Preschool Pasta Play

 Such a variety of pasta available and can easily be turned into an inexpensive material to be used with preschoolers!  When reading through the ideas below, remember that you can often incorporate more than one skill with each activity. 

Teach Preschool has an excellent post regarding using food for play.
Discussion of Food Use in the Early Childhood Classroom

Pasta Math

Counting

I did not have my number kites easily accessible at the moment so just drew you a picture of what we sometimes do with our bow tie pasta.  I have a set of foam kites with numerals up to 15 printed on them.  They all have a piece of yarn attached.  Children order them from 0-15 and then add the corresponding number of bows to the string.  I've also provided blank kites and they have created patterns with their bows.  For toddlers I have them put as many bows on the kites string as they want but they match the bow color to the color of the kite.

 Sorting

by color

                                          by type                                   by color and type

Graphing

Creating and labeling the graph is beneficial to do with or in front of the children.  Instead of trying to get the lines straight with a ruler, consider just folding your paper in half and in half again (continuing as you wish) and repeating the other direction then simply use a marker to make your lines a bit easier to see. You can always add another piece of paper above your first to fit more numbers.  Remember vocab: graph, more, less, equal, compare, and etc.

Shape and Number Formation

 Free hand creation or using flash cards or templates as a visual. 

Shape Song Templates used in left picture can downloaded here.

Print on card stock, add your choice of material around the outline to create a texture.  Song were not written by me.  I've seen them all over the Internet over the course of the years and really do not know where they originated from.  If they are your own original songs, please comment so I can give credit where it is due!  Thanks.

Tens and Ones

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Really hard to see this picture, sorry.

This was our introduction activity to the rainbow sticks.  We compared them to the individual pasta and she also counted the pasta on the sticks by two to see that they all had 10 pasta shells on them.  Then we sang our counting to 100 by 10s song (one of her favorites) and she wrote the numbers onto index cards.  This was lovely for her since she knows the pattern of counting but has difficulty with the transitional numbers (30, 40, 50, etc). 

This was the second activity we did.  One skill kindergarten children will be expected to know by the end of the school year is to know that the numbers from 1-39 are made up of 1, 2, or 3 groups of ten and a specific amount of ones.  

Non Standard Measurement

After the children have sorted the pasta, it's a good time to get in some nonstandard measurement practice.  It really depends on what age and development your child is as at how much choice you give them.  Since my students are older I tend to give them quite a bit of choice which leads to great conversation and problem solving!  Here we measured our color sorting flowers using a different type of pasta.  The goal here was to see that the smaller the items, the more it takes.  Internalizing this concept will eventually lead for understanding that cm are smaller than inches and thus there is going to be a bigger number with cm for an object vs. inches.  Just helps with their ability to predict/estimate.

 

For younger students I sometimes glue the pasta to a large craft stick.  I provide a tray or theme related items  and we see which objects are bigger, about the same and smaller than our "rulers".   This is also a great time filler activity.  I've done it where I send them with a tray to go find something in the room that is bigger, smaller and about the same size as their ruler.  It doesn't represent a ruler exactly because when I use these with younger students I leave that little finger space at the bottom of the rulers.  This is two fold, number one, they need somewhere to hold the stick.  :-)  The other reasons is because more often than not they want to measure the big items and so we can overlap the rulers to make a more accurate measurement.

It's always good to introduce or review that idea that when measuring we need to use the same size item.  You may wish to compare a real ruler/yard stick/measuring tape with what you are using for nonstandard measurement.  And a good habit to get into is to state your unit of measurement as they will have to label in primary school.  So for example, "The flower is about 4 bow ties long." 

Pasta Patterning

You can download a simple mat here or just create your own with construction paper.  So many patters can be created!  You might consider having one child create a pattern and another child extend it. 

1:1 Correspondence

Placing one item in each section.  As you can see you can reinforce various concepts/skills here.  1:1, patterning, clockwise/counterclockwise, counting, and work those small muscles in their hands by adding tweezers of some sort.  :-)  Dollar stores and preschool teachers really get along.  We can find all sorts of trays to be used in our classrooms!

This 1:1 correspondence activity also incorporate glue control and counting.  You can download this simple counting mat here.  Consider printing on card stock when gluing items such as pasta.

April Showers Bring May Flowers
Children glued a pasta flower on each stem and then dripped colored glue to make raindrops.  We slanted the page a bit to get the drip look.  This was a two day project as the glue for the pasta took awhile to dry.  We did the glue rain drops first thing in the morning and they were dry by lunch time.  If you'd like a page similar to this one you can download it here.  In the file there is the blue background and white, in case you have light blue construction paper or card stock and want to save in

Simple Addition

Ways to make 9.

Divided plates work so well for beginning addition.  We work from left to right in most things So the children know to use the card on the left and when they are done it goes on the right. 

 Comparing Sets

Odd and Even

Pasta Literacy

Letter or Name/Word Formation

  Build capital and lower case letters!

Practice sight words!

     CVC words, focusing on a,e,i,o,u.

Listening Skills

Music

Listen to or sing a very simple, well-known song.  For example, Twinkle Twinkle.  With your hand, show how the notes go up and down as you sing.  Then sing it again, but this time have the children place a piece of pasta to represent the notes.  The goal hear how the music goes up, down or stays the same.  I use at least a 12x18 piece of construction paper or large piece of foam/felt for this activity.

Word Chunks

Making use of those lovely dollar store flashcard sets.  :-)  Here we are listening for word chunks/syllables.  A very common early literacy activity. We often "clap out" the syllables but I find my younger preschoolers can clap out the chunks but then can not transfer the number of claps into an actual number.  For example, they'll clap 2 times and say 3.  So using a manipulative, such as pasta, allows for them to work with chunking in a more concrete way.

 Phonemes

I like to do this sort of activity with older preschoolers and kindergarten students.  The goal here is to place a pasta for each sound you hear.  When I do this with a child I do not show them the spelling until after they have put their pasta down.  I find with older children, this is a great way to introduce and explore with the different letter combinations that make one sound.  For example... bee.  You can only here the b and the long e but in reality it's spelled bee and when you see /ee/ it makes the long e sound. 

Positional Words

(Don't you just love my artistic ability?!)

Draw a simple outdoor scene on paper or magnetic dry erase board.  Add a small magnet to the back of a few bow tie pasta.  These will be your butterflies.  Encourage  your child to put their butterfly near the sun, in the tree, above the dog, on the boy, under the flowers, and so on.  It's especially fun to have the children tell what to draw in the scene.  :-)

Pasta Fine Motor

Lacing

We didn't do lacing these last couple of weeks yet so no recent pics. 
I'll share a couple ideas from other blogs.

Sew Mama Sew

For younger students/toddlers use larger noodles.  Use smaller for older students.  Taping the end of the lacing yarn works nicely as well.

Helping Little Hands

This is ideal for toddlers!  You could also use a pipe cleaner in the play dough as well to allow for more durability.  Spaghetti would probably break pretty easily.

Pasta Transfer

Transfer activities are great fine motor/practical life activities.  You can vary it in so many ways to keep interest whether with the type of material you provide, the containers, or the tools that are provided to transfer.   With my older students I like to provide various types of tools to use and then ask later which was the easiest one to use (or the hardest) and why.  With younger students I'll remove all but the one tool that will lead to the most success.  Sometimes I'll use tweezers/tongs to have them transfer smaller items from an open container to a narrow neck container.  Other times I'll provide a round container that they have to hold in their non dominant hand while transferring.  Always a favorite...especially with toddlers.  Having a tray to transfer activities instead of just providing the materials along with your sensory tub appeals to their sense of organization (which most have), teaches responsibility of their space (since they need to clean it up and make it ready for the next child), and it also allows for you to make sure they are experience a certain skill.  Not always will they choose this activity if it's one of several things available.  Sometimes they think it's too hard...especially if it involves tweezers.  But if they don't try and practice they will never know success!

Sifting 

You can get this kind of sifter at most dollar stores or stores like Wal-Mart.  After a bit of exploring with sifting the material I like to encourage them to spoon the flour into the sifter with their non dominant hand and after shaking the flour out dump the material-pasta in this instance-into a container placed on their non dominant side.  This causes them to use their non dominant hand more than they would normally do and makes them cross their midline when emptying the sift.

Pasta Art

Collage

Pasta Science

Pasta Butterfly Life Cycle

I couldn't find my own version of the pasta butterfly life cycle project right off so will share a couple of my favorites I've done with kiddos.

Rainbow Star Books                          Dr. Jean       

Spaghetti Sensory

This is the first time I've dyed the pasta.  Typically I leave it natural.  They love to use it with a miniature stainless steel cooking set.  But since we were doing a rainbow theme this past week I decided to go ahead and try a bit of food coloring.  Wasn't as messy as I thought it was going to be.  :-)  I cooked the noodles first, ran cold water over top to cool. added a bit of oil to keep them from sticking and then separated them into seven bowls.  Then I added food coloring.  I suggest you mix immediately after adding the food coloring for a more even color.

 

Spaghetti molds pretty easily.  Note the child in the right picture.  He had three "volcanoes" that he had molded from a small plastic flower pot.  Then he saw the "bug grabbers" and tried to make a ball that way.  So when you are planning tools...remember to include some that will make some interesting molds!  If you are wondering how much to make.  Well, awhile back I dumped almost a 2lb container of spaghetti all over the floor.  This is it.  A bit less than 2 lbs of spaghetti made more than enough for three trays worth.  It would have easily made four rainbow noodle trays.

Pasta Sensory Tub

 Always allow time for free exploration! Pasta is not a material I consider "messy" and thus I typically do not get the pool out for this material and it allows for more room to spread out which then allows the ability to use the larger trays, which leads to the children naturally sorting the material. Just a reminder that sensory tubs are wonderful at keeping toddlers and preschoolers "busy" but let's not mix it up with "busy work". This can be very meaningful work for the children. And I find that when I listen and observe them working I can easily get a bit of informal assessments completed because more often than not they are often incorporating the skills we have worked with up to that point.

Coloring Pasta

Simply pour rubbing alcohol into a gallon size bag, add a good amount of food coloring. The more color you add the deeper the color of pasta. Zip shut, mix well and allow to sit, "stirring it up" periodically. I wouldn't allow it to sit more than 20 minutes though. If you leave it too long the pasta starts to soften and they stick together. This also happens if you get too much rubbing alcohol for the amount of pasta. I do not measure myself, but I would guess that I use 2-3 Tbs. of rubbing alcohol to about a third of gallon bag of pasta.

Feel free to share some of the ways you have used pasta! I'm always on the look out for new ideas!

G is for Goldilocks!

Been a little while since I've done any "educating" so maybe will take that route today.  I find that some people really do not understand what goes into teaching.  There is more to it than searching the Internet to find an activity that will slip into a certain category.  :-)  We think (or maybe I should say "I think") much more deeply than that when we create our lesson plans and implement our lessons.  So today's thought is about asking questions to extend a child's thinking.  There are pictures below to show other activities we did today.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears are one of K.'s favorite book so wanted to incorporate it this week.  One of my goals with K. was to do an activity to help extend her thinking process.  I'd really like to see a bit of growth in creative thinking.  :-)  And so this time we spent a lot of time talking about the book and characters, asking questions, that also included "what if" questions.  For those with a bit of education background...we know there are many theories about how learning takes place.  Most theorists agree that children usually have to master one skill before they can truly move onto the next.  And as teachers...yes, we see and agree with that.  It's not that we don't allow for the children to be exposed to the other skills...we do...but when we evaluate and individualize, we understand that if a child has not shown mastery of one skill then we need to work on that skill before we can expect the child to move on.  One theory is called "Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains".  Maybe just put a little note of reminder in here that there is not just one "theory" that I go with.  I find that over the course of 15 years of working with children, I've created my own smorgasbord batch of theories.  I take a little from one theory and a little from another.  Very typical for most teachers.    So, in a nutshell, Bloom felt there were three learning domains.  Cognitive-knowledge/mental skills; affective-attitude/emotional development; psychomotor-skills/physical development. Most theories that have more learning domains usually are just breaking these three categories into more specific areas.  It's very good to familiarize yourself, whether you are a parent or a teacher (or both) with the various ways people learn so that you can best provide for your child.  So today, I decided to take Bloom's thought on cognitive development.  His team came up with 7 levels of difficulty.  So, with the thought in mind...one must master the first before being able to master the second...I went through a series of questions with K. that would go along with these levels of difficulty.  Was interesting!  I highly recommend that you think about the questions you ask your child and be conscious of providing your child with experience in creative thinking!  This with highly benefit them in life.  :-)  Until you become a natural at question asking, remember it is definitely okay to right a list down of questions you want to ask and keep it near you after reading a book.  :-)  Eventually, you'll begin asking the different levels of questions naturally, all throughout the day, not just after reading a book. 

Level 1:  Knowledge/Recalling information

   What was the little girl's name? 

Goldilocks.  (An extension to that question...why do you think her name is Goldilocks?  This was something K. could not answer.  Past experience plays a big part in how children answer questions.  K.  really didn't understand that "locks" could mean strands of curly hair.  She also did not connect the word "gold" to the color of her hair because in all the books we have, Goldilocks hair is "yellow"  not gold. It was neat to see her expression when we began to talk about the name!)

Level 2:  Comprehension

  Why were there three bowls on the table? 

K. first retold the section of the book about the three bowls and papa's being too hot and etc.  So I acknowledged what she said and asked the question again.  She then told me "the bears left to take a walk so the porridge would cool." 

Level 3:  Application

   What do you do when your cereal is too hot? 

This took K. a little bit longer ask she was a bit tired this morning and had a hard time getting past the whole story retelling.  So after hearing a bit about the story I asked the question again emphasizing your cereal/food/soup.  We do eat oatmeal once a week for breakfast but it's never "too hot" for her.  So changing it to soup worked.  And she responded with "You wait for it to cool."  So, I asked, what do you do while you wait for it to cool.  She said, "eat something yummy".  :-)  Well, knowing this child...she definitely prefers bread over any other type of food and thus...that's yummy and what she normally eats first, while the rest is cooling.  Anyway, eventually, she did say, "Sometimes I blow on my food."  Yes!  That is definitely an answer that would go along with the application question.

Level 4:  Analysis

   List three differences between Papa Bear's cereal and Baby Bear's cereal. 

So, I expected a little difficulty here.  Why I expected it was because verbally stating reasons for sorting materials past one obvious difference has been a challenge.  Pretty typical for this age group but something I'm working on.  She did state two differences.  Papa's was too hot and Baby's was just right.  After a bit of time I finally said, "Tell me about the bowls." and she came up with another difference.  Papa bear’s bowl- was big baby bear’s bowl- teeny teeny bit small.  So 2 out of 3...pretty typical for 4 years old.  By the end of the school year she'll be able to think more analytically because that is one of my goals for her.

Level 5:  Synthesis

   How would it have changed the story if the Three Bears had been home?

This was a very hard question for her.  Again, she was retelling parts of the story.  So I made it more personal and I said, "If you peeked in the door and saw a family of bears...what would you do?"  This isn't the exact same type of question but I wanted her to think more creatively.  She said she'd be scared and run away.  Oh!  Of course I led that back to what Goldilocks might have done if she saw the bears.  And K. added, "She has to go away and be a little scared." 

Level 6:  Evaluation

   Was Goldilocks smart to go into the Bears' house?

No.  Because her mommy said no.  (So, as you can see level 4, 5 and 6 are not yet mastered yet).  But we did extend that question a bit more talking a little about strangers and going into people's houses without them inviting us and not letting people in Ms. Amber's house, even if we know them, unless Ms. Amber has seen who it is and have given permission.  We had that situation recently.  She was really just trying to help but that's a big "uh-oh" here.  Safety comes first.  So, good to reiterated that safety rule!

Another creative thinking activity we did today was remembering that there were three bowls of porridge on the table and "what if there were 3 cups and 3 plates?"  I asked her to draw what the bears might be eating for breakfast along with their porridge.  This was difficult so I switched it too, what would you like to eat at breakfast time.  She colored the cup pink for strawberry milk, added pink applesauce (huh?  I can't get her to eat applesauce lately!), a brown pancake, and black sausage on the plate.  Sounds yummy to me!  :-D

  

Here's a retelling activity I quickly created out of construction paper.  Excuse the folds in the roof.  :-)  I was trying it one way but it just wasn't working so ended up just stapling another 12x18 piece of construction paper on the top and cutting it in half so we could open up the house.  The door is only glued on half of the house so it can open. It took a little while since I created the simple pieces as she was retelling so we could use the colors she wanted.  :-)  She thought about what she'd see on the outside of the house and together we added details.  Then she added a table with 3 bowls of porridge, 3 chairs (big, medium, small), 3 beds (big, medium, small) in the "rooms" of the house.  She then colored a Goldilocks and the three bears.  Then to add a little more creativity  and thus made it a little more difficult for her today was to think about and add details.  What else could they have in the kitchen?  What else would be in the livingroom/bedroom?  She eventually added drawings of pictures (there was a page in the book with the bears' pictures on the wall), lights in every room.  I loved how she started to draw the ceiling fan in the bedroom.  Stripes on the wall in the kitchen.  And then she retold the story from the beginning to the end with the different voices (papa-big, loud, mama-medium size voice, baby-high voice).  T.-2 years, LOVED it!  And that activity is going home today.  No way was she going to let us keep it here so we could retell the story to the other kids.  LOL 

www.makinglearningfun.com

Goldilocks and the Three Bears Calendar Numbers

So, what do you do with flash cards?  We don't use them much for "memorizing flashcard style" but they do work nicely for many activities.  Today I hid these "calendar numbers" throughout the living room and K. and T. went on a hunt.  When they thought they had them all I encouraged K. to put them in order from 1-15 (there was a pattern there also).  Well, she soon found out that she didn't have them all so off she'd go looking for another one.  :-D  Loved hearing the squeal when she found one.  Anyway, she really has down odd/even from our daily calendar activity using the counting(craft) sticks.  And recently we have been doing more "skip counting".  Today, she had passed the 21 counting sticks around and as normal she laid hers out to find out how many she has and whether it was even or odd.  For the first time, she pointed to her three pairs of sticks and counted 2, 4, 6, and added 7 for her last stick!!!!  WOW!  So to reinforced that skip counting I decided to have her pull down the even numbers after she had the numbers 1-15 in order.  Exciting stuff...at least for this lady!

Simple patterning activity that I created a long time ago to use with our counting bears.  Simply placed corresponding colored pairs in a pattern on a strip and laminated them.  This was a good 'no brainer' activity for her this afternoon since she had a sleepy brain.  :-D  Just reviewing how to extend a pattern.  She usually makes her own patterns and so extending them tend to get set aside so wanted to review it and glad I did since she was copying the pattern vs. extending it onto the next strip.  So I'll be sure to add some more patterning extension activities in to our plans for awhile until I'm sure she understands what "extends" is.  When we learn to pattern the first step is to copy the pattern but typically I have them copy underneath the first pattern to keep the confusion down and then they move to extending the pattern (next to the initial strip) then they move to creating their own.  Always good to review to keep those brain connections working! 

Yes, we do some "crafts".  I'm not a big craft person, mainly because at the preschool and younger stage...it ends up being the adult's work vs. the child's so I like to keep crafts for school-agers.  But crafts do have a place.  Here, sewing is excellent to help with eye-hand coordination and help strengthen those muscles in their hands.

5 Senses Bear

We actually did not create this one today.  This bear is a couple years old and was my son's.  But I did pull it out today because we went on a "nature walk" just like the 3 bears.  As we went on our walk we talked about what we saw, hear, smelled, touched, and couple possibly taste.  Great conversation!  The picture isn't all that clear so here are the words.

Tune:  BINGO

We use five senses every day to help us learn and play.

See, hear, sell, taste, touch.

See, hear, sell, taste, touch.

See, hear, sell, taste, touch.

We use them every day!

When we created this simple 5 Senses Bear we used sand paper for the bear (touch), added google eyes (see) and a bell (hear), scratched cinnamon sticks on the sand paper (smell) and drank cinnamon spiced apple cider (taste). 

We again made use of www.makinglearningfun.com magnet sheets to reinforce our focus letter and for T. the number three.  Three is his favorite number right now.  He has to have 3 night-nights, 3 candy corn, 3 everything and he knows if you don't give him three!  LOL  Anyway...after using the magnetic chips we explored with the rest of the set of magnets.

So, that's some of what we did.  Was a busy day with those activities and the normal ones also.  K.'s doing great with her reading.  Not sure if I mentioned that we went back to the book Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegrfried Engelmann.  This book is popular amongst the homeschooling group.  I've used it with two of my children and now coming back to with with K.  It can be considered "dry" but if you use it as a guide they will definitely be reading at a 1st grade level by the time your finish it.  So if you are looking for a resource for teaching a child how to read...here's a relatively cheap one!  :-)

C is for ...

C is for Crocodiles!

Crocodile Trace and Race

The other day K and I had a few extra moments so I had created alphabet strips just for this type of occasion and we were going to do the Trace and Race game.  This is where we roll the dice and trace that many parts of a letter starting at A.  For example, if she rolled a 6, she could trace A (3 parts /\-) and B (3 parts).  But if I rolled a 4 I could only trace A and the stick of B.  Then the "race" was on to see who could get to the last letter first.  Well, I get the strips all out and see that we are both missing a J.  ???  LOL  Whatever, can't (well you could but I won't) do it without the whole alphabet and it would have taken too long to print another one so we set it aside.  I decided to do it today with a crocodile. The letters are a lot smaller than my initial strips and if you have a younger child who is not ready for small letters, please use the strips so you can create the size you want.  K. has great penmanship for a four year old and is choosing to write smaller on her own so the smaller letters worked just fine for her.  Great way to reinforce sticks/curves and letter formation.

Crocodile or Alligator?

We learned that crocodiles have more of a triangular look and alligators are more boxy/rectangular (actually, if you want to get specific, the difference is more like V and U.  I'm thinking I'll bring that back up when we learn the difference between the letters U and V).  So she snipped a few crocodiles and sorted into their own "lake".  Also, though they are both from the crocodylidae family, crocodiles' glands on their tongue work better than alligators (to excrete excess salt) so you'll find them more in saltwater lakes and alligators in fresh water.  We didn't really get into the color differences but if you are doing a complete study of the two, crocodiles are more olive green and alligators are so dark of a green they almost look black.  Of course, adding a little more to the activity, she wrote the words "crocodiles" and "alligators".  Also counted and wrote the numbers and added whether it was more or less.

  

www.amazon.com

Speaking about more or less.  The book we read was called Counting Crocodiles.  All ages seem to enjoy this book!  It's a rhyming and counting book about a monkey who lives on an island with only a lemon tree but he sees a banana tree across the Sillabobble Sea and then decides to be clever and get those bananas by counting crocodiles.  So we incorporated Monkey Math into our work today, prior to doing the crocodiles and alligators sort.  The crocodile more/less sign is from http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/.  K. has a good grasp of more or less but the balance is a great visual to teach or reinforce this concept.  Any balance will do!

And, of course, if we are going to read a book about monkeys and crocodiles we MUST do the rhyme...5 Little Monkeys Sitting In a Tree!  When K. saw my monkeys and crocodile she jumped up and down and said "I LOVE that song!" and started singing a version of it.  :-D  I added magnets to the back of my monkeys and alligator and drew a little scene on the magnetic-dry/erase board so we could "act" out the song.  I couldn't find my container of dry-erase markers so used washable markers instead, which work in a pinch but smears easier than dry-erase markers. 

For art today we talked about filling a paper and how some people sketch out a drawing first before painting.  Cute!  She saw the fuzzy blue yarn we were using for our croc/alligator sort and wanted that for her waves.  That brought a big smile to my face...using her imagination and adding to a project!  So, OF COURSE, after the paint dried we added yarn waves to her sea.  :-D  I also love how she tells me she is done with her work.  She'll look at it, with hands on either side and cock her head and say "It's perfect!". 

Oh yes, Croc Teeth! 

www.sparklebox.co.uk has many playdough mats if you are interested!  This is one of them. (Ha!  In this picture I said, "give me a crocodile smile!")  The words on the top say, "Roll a dice and give the crocodile some teeth!"  So that's what she did.  Another little tidbit of information regarding alligators and crocodiles...a crocodile's 4 tooth on either side shows when their mouth is closed but if an alligator's mouth is closed you can't see any of the their teeth.  This was the planned activity prior to exploring with play-doh without Ms. Amber's "interference".  :-D

And because of illness on both children and my parts...we got way behind in our letter crafts.  So K. did three of them today to catch up.  :-)  Amongst other things since we have PM activities with her also for learning how to read.  Needless to say, K and I are very busy most days and when she told me my computer room was "a mess, AGAIN!"  I had to remind her that the reason why it's a mess is because she and I do so much and I have no time to put it away!  LOL

B is for Butterfly.

R is for Raccoon.

C is for Caterpillar

(We ran out of time yesterday since it was taking us so much longer to do the other activities as we had a very tired lad here.)  I can tell here that we need to work more on writing the letter C.  I actually did not do the exact Handwriting Without Tears routine this week with letter formation.  Hmmmm...this is the first letter that she really has not mastered by the end of the week.  Interesting!  Anyway...by the time we are done with O, Q, G and S she will definitely have that magic c motion down! 

Another activity we did this afternoon that I'd like to share with you as it might be useful for some of you and that is sorting letters by whether they are chicken, giraffe, or monkey.  Some handwriting theories use this thought and the thought of the penmanship lines as a road.  So the chicken are those letters that are small and do not cross the road.  The giraffe are the letters that are tall and go from one side of the road to the other and the monkey tail letters are the ones with "monkey tails" below the line.  Nice little visual for children.  K. is ready to advance to writing on lines so our first activity was to really look at those letters and decide if they were chicken, giraffe, or monkey tail letters.  This was relatively easy for her as I've used the "monkey tail" phrase before and we've done a lot with sorting by sticks and curves.  The printable is at

http://thesmartiezone.com/writing.html.  I just cut the chicken, giraffe and monkey out and placed at the top of the paper to make columns and she sorted our tactile lowercase letters.

Another quick activity we did this afternoon was listening for beginning and ending sounds.  I'm always on a search of how I can use vocabulary cards (http://www.abctwiggles.com/) differently.  Typically we clap out the words (word chunks) or use them with our read, build, write mat.  But today, K. put the /c/ sound words up on the wall and told me what the beginning sound was (soft or hard /c/) and the ending sound.  I thought that would be a little more difficult but it came easier than I thought.  I think I'll incorporate more of that type of activity- beginning, middle, ending sounds.  I also think I'm going to try to include the word "end" with "last" when we talk about what's first and last in a line of objects because that is still difficult for her to figure out.  She seemed to understand what "end" meant so maybe that'll be the key to help her understand what last means.  :-D  

Oh, so much we do in a day but not enough time to share it all.  I'm sure this child really sleeps well at night.  :-D  I'm always looking for signs of her being tired or not interested but she's almost always seeking more and soaks it up like a sponge and I'm so enjoying myself!    I've actually went back to the Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons this last week because she is so interested in the actual reading of books and I see her "reading" to T. frequently.  So, we'll slip that in our PM activities along with sight word, vocabulary word, writing activities and whatever else gets planned for the afternoons.  :-D  Yep, now you know why I have a disaster of a computer room every single day.  I get it all put away and then the next day's stuff is set inside the door to be put away.  Never ending task...like laundry!