I was looking for another fun component for our reading. Reading in Russian is taking a lot of efforts, so I wanted to show my son, that reading can be jut fun!

1. I printed out Introductory Words, took the first five, we read them together and applied them all over the house: “Television” went onto the TV, “door” - on the door, etc.
2. The next day, when the baby was sleeping I took all the words down and pretended some naughty magical dwarf messed it all up. My kid had a blast hanging it all back. I repeated this reshuffling of the words for a few days.
3. I placed the pictures on the wrong objects - “table” on the window, “window” on the TV. To my surprise, my son discovered that the names are all wrong and had a blast changing them back.
4. After a few days of similar naughty dwarf reshuffling of the words, I printed out the Treasure Hunt Notes. I picked the first five notes (the ones that mention objects that we already learned), wrapped them and hid in various places: “Search in the refrigerator”, “What’s on top of the TV?”, “Look behind the aquarium”, etc. The first note went into the envelope addressed to my son, and to the pile of new mail. Once my son woke up from his nap, we “found” the first letter from the magic dwarf and he began searching for the other ones. Reading, following directions from the letters, he found the ultimate prise - a new toy, that I couldn’t wait to give to him; an old toy, that he hasn’t seen for a little while and a new book that I’d love to read with him.
5. Since then we have such treasure hunts all the time. The new words go up, the old ones are hidden in my file cabinets. The dwarf messes up the words, then sends letters with directions to the surprise. The surprises included new books, CD’s that I made for him myself, old toys, new toys, old toys that his niece and nephew passed down to him. So far - it works great! It really spices up our reading exercises, adds more fun into them!

You can find more presentations and suggestion here: Teach Your Child to read… in Russian