Big Messy Ideas

Monday, January 31, 2011

Recognizing Letters



Grant can tell you the names of almost every superhero and the real identities of some of them, too. But I haven't worked with him much on recognizing the letters of the alphabet. When Nate, who is five months younger than Grant, came over and pointed to a fridge magent and said, "Q," I decided it was time to learn.

This week, I started with the letters of the kids' first names. At the library I found this great series of "sound box" books from The Child's World Press. We checked out My "g" Sound Box, My "n" Sound Box, and My "a" Sound Box. In the "g" book, a kid named Little "g" fills a box with items that start with the letter "g." Each book is a little different, and some of them are kind of clever and funny. I read the books to the kids during lunch when I had a captive audience trapped in high chairs. It worked well.

Today, we made artwork to hang up as a reminder of the words that start with the same letters as their first names. Here's what we did.
Supplies:
Large cardstock
Scissors
Glue
Pictures of items that start with the letter
Fun items that start with the letter (noodles, glitter, feathers, etc)

I cut out a large "G," "N," and "A" from colored scrapbook paper. I chose green for Grant, aqua for Avery and for Nate, I couldn't think of a color that started with N, so he got blue.

I googled "letter g pictures," and found a free preschool worksheet to print out. I cut out the pictures. I also put out some dry pasta of various shapes (G - grains, N - noodles, A- angel hair pasta).

I put some school glue in repurposed applesauce containers and gave the boys small foam brushes.  They brushed he glue onto their letters and glued on the pictures and the pasta.

Avery took this craft to another level. She got the idea to turn her giant letter A into an angel. She made the angle hair pasta into strands of hair, drew a face, and cut out paper wings. She even added a wand for fun. (As a side note, this made me extremely happy. As a crafty mom, this was the moment I had been waiting for since Avery was born. I love to see that originality and creativity coming out! Woo hoo!)

A good time was had by all. Now we can look at them on the wall and review letter sounds. Yeah!

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