Letter of the Week - Letter N

So we've completed over half the alphabet and we are on the downhill slope.  Wow, that's amazing to think.  I'm so thankful Addilyn is still enjoying our time together and that she is still so excited to learn.  Here is our curriculum for letter N week as well as pictures from a few of the fun activities we did.

On the first day of our letter we always start out with handwriting practice and letter introduction worksheets.  Addi is becoming better with handwriting.  Don't get me wrong, it's still pretty atrocious, but she is trying and that's all that matters!

N is for Noodles!  We had a great time gluing different types of noodles on our Capital N.

Next, we played with our noodle sensory box.  I mixed spaghetti, penne, elbows, and shells together and through in a few alphabet letters.  I asked Addi to find all the letters by searching through the noodles and then place the letters on their correct spot on the chart.  Josiah enjoyed this activity a lot too.  Afterwards, Addi got to practice her sweeping skills while cleaning up the mess they made when they started throwing the noodles.  

Addi still loves this busy bag that she got months ago.  She made several noodle bracelets from the dyed pasta and pipe cleaners.

I also thought we could make noodle necklaces and let Addi begin learning the skill of threading (in hopes she'll be able to sew one day).  Josiah, obviously too little for this one, played the good 'ole noodle punch game.  This was one of Addi's favorites when she was his age.  All you do is punch a few holes in any empty card board box and let your child push penne pasta though the holes.  It doesn't have to be dyed, but we used ours for all sorts of projects and I dyed them a long time ago.

N is for Nest.  We went hunting for nests in trees but did not find any and we walked down to the nature center near our house.  They were closed on the day we went so we just made our own nest from a coffee filter and some easter grass.  

 N is for Name.  We made a name train this week.  Addi is learning how to spell her name (and then hopefully by this summer she can write it) so I have planned several activities over the next few weeks on games to help her learn it a little better.

N is for numbers!  Addi and a friend decorated their lowercase n with some number stickers.

 We played with the number wheel (another busy bag from a long time ago), which she has gotten so much better at!

We played this fun fun game called number wiggles.  Usually if I find an idea online I link to it on our curriculum, but for some reason I didn't do that on this game and I really regret it because I can not for the life of me remember which blog I read about this game.  If it is your idea, please leave a comment and I would love to give you the credit you deserve!  Anyway, Addi got to roll the die and then count the dots to see how many times she had to preform the action word she drew.  For example, here she is blinking 4 times.

 This round she had to clap six times.

 Jumping 5 times.

N is for Nose.  My sweet husband was home one day while we were doing our lessons and he was playing around with the camera taking pictures of us.  I'm not sure why he wanted some in black and white, but there you have it.  I drew a bunch of faces on paper and included the eyes and mouth but I left off the nose.  We went around the house and picked out things that we could glue on the paper to give each of the faces a nose.  We found everything from a cotton ball,to buttons, and beads.  Addi even found a black bean on the floor that I had missed from when we had dinner the night before.  May seem gross to use food that fell on the floor, but I went with it and tried not to stifle her creativity. 

I don't own sensory bottles, but as we were learning about the nose I really wanted to utilize the opportunity to do a sensory activity on smelling.  I got three medicine cups and put vanilla extract in one, mint extract in another, and lemon juice in the third.  I covered Addi's eyes and had her smell the cup and told her what it was.  After two times of telling her what each smell was I had her cover her eyes and guess with one I was holding up to her nose.  She got it right every time.  I was so proud of her.  Next time I'll have to make it a little more difficult.

And last but not least, here are a few books we read this week!

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Letter of the Week - Letter J

To see our curriculum for the week please click below.

It was a jungle in our house this week!  We started with the fun foam stickers and made a cute tree with a monkey and a lion.  Addi wanted more,  but that's all I had.

We made a capital letter Jaguar.  I discovered that she is getting very good at drawing circles.

Then over the course of the next day or so we made several different paper plate jungle animals including a snake, a parrot, and a lion (which was great for cutting practice).

I thought they al turned out great!

 We read several jungle themed books.

We played a jungle animal matching number game.

And on Friday, we made a safari vest and some binoculars so we could go on a safari and look for all the jungle animals.  ;)

 And, of course, we had a jungle-rific snack.  

Lowercase j for jewels.

I'm not sure if this makes me a good mom or a bad mom, but I taught my kids that J is for jumping and I let them jump off the couch all week.  I can justify that this was to develop their gross motor skills but, whatever, it was just plain fun!  Seriously, over the course of the week they had HOURS of excitement with this activity.  

 J is for juice and oh, how my kids love them some juice; however, we always drink it from a carton.  So, I thought this would be the perfect week to teach my little ones how to make juice yourself.  We purchased a huge bag of oranges and then I realized when I got home I didn't have a hand held juicer.  I asked my neighbors...no one had one.  I looked at 5 different stores and I could not find one...and then I realized how sad it was that no one has or sells juicers anymore.  So, we went the even more old fashioned way and just squeezed them ourselves.  Addi on more than one occasion said, "Mommy, this not easy."  But, oh how my little girl was just thrilled at her hard work!

What is J week without Jello Jigglers?  I thought that this was more than applicable.  Infact, jello for letter J week is pretty much a necessity.  This was the first time we had done jello in a long long time and it brought me so much joy watching my little girl have the best time with her new favorite snack.

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