "I didn't realize it was going to turn out badly."

Words you dish out can be from resource guides, from a class spelling list, from challenging words picked out in story books they are currently reading or from school passages, etc. You decide if you want to make the words known first especially for younger children - like write up the list of words on the wall prior to starting the game. For older ones they may not need a list. They can just shout out words they think you are describing.

Switch it!

You can take excerpts from paragraphs in good story books and even good articles from the newspapers to do this activity.  The idea is to replace words or phrases with the new words you want them to learn. You can even provide the answers in word strips for them to place over the bolded words/phrases in the passage or paragraph that you chose to work on.

As the child reads the paragraph and comes upon a bolded word/phrase, tell them to shout switch it! Then, you go... "Switch that to......" until they found the appropriate words to replace the ones in bold and shout yeaiy! Well, I am a tad animated in character. You can omit the "yeaiy" cheer if you are the serious type. Read : boring. 

I have many more under my sleeves to perk them up from a slouchy draggy afternoon of assessment-drillings where even I get super unmotivated and shhhh... sleepy. When I get begin to get those tear-yawning moments, it is a sure sign to get everyone to snap out of revision pronto.

One sure fire way to learn new vocabulary is to play Picture It. It is exactly like how you play pictionary but you decide the words you wanna play. Here are some we drew...

Can you guess which word 

best describes each stick-man?

Aniwaes, chin-up ya? If your child is already guai (good & well behaved) enough to even sit through revision time with you without complaining, (despite already attending supplementary and tuition programmes) it just reflects that they are still keen learners and we must recognize that effort. I always award my kiddies "A" for effort, not so much results. After diligent efforts have been put in and sheer consistency of revision (in school and at home), any stellar results they achieve are all bonuses to me. 

I understand that parents are worried about children not producing the results that commensurates with the amount of work and drillings they put in. I do too, well, even if I don't really show it... (all the time)... It is just that every child learns differently. Unfortunately some teachers may not have the flexibility or the skill to allow for other learning styles to be incorporated into their teaching, hence only placing auditory learners at an advantage. 

Many may not know that a child has more than one learning style that helps them sail through school. Teachers and/or parents may not know or may not have the time to execute other learning methods in the ways they work with children. Through my years of growing up, in school or at work.. I have recognized that I am pretty much a kinesthetic learner. I reorganize notes and my thoughts with doodling the same information the way I can remember. With these learning experiences, I try to replicate and also create fun doses of learning activities for my children when the motivator-scale remains at a stand-still for too long. 

Knowing full well how long the education journey is, it is imperative in my opinion to encourage a love for continuous learning in my children for as long as I can hold out, instead of anticipating a buzz-kill. I prefer my children to enjoy the process... but that's just me.

A child who enjoys the learning process CAN produce quality work. In fact, I am loving the results I see thus far.

The above draft was done during

 > DreamCatcher's Creative Writing Workshop

Montessori Phonics : Word Building

Parents have come to me asking for assistance on how to help them teach their children... how to move on from recognition of single letter sounds to blending the 3-letter words in the Pink Scheme.

This is where many have overlooked, even teachers themselves, yes... even Montessorian ones. I believe in working with word building exercises prior to actual blending lessons. Word building is frankly the key to reading all phonetic words. Children who have done word building do not need to have letters grouped together to be able to read efficiently especially if they have been exposed to a lot of books, either they have parents reading to them regularly or they have been given a lot of encouragement and stimulation to read independently or both.

Word building is the pre-reading stage where children are guided to listen to sounds in words. Any phonetic words. In my Montessori sessions, we have word building games to help children use their listening skills and put them to good use. 

For example :

Teacher : What do I have here?

Children : A bag!

Teacher : Now... I think I can hear a few sounds in the word 'bag'... Can you hear the sounds in that word too? Let's say that words together real slowly... Now, what sounds can you hear in the word b....a.....g.... (drag the sounds)

In my experience from having taught for many years, my students/children always give the first and last consonant letter before the middle vowel sound.

Children : We can hear the sound /b/.

Teacher : Good. Now what other sounds are there in the word b....a....g....

Children : We can hear the sound /g/.

Teacher : Good. Now we only have the sounds /b/ and /g/... and that is
not enough to form a proper word. I think we need a vowel. Now what
vowel can you hear in the word.... b.....aaaaa....g.... (this time drag the
/a/ sound) to make it seem more obvious. 

Children : /a/!!!

Teacher : Good. Now, let's sort the sounds out. What is the first sound in
the word bag?

Children : (saying to themselves) b... a... g. /b/ should be the first sound 
in the word bag.

Teacher : Good, what do you think comes next?

Children : (repeating the word to themselves again) b... aaaa... g.

(From the teacher's obvious sounding hint, the children will repeat the same sounds to themselves, hence providing indirect reinforcement for the children to grasp it all on their own. It's fine if you sound like a broken record, just make it a happy though broken one) 

If the children are stuck here, you may guide the process by offering... "I think it's a vowel sound next... what do you think...?" 

Most times, children with an already concrete foundation in single letter sounds will get it almost automatically. Cos through the lessons during foundation, children have been reinforced with the sounds regularly. Many fun repetitive activities would have been carried out as well to ensure that while having fun the children retain the essence of the lesson objective, the sounds.

Children : /a/....?

Teacher : Yes, an /a/... now what would the last letter be then?

Children : (repeating the sounds to themselves one last time) b... a... g.

Children : /g/ is the last sound!

Teacher : Well done everyone, now let's build this word and see if we get the word bag. 

Slowly now... /b/.... /a/... (buh.... aaaaaa.....) then... put those two together.... it wud make /ba/ = baaaahh.... and lastly fit in the /g/ in a brief sounding second. Hence making it sound /ba/.... /g/. Bag. Let's try that again.. (repeat)

Note : This word building process goes through 3 steps.

1. Say first letter sound. (/b/)

2. Say second letter sound. (/a/)

3. Combine sounds (/b/ and /a/) and roll in the /g/ sound at the end.

Lastly, read the word as a whole. Don't break it up. 
So, just say it briefly in one breath. 'bag' This; to sum up that built up word. 

Gosh. I do hope this helps give an idea.

I'm trying my best to provide the sounds and techniques just typing words out here.. not an easy task when you can't hear me sounding them out. Sweating now.. Teheeheehee..

Most teachers seem to go right into the 3-letter stage. So children miss out on word building opportunities which is really really really helpful moving on from the single letter sounds stage. The reason why some children may get stuck at blending 3-letter phonetic words can be due to that. Other kids who can grasp the concept of blending word families faster do eventually get it anyhow. 

Word family blending is simply giving them the combi (combination) of sounds for example : /an/... and then get children to read words that comes under that family like...

ban can fan man pan ran tan van 

Though that method works, i just prefer to better layer my children's foundation skills with word building. I prefer to make it concrete. 

Plus you can do word building with 4 or 5 or 6 letter words like a game if you want... just to see if they can indeed hear the sounds in words. Phonetic ones of course. 

For children who are confident learners, you don't have to emphasize the sounds at all. You can just say the word and ask for what sounds they can hear. 

When my kiddies we younger, (during outings or travels) we also played word games like "I Spy" (things in the train beginning with... : for single letter sounds) and "What sounds can i hear in the word...? Like pram or shop.. as and when we are looking out from where we are traveling in. ie. bus or train.

Don't take my word for it, of course. Try it out with your children and see how it works out... and of course please do leave me your happy notes of success. If you are still stuck for any reason at any point while trying to teach your child/children to read... i am just a PM/email away.

Montessori Phonics : Picture Box 1

Pink Picture Boxes are used to follow up the concrete activity with the Pink Object Boxes. Just to recap from where i last left off... Pink is the colour scheme used in Montessori lessons to depict the 3-letter phonetic words stage. In this stage children are learning to blend indvidual letter sounds to form words and are also introduced to simple letter combinations with ending sounds like... 

>an >at >ed 
>eg >ip >ig 
>ot... etc... 

From here, children can move on to the individual word family reading. Children will also be exposed to reading short phonetic sentences with inclusion of simple sight words. Learning Phonics without any reading 
exercises cannot 100% help with reading fluency. A good reading pgrm will offer age-appropriate literature for children to reinforce the sounds or words that they have learnt. 

As with all other Montessori materials, the picture boxes are no different. Yes, they too are self-correctional. It is really not too time consuming to make your own. And you can even recycle. Fish out those old magazines 
for pictures to paste on the cards... or cut out from old assessment books. For this example, i just took these pictures from my PC's clipart for quick home usage. Printed them on light pink paper and had them all laminated and cut out in identical sizes in uniformity. Sizing, i dun impose hard and 
fuss rule especially if it is for personal use cause smaller cards mean less ink and paper is used..  As long it fits in your box nicely, it is fine by me.  

For drained out momma's and ehem.. cough.. cough.. lazy mommas... it is okay if you can or only have time to write the words on paper with a marker too. Better than no effort at all.  Hehee.. 

Now once the cards are done... ask child to unroll work mat and begin arranging the picture cards one at a time, from left to right. Remember, left to right is the natural eye-sweeping glance for reading text and the 
same fashion for writing too. 

 

Next, ask the child to read the matching word cards one at a time... Try not to rush them while they spend some time blending the individual letter sounds. They can ask for help should they need.. try not to immediately offer the answer (sounds) when they seem to struggle. Allow for the child to TRY. You may prompt the child though... like, "Do you need help with that?" instead of saying, "That card says cat. Now match the card under the cat picture."  

 

The usual way this lesson is done is by finding the words to match the pictures from the left first naturally... however, for me... i do allow if the child reads the word cards at random and matches them, but i will request the child read all the words from the left most card, when the child finishes the matching activity. 

As it is self-correctional, in this instance... the control of error is >when the 
last word card does not match the picture card. It is also important to conclude the lesson. For closure.. and encouragement. 

For the child who has no trouble with the box, the lesson can be ended by concluding, "We have worked with Picture Box 1 today, tomorrow we will work on Box 2! " 

For a child who may not be proficient yet, lesson can be ended this way... "We have worked with Box 1. I will leave this box on the shelf. You can work with it again anytime.  Would you help put this box on the shelf 
so you will know where to find it when you want to work with it again... thanks for your help." 

Happy trying! 
 

*Need to backtrack? 
Click this link. 
> Montessori Phonics : Object Box 1

With all things taught concretely, there's always the absract part of it.. the written part of it to reinforce lessons learnt. Here are some stuff you can do with your children.

/ab/ 

Lesson for > cab 
Colour a picture of a cab. Cut out a shape of a steering wheel. Design together. Painting or Crayon colouring. Stick stickers (star stickers, animal stickers, number stickers) 
Paste each of the 3 letters on A4 paper. Likening this game to playing hop-scotch, paste /c/ first... up ahead /a/... and lastly... /b/. Use the finished steering wheel to walk/hop/run over the letters and you demonstrate... "Mummy'll go first!" /c/..../a/.... [drag this sound a little longer] - (open-mouthed) and blend the /a/ sound with an abrupt /b/. Touch your hand on the picture of the coloured cab you have pasted on the wall, then shout, "CAB!" 

Lesson for > dab 
Painting Time! Dab cotton balls inside the template of the word /dab/. Use word art. Make thicker and chubbier letter with comic sans or 
century gothic, spread over A4 paper. Mummy shows first, how to dab the cotton ball from top to bottom. ie. start from the inside curve of the letter d, followed by the straight line from top to bottom.. likewise for the letter a, (shorter wall) and lastly letter b, top t bottom first and followed by the big bouncy belly. Depending if mummy allows for more 
painting time, child can paint his own picture using the cotton balls for reward. Dun want to get hands sticky, peg the cotton balls. For older children, can use chopsticks too. When using hands, good experience to demonstrate "lightness of touch" whereby only gentle movements can still create the dab effect. This is future preparation for writing, where we encourage children to write neatly without the pressure of fingers and the too-dark(ness) of the pencil lead. 

Lesson for > jab 
Place two cups or beakers of coloured water. 
Play with syringe of different sizes, transferring water from one beaker to another. While pushing the syringe, say /j/... aaaaaaa.... /b/. (abrupt b sound). 

Lesson for > nab 
Play catching. Police and thief! If you allow, but the policeman set with the baton (to run with) and handcuff (once nabbed). The person who is the catcher (police) says nab when the thief is caught! 

Put the word "nab" on A4 paper. Each side with point markers so you can keep count who has "nab-bed" how many times.  

Have fun... inspire... and this time, sure to perspire. Think we can do with all the exercise!  

Next, we have booklets and ones such as these can be printed as add-ons to your current Phonics Readers or it CAN be your own FREE readers set. Your children can colour in the pictures and you can also ask them to copy the sentences on a line as penmanship practice. 

Try out this "at" booket. 

For all the complete booklets, you can download them FREE @ Booklets.
 
This site also has thematic booklets for you to download and practise those sight words you want your child to know/learn.

It is also fun to carry out craft activities with young children after they manage to follow lessons well. Try this paper bag puppet to reinforce the "ag" word family. 

Word family worksheets available here and here. 

Did your child understand the story from the booklet you made? Here's a worksheet to do to emphasize on story comprehension. 

Then print out two of each of these snap cards and play word family snap! 

These are just some ideas to inspire you to learn thru hands on activities with your children. Such activities simultaneously provides revision on Object Box 1 and Picture Box 1, that you have done with them to introduce some of the 3-letter phonetic words with vowel /a/ in them. 

Time to load up those ink cartridges people and have fun! 

KiasuParents Writing Contest

So, after all those DreamCatcher sessions with Sara and Janelle... I chanced upon a writing contest in a local website called KiasuParents.

What better way to test... ermmm... I meant encourage the writing process than writing for a yummy cause. *evil wink*

It was a great way to keep the girls occupied too! This meant that I won't have to clean up a messy room today. Win-win situation write! LOL! 

So, aniwaes... the girls have been busy drafting their thoughts the whole day. It would be their first time writing something sooo long, especially for DD2 since technically she is still in Primary 3 before 2013 beckons. :)

Learning To Write

Young children need motivation to write. Parents can provide a variety of writing tools to encourage writing. Here are a few suggestions.. 

You can try writing the alphabets in highlighter pens like the one below.  It is still tracing but after the child writes over them, the pencil marks will cover over it making it seem your child managed to do it freehand. 

There are also alphabet stencils that can encourage freehand alphabet writing. Alphabet stencils are easily available in neighbourhood stationery shops or at Popular bookstores. They're made of hard plastic, easy to clean, comes in various fonts and sizes to suit the smallest of hands/fingers. Some stencil templates even support cursive writing.


If you're looking for more fun stencils for younger children, this is a good buy for you to consider. It's Scholastic's Alphabet Stencils and it is available online @ Amazon.com. Alphabet Stencils are excellent tools for use in developing the motor and visual perception skills needed to form and distinguish letters. The following information is found in the guide that comes with the Alphabet Stencil kit. The Alphabet Stencil kit contains uppercase letter stencils and a corresponding animal, person, or object stencil for each letter plus a crayon pack. The stencils are designed to meet the following key instructional goals:

• naming alphabet letters
• writing uppercase letters
• distinguishing confusing letters
• identifying letter & letter sounds
• developing automaticity (fluency) with alphabet-recognition skills

The stencil kit is ideal for small group instruction when you are working with selected children who have not yet achieved mastery with these basic skills. Be sure to explicity teach the letter name, sound, and formation. For example, say, "This is the letter s. The letter s stands for the /s/ sound. Watch as I trace the letter with my finger." To accelerate the children's progress, have them say the letter or the sound of the letter as they practice writing the letter (e.g., /b/, /b/, /f/, as they write the letter b, b, f).

You can also consider using other interesting mediums for your child to write on... like whiteboard markers, now they even have blackboard markers too! Use a paintbrush to paint letter shapes.. (brushes are also good practice for pencil work... ), chalk (if you have a chalkboard) or even with oil pastels.

Make a rainbow with oil pastel colours on a drawing paper, cover up everything with black oil pastel. Then scratch on the paper with a thin stick and you can see the rainbow colours as you make lines of the alphabets with it.

Another simple at home way is to print using your computer these hollow alphabet tracer. Children can use various writing tools/mediums to trace freehand around the shapes of each alphabet. You may encourage child to change colours after writing/tracing over the letter each time and you then form your own rainbow writer.

Don't wanna waste paper, printing over and over again? Just laminate them, and voila! It can now be used for tracing with markers... over... and over... and over again. It can be binded into an alphabet writing booklet or pasted on the walls of the child's room like an alphabet wall frieze.

There are also a variety of fun lettering or stencil books available in good bookstores and in this day and age, almost everything is available online. These are amongst the few that we have at home.

Clever lettering can turn ordinary words into extraordinary works of art!
 

It's all about using your imagination and experimenting, but most importantly, it's about having fun. And it's so simple!

With the aid of the easy-to-use stencils and basic guidelines in this book, you will be adding that little bit extra to your school projects, greeting cards, posters, bookmarks and even your very own party invitations. There is really no limit to the many ways you can use clever lettering.

My First Lettering Book includes:
• 6 alphabet stencils
• Cool lettering and fun pictures to trace
• Exciting projects to do
• Easy to follow step-by-step instructions

  

  

I bought this in a bookstore in a mall in Penang while we were on our short family vacation.  I wanted to buy a lot more from the store but saved on it thinking there will be other bookshops around!  I saw lotsa people scooping up great deals on powder and liquid paint in big jars going for only like RM11.00! DD1 was like 6+ years old and i remember i got it for her birthday. 7th birthday present. DD1 loves drawing, painting and all sorts of crafts. 

She was ecstatic when i gave it to her. Both DD1 and DD2 had lotsa fun experimenting with the different stencils in the book when we returned to the resort. Hubs and i had nice time catching up on movies (HBO) from that evening onwards.  The girls were kept very occupied. 

The book cost only RM16.90 before their so-call sale price!
It's a STEAL awrite! 

I have not seen this in stores here but if you're interested,
you can consider getting it here on its online store.

They have many other various stencil books on this website!

Five Mile Press : Stencil Books

 

 

Lettering in Crazy Cool Quirky Style is a tool kit for any kid who has ever wanted to make chunky block letters, blobby balloon letters, swirly, curly letters... whatever. A bound-on pouch holds the tools, like fine-tipped markers, a mechanical pencil and a white eraser (on the outside chance any mistakes get made). Best of all? Artist's pencils in 16 different shades turn your words into distinctively colorful language. Use the included practice paper to trace our illustrators' alphabets, or copy them freehand. Not simple enough? We also threw in five plastic stencils — two complete alphabets plus assorted extras — to act as super-stylish training wheels.

I purchased this stencil book during last two year's POPULAR sale @ Expo. I think it was $15.00... The stencils are plastic for this one. I chanced upon this same book @ Page One Vivo City. Or if you prefer... you can also buy it online @ Amazon or Klutz. Click the blue links below to go to their sites.

> Amazon: Lettering in Crazy Cool Quirky Style (Klutz)

> Klutz : Lettering in Crazy, Cool, Quirky Style 

More stencils at this link! 

> Stencils Galore!

Many possibilities to explore! And the possibilities are endless.