Letter C

Arielle (mommy): 

To begin today we had calendar time, on our calendar is a place to display the letter of the day.  I had Lily name and tell me the sounds for A and B.  We then discussed the letter C and put it up.  We looked at picture cards and talked about C words.

For our writing practice I showed Lil the correct way to write C and then had her practice tracing it with her finger on the letter card.  Then I let Lil use shaving cream on a cookie sheet to practice writing C.  I enjoyed sensory play with the shaving cream.  Tip:  if you have a child or baby you want to involve whom you don't trust not to put the shaving cream in his mouth, use cool whip.  

To get crafty we made a Curly Caterpillar to add to our other pages for our letter book.  I drew a big C on constructed paper, cut out circles, then I had Lik glue them on and add the finishing touches.

As I said we are going to make the letter guys into a book after we have made them all, and I'm going to hang the bible verses in Lily's room.

I have decide to keep whichever last three letters and bible verses we have just learned with the rest of our calendar display.  This way we can review them during our daily calendar time.  

Since many of Lil's favorite foods begin with C, snack time also helped reinforce the letter.

Cynthia (nanny): To reinforce the letter C, I integrated a phonics, science,  and art lesson. When you can combine content areas when teaching it usually makes the lesson more fun and meaningful for the kids. 

First, we created our letter C page for the ABC book. 

Then, we sang "Who let the Cs out" to review the hard c sound. 

After that, we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and discussed what the caterpillar did in the story add we went along. 

For our art activity we used recycled egg cartons that I cut in half to make our caterpillars. The girls used regular tempera paint and a small piece of pipe cleaner for the antenna. They had a lot of fun with this project. We didn't have any googly eyes on hand so I just drew a face for them. 

I thought we were done, but little sister said, "now butterfly!" I was hoping they learned that caterpillars change into butterflies, so we created a handprint painting of a butterfly. In the past, we created a footprint painting of a butterfly that turned out really cute. I'll post that one later. 

Guru moment (from Arielle): My fitness "guru" VBanks (featured in fitness with little ones) is a Bokwa instructor.  Bokwa uses letters from sign language to signal the dance steps, and each letter has its own dance (imagine that if you had wet paint on your feet you would have drawn the letter on the floor by the time the dance steps were complete).  We thought this would be a great way to teach and reinforce the letters especially for kinesthetic learners. 

Veronica taught Lil how to dance the letter C (side step, back step, side step, bounce bounce.). Veronica is even considering opening up mommy and me Bokwa class so kids and moms can learn to dance the letters!

Little Guru Moment (from Cynthia): Today as I was cleaning up after dinner, the girls were in the living room playing with the caterpillars we made and the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. As I listened in from the kitchen I heard Big Sister saying "ate oranges but still hungry." Then I saw Little Sister playing with the caterpillar pretending to eat the food on the page.(They didn't just learn this book yesterday. This is a very familiar book we have read). I snapped a pic to show their mini puppet show. It was such a great reminder for me to make available the projects and work they've done so that they can review and add on to their memory banks as we go. Making something available to them can be as simple as displaying it in their room or on the fridge.