E is for Europe - Letter Activities

We spent some time focusing on the letter "e" while we were learning about Europe. As the weather warms up, and I get closer to the end of my pregnancy, we've been slowing down with the Around the World activities and spending more time outside and with friends. We've also been working on more Practical Life activities (that I'll be featuring soon) to help M learn to do more for herself in preparation for her baby sister's arrival.

Sandpaper Letters and Tracing

We've been working a lot with the sandpaper letters recently. M is getting more interested in writing, and although she knows the shape of many of the letters, she doesn't always write them in the traditional way. Tracing the sandpaper letters, writing the letters in the salt box, and modeling writing seems to be helping.

We also "trace" the letters in different materials, like this letter "e" made out of googly eyes! I hole punched the top of this card and added it to our growing tactile letter book. (You can see posts about other letter pages on the Around the World page.)

Pink Series Work

We've been continuing with the pink series language materials to introduce 3-letter phonetic words. The "e" set included the words pen, elk, jet, ten, and egg. M lays out the miniature objects for each word, then matches the pictures and uses her movable alphabet set to spell the words. I also have the words printed on cards so she can practice sounding out the letters. She is really interested in letter sounds right now, and loves to sound out the letters in a word, but isn't quite to the point of blending the sounds yet.

E is for Eggs

Tonging Eggs

M used small tongs to transfer Easter eggs from a basket to an empty plastic egg carton.

I also set up a transfer tray with even smaller tongs and miniature styrofoam Easter eggs.

Grinding Egg Shells

I got this mortar and pestle from Bed, Bath and Beyond. It's a great Practical Life activity because it builds strength in the wrist and fingers, and also works on concentration and perseverance (it's hard to grind these foods!). It also involved pouring (to fill the mortar) and spooning (to remove the ground up shells). M loved this activity and repeated it several times (with egg shells, as well as other things like whole cloves, stale pretzels, and potpourri).

Whisking Eggs

This tray didn't really contain eggs. (Do you really want to leave raw eggs out?) Instead, M whisked a bowl of water with a few drops of dish soap. As she whisked, the water would form bubbles, which was motivation enough to encourage her to continue. We also practiced whisking real eggs for breakfast.
 

Don't Drop the Egg!

This is a variation of Walking on the Line. I taped a ribbon to the floor, and after we practiced walking forwards and backwards on the line, M decided she needed a little more challenge. I gave her a spoon and one of the plastic Easter eggs to practice carrying an object while walking on the line. She loved it!

Thanks for following along with us!