No! No! No!
Letter "N" is Nice, Not Negative and other Noodly Nonsense
Our letter of the week is letter "N". I work with toddlers who all happen to be the same age (lucky me). At age 3, my toddlers must hear the word "No" about 10 times each day. With that in mind, I chose not to be terribly creative when helping them to search for words that make the sound, they all know the word "No" very well. It also happens to be Easter, so in addition to my many letter lesson mediums, I put together an Easter craft making an object that begins with letter "N."
I just love to teach my littles about the letter "N" because a word they hear frequently is "No". No matter how hard we try to give more "YES", toddlers require many, many "NO" words. At least when we learn about the letter "N" and the sound it makes, we can be silly with our "No", "Not", "Never", and other Negative "N" words. That is why teaching "N" can be fun and enjoyable for me and for my littles too.
I just love to teach my littles about the letter "N" because a word they hear frequently is "No". No matter how hard we try to give more "YES", toddlers require many, many "NO" words. At least when we learn about the letter "N" and the sound it makes, we can be silly with our "No", "Not", "Never", and other Negative "N" words. That is why teaching "N" can be fun and enjoyable for me and for my littles too.
For letter "N", I planned a sensory activity I'm calling "Not so Neat, Noodly Nonsense." In addition to the sensory activity, we watched our weekly videos including ABC Mouse's Letter N song, Olive and the Rhyme Rescue Crew, and we added Sesame Street's Letter N video. I love having the YouTube App streaming on my television for these quick videos. We completed our letter highlighting workbook found on at this link: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Highlight-A-Letter-Letter-Identification-331277 on TeachersPayTeachers.com. And finally, we made a craft using an object that begins with our letter of the week and makes a great Easter craft and decoration, as well.
To make this craft I used a solo cup, Easter basket grass, glue, scissors, pompoms, hot glue, pipe cleaners and plastic Easter eggs. I began by cutting the top half of the off of each solo cup. The next step was to allow the littles to fill the bottom of the cups with Elmer's Glue. After they had a good amount (about the size of a quarter) of glue, I let them stuff the cup with Easter Grass. They had another chance to squeeze a big glob of glue to stick the plastic egg in the middle of their Easter grass so that they could make these into Nests (there it is, the "N" word). I took over for a bit with the hot glue next. I let the littles pick out their Easter chick pompoms and I dabbed a bit of hot glue into the egg to stick a large pompom first, then another shot of glue to stick on the smaller pompom for the head. Finally, I used hot glue to stick the pipecleaner that I had first shaped into a beak.
The littles finished off the project with a few foam stickers because they wanted to make each chick unique. I had a few letter "N" stickers (not shown in these photos) that I stuck to the outside of the nest so we could talk a bit more about our letter and the sound it makes in the word "nest".
For the "Not so Neat, Noodly Nonsense" shown here and at the top of this post, I was inspired by another blogger who had shared the idea on Pinterest which took me to this link: http://www.makedoandfriend.uk/2012/03/40-ways-to-do-sensory-play.html?&cuid=5e17882e9e36561dc55898bd627eef92
The blogger had posted a picture of cooked and cooled spaghetti noodles. I loved it, so I tried it. I cooked two boxes of spaghetti noodles which probably cost a buck each, added a little food coloring and a little extra vegetable oil to prevent sticking. I let them cool down for about 10 minutes. We took the noodles outside (easier cleanup) tossed them in a toboggan (it was large enough and bowl shaped), added some toys, and let the kids just enjoy the activity. They had so much fun, they played with this mess for nearly an hour before they lost interest.
Please note that this mess is safe for the kids to eat, there was nothing harmful added to the food. However, once I added toys and let it mix with outdoor elements I insisted that it was no longer food and to be safe, none of my littles were allowed to taste it once it was outside. :)
For the "Not so Neat, Noodly Nonsense" shown here and at the top of this post, I was inspired by another blogger who had shared the idea on Pinterest which took me to this link: http://www.makedoandfriend.uk/2012/03/40-ways-to-do-sensory-play.html?&cuid=5e17882e9e36561dc55898bd627eef92
The blogger had posted a picture of cooked and cooled spaghetti noodles. I loved it, so I tried it. I cooked two boxes of spaghetti noodles which probably cost a buck each, added a little food coloring and a little extra vegetable oil to prevent sticking. I let them cool down for about 10 minutes. We took the noodles outside (easier cleanup) tossed them in a toboggan (it was large enough and bowl shaped), added some toys, and let the kids just enjoy the activity. They had so much fun, they played with this mess for nearly an hour before they lost interest.
Please note that this mess is safe for the kids to eat, there was nothing harmful added to the food. However, once I added toys and let it mix with outdoor elements I insisted that it was no longer food and to be safe, none of my littles were allowed to taste it once it was outside. :)
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