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!

I is for Icy

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We spent most of this week playing in the snow and learning about Antarctica, but we did a few Letter I activities as well.

Montessori Letters

M insisted on working inside her "house." She actually wanted to trace letters in the salt box - first a bunch of i's, and then other letters as well.

We also looked at some Montessori pink series materials. You can see that I haven't finished the whole set, but there's enough there to get M started. Her interest in these varies, and she's still young so I'm not pushing her into it, but I like having them out and available if she wants to work on it.

Later in the week when M was painting her Antarctica coloring sheets with "snow paint" I made a letter i sheet for her to trace in "icy" paint for her alphabet book. I really like how the snow paint (white glue and shaving cream) dried puffy - very cool!

I is for Igloo

I found a dot printable from The Measured Mom that was perfect for our Antarctica theme - I is for Igloo. I thought it would be fun for M to glue cotton balls to all of the dots, but M had other plans. She decided to color the igloo and letter I instead.

I is for I Love You!

We spent Valentine's Day making cookies and gifts for our loved ones! M absolutely loves baking, and follows directions really well in the kitchen. She helps me find the ingredients, follows the steps as I read the recipe, and especially loves to be in charge of mixing.

After we cut out and baked different sized hearts and stars, M helped put icing and sprinkles on the cookies. She was more than willing to help with some taste-testing too!

M enjoyed making a beaded heart pencil topper for Gigi (my mom), and started one for herself as well. We added some letter beads from a set I bought on clearance a couple of weeks ago.

She wrapped up her day of gift-making by designing some foam heart valentines and drawings for Mommy, Daddy, Gigi, Pop Pop and Grandma. I love how excited she was to make gifts for everyone else!

Check back on the Around the World post for links to all of the letters we have done so far! Thanks for stopping by!

Linking Up With:
Artsy Play Wednesday
We Made That Linky Party

Japan, Jumping, Jello and the Letter J

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I chose the letter "J" to go along with our Asia theme for the week (J for Japan). Most of our focus for the week was on China because of the Chinese New Year, but we did talk a little about Japan, found it on the globe and read K is for Kabuki: A Japan Alphabet.

We started with some basic activities. M traced her sandpaper j, and we looked at all of the j objects in her sound bag. I always put out the salt box for her to practice tracing, but she's not a big fan of using it (I don't think she likes the texture of the salt). She used her dot markers again to "trace" a capital and lower case J (these came from 3 Dinosaurs - they have tons of free printables!).

Since the weather was nice, we headed outside for some J fun - JUMPING! We drew a hopscotch board on the driveway and practiced jumping on one foot. I also wrote out the alphabet all around the driveway. I would call out a letter or letter sound and we would race to see who could find and jump on the letter first.

J is for Jello
This was a semi-success (I'm trying to see the glass half full - haha). M loved making the Jello. She helped measure, pour and mix the water into the Jello mix. She patiently waited while the Jello set in the fridge, and she attempted to cut out shapes from the Jello. I apparently should have done a little more research (I'm not much into Jello, and didn't realize it would be so difficult...) because our Jello wasn't firm enough to cut into shapes, and we couldn't get it out of the dish. So... it turned into more of a sensorial activity - jiggly jello!

I salvaged some of the Jello to eat, and scooped the rest into a big jiggly pile for M to play with. She held pieces in her fingers, tasted it, smelled it, and scooped it around with her spoon. Then I wrote the letter J (capital and lower case) on a piece of paper and let her scoop Jello onto the paper to make Jello J's.

This was obviously not a project we could save, so we also made a Jeweled J for M's alphabet book.

Make sure you check out the rest of our Around the World Journey and the other letters we've explored! Stop by soon to follow along with us!

Linking Up With:
Hip Homeschool Hop
Tuesday Tots
We Made That Linky Party

A is for Africa - Letter Activities

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links for your convenience. For more information, see my full disclosure.

To go along with Africa Week, we did some Letter "A" activities.

Montessori Pink Series

The "archaeological dig" activity with Ancient Egyptian figures was such a huge hit that I decided to use it for a letter activity as well. We talked about the letter "a," traced the sandpaper letter, and practiced saying its sound ("ahh"). I printed Pink Series materials from The Helpful Garden. I love that each "level" of printables had a page of directions to go along with it. 

I laid out the image cards on M's mat, and hid the objects and movable alphabet letters in the sand. She used the scoop to find the objects and letters, and pulled them out with her tweezers. After she matched the objects with the pictures, I helped her use the letters to spell the words.

Pin Pricking Letters
I set up a pin poking activity for Africa, but M wasn't all that interested (she made it about half way around the outline of Africa). She asked if she could trace letters instead (ummm.. yes?!). I wrote a capital and lower case "A" on a small sheet of construction paper, and clipped it over a sheet of foam on M's clipboard. She "traced" the letters, then decorated the sheet with mummy stamps.

Letter Outlines
We are putting together an alphabet book (so far she has made a "b" out of buttons and a "c" with coffee grounds). I helped M trace Africa onto a small sheet of construction paper, and she cut it out. I wrote a lower case "a" in the middle and she "traced" it with African animal stickers.

Letter Search and Tracing
I'm not usually a huge fan of worksheets, but I did print out a combination of pages from the Letter of the Week Curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler (I got this as part of an eBook bundle), hide and seek letters from Mamas Learning Corner (free printables), ABC Activities from 3 Dinosaurs (free printables - I think M would also like these dot pages), and letter mazes from 1+1+1=1 (free printables). I usually put tracing sheets in page protectors (like these Write And Wipe Pockets) so M can erase them and re-do the sheets as many times as she wants. I've noticed lately that she's more interested if she can write directly on the paper, so that's what we did. (I'm sure it'll change again next week - I can never figure this kid out!)

M loved using the dot markers, and requested more sheets. I flipped over the worksheet pages and randomly wrote letters all over the page. She used different colors of dot markers to find different letters on the page (cover all the a's with pink, b's with blue, etc.) I plan on printing out more sheets to have on hand if she requests them again.

Aside from the traditional letter activities, we did some other "A" activities this week:

A is for Amphibian

The theme for M's Rainforest Fridays class was amphibians. She saw and touched two frogs and two toads, made a cute red eyed tree frog craft, and listened to the story of The Frog with the Big Mouth. These programs are so much fun!

A is for Arboretum

Friday was my mom's birthday, so we drove up to Asheville to celebrate with her. It was the last week for the "Some Assembly Required" exhibit (Lego brick sculptures by artist Sean Kenney) at the NC Arboretum, so we decided that would be a great place to visit.

The exhibit was pretty incredible. I could not believe the intricate sculptures were made entirely of Legos! (Check them out - they're all Legos! Even the bird feeder was filled with Legos - haha!) M liked the butterfly the best, and she burned off a ton of energy running (literally) through the arboretum.

A Week was Awesome! Stick around to see what fun we'll come up with next! And don't forget to check back on the main Around the World page for links to the other posts in the Letter of the Week / Geography series.

Linking Up With:

Welcome Party Wednesday

Mom's Library Link Up