C is for Cuddling on the Couch with Cocoa

I think we're getting in a sort of groove now that Little Miss and I are in our 3rd week.  She's ready and eager for her "Glimmercat" activities and she is noticing letters all around in her everyday world.  I heard her calling out "A,B,C,D,E,F,G!" when the credits began rolling at the end of a movie the kids were watching.

So, this week we are covering the Letter of the Week for the letter C:

Everything we go over in this packet in available for free download here at this link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Letter-of-the-Week-C-1971569

In our letter of the week packet, the summer background has shifted to winter and Glimmercat is cuddling around a hot cup of cocoa. 

DAY 1:

I explained to Little Miss that Glimmercat was really cold.  So cold that she had started chattering like this: "C-c-c-c-c!"  (Hard C sound).  Which, of course is the sound for C.  And now, Glimmercat is warming up with her hot cup of cocoa.

So, of course, we had to have some hot cocoa too.

First, we began with the Color sheet that shows the kitty in the snow up above.  I noticed that Little Miss was tracing the letter with her finger...Yay!  That's such an awesome jump into understanding right there!

Next, she colored her page because she loves coloring. And then, we moved on to the Matching Game.  For the first time, I decided to print out the colored version of this game.  We went over each of the pictures to make sure she knew the names of them.  "Cactus" and "Crab" were new, and she needed a refresher on "Clown", too.  But she definitely knew "Cupcake".

Then, with great pride, she showed off how she could cut these squares out ALL BY HERSELF to Grandma who was visiting.  Look at her go!

Now on the first Matching game with Grandma, Little Miss cleaned up.  She got all the matches!  We were impressed until we realized that she could see the colored images through the thin paper. (Haha!  Smart girl!)

Teaching Tip:  Use THICKER paper for printing out the colored version of the Matching Game!

Not having thicker paper, we improvised and I cut out little squares to tape to the backs of the paper squares.  Grandma and Little Miss had another game and this time it was a bit more evenly matched.

Still fun, though!  Grandma and Little Miss finished up this teaching time by cuddling on the couch with an old book called, "Cowboy Andy".

Remember, "Cuddling" and "Couch" are both wonderful "C" words to explore with your little learner, too.  Especially when a book is involved!

DAY 2:  C is for Caterpillar

This was one of those neat times when it seemed as though God was working out a special serendipity for us, because on the very day we were planning to do "C is for Caterpillar", guess what Little Miss found outside!

We brought it inside and gave it a jar to hang out in, and it stayed with us for the morning, (until Mommy got worried that we didn't know what sorts of food it needed and let it go back outside).   What a great introduction to caterpillars!

After that excitement, we did the Cut and Paste C words together.  This time, Mommy cut out the words and read them one by one to Little Miss and she found the pictures and glued them on herself.

Then, I printed out the Dot to Dot Caterpillar, which she guessed ("That's a Caterpillar on a leaf!") before we did it together.  Little Miss doesn't take easily to Dot to Dots, so we always do these together, with Mommy's hand gently over her's, helping her go the right way.  We say the numbers together as we go.

We finished up with a tried and true Caterpillar Craft made from an egg carton.  Even her older brother decided to get in on this.  I think finding the real caterpillar outside was inspiring to him, too.

A pair of googly eyes and a pipe cleaner poked through two holes in the top is all it needed to be finished off.

I'd like to say we finished off this perfect Caterpillar day by reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle...

...because how awesome would that be?  Talk about pulling it all together!  (Insert Lego Movie "Everything is Awesome" song here).

But, it didn't work that way.  After the craft, and the excitement of the real caterpillar, my two kiddos were just done.  Ah well.  We have this delightful book pictured above and we read it regularly, so we'll connect those dots another time.

Teaching Tip:  When your child is done learning, you will know.  Let them go and play.  It doesn't help to insist on keeping them there when they are done.  They'll make up for it another day.  Keep the learning fun so it isn't a chore for either you and your small one.  

DAY 3:  C is for Crown!

 It was that kind of morning... Little Miss woke up feeling like a princess, so she wore her princess dress most of the day, and we worked it into the lesson.  (Hey, you do what you can to meet them right where they're at, you know?)

So, C was for "Crown" on this day, along with the other things we ended up working on.  I decided to print out the C Little Book...which looks like this:

This little book is really four activities in one...First, Little Miss explored "C is for Coloring":

Because she loves coloring.  And then, she and I worked on the other activities together.  She is too young right now to be able to do these other things all by herself.  But she enjoyed learning to match the Crabs with other C words, and finding the little c's in the picture.

I also pulled out the little pom poms to have her fill in the C of her little Book, but as you can see, she had more fun just making a pom pom C all by herself on the table.  Great job, Little Miss!

The last thing we did was to do complete the "What Do You See?" puzzle, which in the C packet, is this cute little clown.  Then, I helped her write "Clown" underneath.  

Remember, everything you see here for the "Letter of the Week for C packet" is available for free download here at my store:  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Letter-of-the-Week-C-1971569 

Do, DO download that freebie and try all this fun stuff at home!  

DAY 4:  C is for Cow! 

Your child has their good and bad days just like you.  My girl's been doing so great, and then, well, today just began rough.  I had other things planned, but decided to keep it light based on how her morning had been going so far.  (It's SO okay to change your plans like this!)  

Here's what we did to make the day easy and fun:

This C craft is mysteriously labeled as Letter B (I must change that!), but it is of course a Cow, and I printed it out from our Letter of the Week C packet and we did this first.  Little Miss cut out most of the rectangle herself, and was willing to try cutting out the head of the cow with my help.

 Here she is applying her glue-stick like a pro.

  And there's her finished cow...very easy and satisfactory. 
 
Then, while I was working with her brother, I gave her some salt in a pie pan to do a little sensory C practice...

She wrote some nice C's in the salt, and then busied herself drawing additional pictures in it.  She was having fun drawing "Sally" from the Cars movie, so technically she was still doing C work...but it would have been okay if she was just doodling around.

 NOTED TODAY:  I like the salt better than flour, because it draws nicer with a little one's fingers and is easier for them to shake to get a fresh surface.  

We finished up today with this hilarious picture book which happens to be loaded with Cows and the letter C.  "Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type" is a pretty funny story about Cows who go on strike with the Chickens in order to blackmail their farmer into giving them electric blankets.  It's a fun read with nice sound effects: "Click, Clack, Moo.  Click, Clack, Moo.  Clickety-Clack, Moo..."  

Both of my kids love it and like repeating those words with me.

Little Miss and her brother cuddled up for this read aloud and here she is pointing out a C for me on the pages.  

Teaching Tip:  The best picture books for kids age 5 and under are short reads with few words and plenty of sound effects.  Even though Meg Ryan makes that chapter book appear extra fascinating on "You've Got Mail", I can guarantee that in real life, those kids sitting in her story hour would be yawning and looking around for more interesting things to do.  Save the longer, wordier books for when they're older: they'll enjoy them eventually.

DAY 5 -   C is for Camels, Crickets and Calling it Good

Today, I started on the C Maze with Little Miss, going over the little pictures on the bottom, and then explaining which ones to circle.  She was very excited to see the ant picture on here, and would have liked to have circled it, too, since she recognized it and figured that it needed a circle also.  But I just explained again that we were only circling the pictures that started with the C sound.  

Next, in preparation for this activity...

...I figured we should watch a YouTube video on camels.  Little Miss has been to the zoo and has seen them in person, but you see so many animals when you visit the zoo, I didn't think she would have remembered them.

So, we watched this YouTube video animating the song "Alice the Camel":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBe49Yo3ca8

And that was fun, but then I thought it would be good to show her a real one, so we watched this video that shows children riding a camel:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jxpaVW4_cE

And then to finish up, we watched this pretty funny video showing camels up close and in the camera:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtezAP-AbzY  .

Then, we were ready for her Camel Coloring page:

She's getting better at finding the lowercase letters and coloring in just the shape that belongs to those letters...but there were a lot of shapes, and she gave up on it partway through.  That's okay.

I read one more story:

And then we decided to call it good.

She has done a great job this week, and is ready for a break.  Time for a little bit more Cuddling on the Couch with hot Cocoa...

 

B is for Bouncing!

I was looking through my last post about teaching my little newbie and I honestly felt let down in myself.  Here I am, blogging about what a kinesthetic learner she is, and all my pictures are showing my little mover sitting down, writing on worksheets!

 "What?!!  That's not right!" I thought,  "I need to do more active and sensory stuff than I'm doing."

So, in retribution for my academic pushing, I decided I would lay off everything for the first day of this week.  I was going to just let her play the whole day.  So, there I am, working away at the letter Q Letter of the Week Packet on the computer and all of a sudden, by my elbow is my little munchkin.

"Is that my kitty?" asked Little Miss, watching me work on the Glimmercat in the picture.
"No, I was going to let you play today," I told her.   She stayed right there watching my computer.

"I want a kitty," she commented.  Okay, so maybe it was just Mommy who was hoping for a break.  

 "Do you want me to give you some work to do?"

"Yeah!" she rejoiced, in a happy little voice.

So, I printed out a few items from my letter of the week B packet (https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/B-Letter-of-the-Week-1958162) , and here's what we did:

DAY 1 - Introducing B

Here's the Path of Motion for B.  Okay, (aside from the obvious health endangerment issues evident from a baby drinking from a bottle that a cat's been putting its paw on) the whole idea here is that this cute baby asks for her bottle but she's a baby and can't say the whole word so what comes out is: "B-buh!"

We also sang our little song for the B sound, sung to "The Bear Went Over the Mountain", shown in the lesson plan below: 

"Buh" is the sound for B, of course, but try not to drag out the "buh" sound but keep it quick and poppy.  I usually write out "buh" to distinguish it from the letter's name in the lesson plans, but when teaching the sounds, you want to keep them short and quick.

First, we printed out the Color Sheet, and this time, after Little Miss colored the cat and the baby, she used pom poms to fill in the letter B.  We used big pom poms for the big B and little pompoms for the little b.

Next, I printed out the Matching Game and we went over the pictures to make sure she knew what they all were.  There was one that surprised me:  she didn't know what a bat was yet.  She said, "Flying", which was a pretty good guess for that little bat picture.  So, I explained it was a bat, and filed that information away.  When it comes to doing our bat craft, I will make sure that I show her a video of little bats (Hopefully, I can find one that isn't too creepy!).

I never insist on kids coloring, but as you can see up above, she wanted to.  I did pull out my special Prismacolor pencils, because they are much nicer for small children to color with than regular colored pencils, and they give her such nice control over her coloring.

She wanted to own her cutting a bit more this time.  Paper is still unwieldy, but I have to say she did a really good job.  She was forgetting to close the scissors and tried to force them through the paper, so I gently put my hand on hers and helped her close the scissors.  But she's holding the paper this time.  Kids learn so quick!

Mommy and Little Miss then played a Memory Matching game with the pieces she had cut out.  She did a great job this time.  She and Mommy tied with three matches each.  For only her second game, that's awesome!

And then, she was done!  Just like that.  Which is about right.  I'd say we spent about 30 minutes total on this work, and then she felt she had completed enough work and was ready to go play again.

Teaching Tip:  Please remember, these little people are still VERY little people.  Twenty to 30 minutes is all you need for a day of this kind of "work".  And for smaller ones, even less time is okay.  As they get older, you will be able to tell when they are ready to do more.  At this age, their play is STILL incredibly important, probably more so than any "work" they do.  


DAY 2  -  BUS!

First, we did the little Bus puzzle.  Little Miss feels that she is quite a Puzzle Pro since she did her first one last week.  Grandma was here to help her with this and I think she was having fun showing off a little.

Next, we did the Matching the Letter worksheet.  First, I went over the letters with her on the left side.  Then, we talked about the pictures on the right.  It was good to go over both.  Little ones need a lot of repetition.  And then, with Mommy's help, we did this one together with a pencil.  I might let her do it again, tomorrow with a highlighter.  We'll see.  That was all we did on this day because she did a special Reading Literacy activity with Grandma (see the letter L packet) and was outside doing a Scavenger Hunt, so I figured this was plenty. 


DAY 3 - BEARS & BERRIES!


Today was all about Bears!  Below, you can see the craft sheet we used from our Letter B packet.  This is our little B is for Bear craft.

Little Miss was all ready to go.  Because there were little parts to cut out, I planned on cutting all four paws at least, but she really wanted to try the face on her own...

Here she is with her finished product...

I told her to hold onto her little bear while we read a story about a little bear...

This is such a wonderful picture book and most people are familiar with it.  We developed our letter B Reading Literacy page around this Caldecott winner.  So, we read the story together and...

...then we did the Reading Literacy page.

Little Miss is too young for the sentence writing, but she's ready for this activity, especially since I have blueberries for her to do it with.  The picture book is all about a little girl named Little Sal who picks berries and puts them in her pail (some of the time), and with this worksheet we get to do the same thing...and then eat them, just like Little Sal. 

Now this is fun!  And great practice with numbers and counting.  We haven't done too much with numbers, so counting berries up to five and then getting to eat them is delightful and just the right level!

What about the number activity below?

She needed help finding the numbers, and making sure to just color in the shape with the number was tricky.  But, she started getting the hang of it by the time we had finished the blue sky together...and then she was having fun revealing the bear that was hidden with the numbers.  And she finished coloring in the green bushes all by herself!

After all that number work, it seemed perfect to end with the Bear Dot to Dot page.  Now, we worked on this together, finding the numbers and then Mommy going over how to draw from one line to the next.  I don't expect her to do this kind of thing by herself for a loooooong time.  But doing it together is great practice.


DAY 4 - BUTTERFLIES!

I don't know about your kids, but my Little Miss loves butterflies.  So, we couldn't miss the opportunity to do something for butterflies.  Now, we could have done this one, which is included in our Letter B packet:

It's a very cute and fun craft, too.  But she has done this before...over here:  http://glimmercat.blogspot.com/2015/07/letter-b-activities-for-ages-2-to-4.html

And if you happen to notice the butterfly bread craft that we did in that posting, that was also a lot of fun!

So, I wanted to do something neat and different on this day.  And so I made this:

And then, we added some bow-tie pasta that she painted, to make this:

This craft has its own special blog here: http://glimmercat.blogspot.com/2015/09/b-is-for-butterfly-craft-freebie.html  and although the craft is not in our regular B packet, this cute flowery background is available here for free download:  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/B-is-for-Butterfly-Craft-Freebie-2072841


DAY 5  - BATS & BOUNCING!

We had a weekend in between Day 4 and today, so I reintroduced the first B page we did and reminded Little Miss that B says buh!  This time, she filled in the B with counting cubes.

I try to reinforce that the Capital is "Big B" and the lowercase is "little b", when I talk about them.

 Then, in preparation for our Bat Craft, we went to the computer and found these two very fun Bat videos.  We began with this one of an adorable baby bat that is being hand-fed with human hands:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T84jdO8YrYA

Usually, at this age, it's really better to find bat videos that are not going to creep children out.  I loved to see Little Miss cooing as she watched this one, all smiles.  And my son was commenting, "I wish we had a baby bat!"  That is called a successful introduction to bats.  We followed it up with this one from the San Diego Zoo because it shows adult fruit bats eating, flying and hanging upside down, which are the things that make this little creature so fascinating to watch:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSCAZvrAREk

Teaching Tip:  When showing children YouTube videos, always preview them yourself in advance and search for the ones that are short (like maybe 1 to 3 minutes in length) and show a lot of action. 

 After those videos, Little Miss was raring to go on her bat craft.  Here's our lesson plan that shows our "B is for Bats" printable:

She began cutting out the wings all by herself, and was pretty pleased with herself.  Then, she asked for help when it got tricky. 

I didn't have a brown pompom on hand, but I did have a nice fluffy white one that we easily rolled around in some paint.

 I have to admit, it's not as cute as that baby bat in the first video!  But Little Miss liked this fun, easy little craft.

Next, I wrote a great big chalk B on the sidewalk outside.   Little Miss got her bouncy ball and I had her bounce her ball on the big B and say the B sound when she did it.

A little later, her brother wrote a few more chalk B's on the sidewalk and both of them bounced from B to B.

 B is for bouncing!  Now that's something a kinesthetic learner can remember!

 
That's all for the letter B --if you'd like to purchase our Letter of the Week packet for B, it is available here:  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/B-Letter-of-the-Week-1958162

And for those of you with little kinesthetic learners of your own, stay tuned for next week with the letter C!