Learning Letter "N" with a Notion For Nonsense

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.   

     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. :)

Learning Letter "M"

The letter of the week is the Most Marvelous letter "M m"

     Because there are so many words that begin with letter "Mm" it was difficult to decide what exercises to work into my weekly lesson plan. I use a mix of various mediums because it is the best way to help the kids memorize the letter and the sound it makes. 

For letter "Mm" I used these mediums:

Videos

Letter M Song by ABC Mouse                            

Olive & The Rhyme Rescue Crew

Crafts

Yarn Puff Monsters

Maracas

Mailing letters

Books

If you Give a Moose a Muffin

If you Give a Mouse a Cookie

Music

Mary had a Little Lamb (Emphasize Mary by singing her name long and slow or with a silly voice)

I knew a Letter that Made a Sound and M was her Name-O (basically replace spelling out B-I-N-G-O with the sound each letter makes)

Activities

Five Little Monkey's Jumping on the Bed (I don't usually go along with jumping on the furniture, but I have an old sofa that the kids were allowed to bounce on and jump off to act out the monkey moves)

"Mm" themed lunches and snacks

Macaroni and Cheese

Marinara and Meatballs 

Marshmellow Cereal (dry as an afternoon snack)
Muffins

Mango Milkshakes (some kids are so picky, but when it's an experiment they will try a new food and with my littles, 2 out of 3 loved it the day we tried this recipe.)

Marbled Envelops

Making Marbled Mail for the letter "M"

    For this activity, I recommend using unscented shaving creme for sensitive skin just to be careful. I never want to be the first to discover that a child has an allergy or skin sensitivity that can lead to a painful rash. I also recommend using a washable liquid paint. We followed a recipe that used food dyes, which seemed harmless because the kids were not supposed to squish their hands into the colorful shaving cream... but who was I kidding. They are kids and kids can't resist sticking they hands into a heaping pile of colorful shaving creme. 

     So the idea was to have the kids squirt a mound of shaving creme onto a paper plate and then drip drops of food coloring all over the shaving cream. They use a toothpick or the end of a paintbrush to swirl the colors around a bit and finally press a piece of paper into their fluffy, messy masterpiece. Because I wanted the big kids to learn about sending letters through the mail and mail starts with "M", my letter of the week, it was perfect to use this technique to decorate our mailing envelops.

    For a simple letter to send inside of the envelops, I wrote a very brief letter that focuses on our letter of the week. For this sample letter click here:
http://lizzylearning.blogspot.com/2017/04/dearfriend-thisweek-we-are-learning.html

 As you can see in this finally photo the kids also enjoyed a great deal of sensory fun. When it was done however, I had the pleasure of discovering how difficult it can be to wash the dye from their skin. I looked up the most gentle recipe I could find on the internet and discovered toothpaste with baking soda is the miracle fix. Of course having wonderful, forgiving parents helps as well.

Dear friend,

This week we are learning letter “M m”. I am sending you this mail and hoping that getting your own mail will make you as merry as a moose munching on muffins. While, your Mom or Dad reads this with you, try to find all the words that begin with the letter M. For example, the day I am writing this letter is Monday and it is still morning. Did you see the M in Monday and m in morning?

Did you enjoy the envelop? We made the envelops together, my friends and I. The pattern on the envelop is called “marble”. I hope getting mail makes you feel merry mouse making music!

With Warmest Wishes,

Mrs. Crawley

Musical Maracas

Sensory Fun with the Letter M

     Every other week I take my kids to the library and I seek out books for story time that use several words beginning with our letter of the week. I ask the kids to listen carefully for all the words in the story that start with the letter of the week. When they hear the letter sound or a certain word I tell them to listen for, they are to act silly or make noises. The toddlers love this activity. To give us a new letter sound reaction, I found these incredibly easy DIY Maracas.

     This week, while I read my story books featuring the letter "Mm" the kids can shake their maracas and move around with excitement. It can be hard to calm the kids back down enough to continue reading the story, but with my schedule during the week, we almost never have to rush through. It's nice most days. However, if I did need the kids stop shaking I would limit them to giving their maracas only a few shakes and stop. 

Here is the supplies list:

Plastic Easter Eggs

Plastic Spoons

Colorful ducktape

Scissors

BB's (you could also use dry uncooked rice, beans, or seeds)

     The first step is to open the Plastic Easter Egg and fill it with your BBs. I had my tots do this step because at age 3 1/2, popping open an Easter Egg is easy. 

     We didn't completely fill the egg, we left about half of the egg empty so the BBs could move easily inside and they would be noisier, of course. Finally, took the ducktape and cut it into thinner strips because the thinner strips could wrap easily around the egg. I took the two plastic spoons and placed them together with the scoop opening sides facing one another. Then I wrapped the bottom of the spoons so they would stay together.

    Meanwhile, I handed my toddler a strip of tape and had her wrap the egg so it wouldn't come apart for the next step:

     We placed the tape egg between the two spoons. Then we started wrapping again with more tape.

    My littles were  also able to wrap the tape around the spoons to decorate the handle to their maracas.

Yarn Puff Monsters

The Making of Yarn Puff Monsters    

     First of all, this is not an original idea. I find many, if not most of my inspiration from other bloggers and pins on Pinterest. However, the sky is the limit when it comes to tweaking an inspired idea to make it one of a kind. And kids are all unique, so having each child add their personal sense of style and flair makes their creations diverse and original.

   
     These adorable creatures are super easy for kids to "help" create. While a grown up will have to help with scissors, the kids get to be creative with colors and it's a useful counting tool. Start by letting the kids pick the colors the of yarn, antenna, and googly eyes. Then using a pre-cut cardboard wheel, have the kids wrap the yarn around and around while they count out loud. My kids can count to 20 on their own, so I had them count to 20 and helped them continue to count to 30 to push them to the next level, and repeated our counting 2 or 3 times depending on the thickness of the yarn they chose.

     I did not have to purchase anything for this project because the items are supplies I always have in my crafting medium. All that is required is yarn, pipe cleaners, cardboard for your wrapping wheel, googly eyes, and glue. I used a hot glue gun so they projects would be slightly more durable and we didn't have a long wait time to get to play with them.

     After, you have wrapped the yarn around the wheel 60-90 times, the kids will need to pass the project to their grown-up helper to cut the yarn. It can require a little muscle to cut, and/or very sharp scissors. Then you can pull the warn away from the cardboard wrapping stencil, find the middle of the cut yarn and tie the bundle together with another strand of yarn.

     Then just let go or flip the yarn around for a bit to make it into the shape of a puff or ball. My kids wanted theirs to be a bit more shaggy, so we kept the yarn long and it took the shape of a mop end, instead of a ball. However, if you prefer a rounder shape you can use shorter lengths of yarn or you can double the number of times you wrap the yarn around the cardboard wheel.
   

Finally, you can pull the yarn back and wrap the pipe cleaner around tight to have it stick out as the antenna. Twist the pipe cleaner to have it stay firmly in place. I used the end of a BIC ink pen to coil the pipe cleaner into the antenna springs. The puff balls at the ends of the antenna were just an extra touch we wanted to add to ours. I placed a big drop of hot glue at the top of the spring and the kids carefully placed the puff ball on the glue. We also just dabbed two dots of glue on the yarn to stick the googly eyes in place. The kids have plastic tweezers that they used for this step so they wouldn't accidentally burn their finger tips on the glue. I did not get a photo of it, unfortunately, because my hands were busy trying to help my tots with this step.

"L" is the Letter of the Week

Learning Letter "L" 

    We are making great progress with our letters! My "littles" (the name I lovingly give to the few toddlers I babysit) have learned colors, animals, shapes, and much more. We have learned to sing the alphabet song and we have learned to identify each letter of the alphabet, but only the capital letters, so far. Our curriculum has graduated to the next stage of "big and little" letters, or as we call them "grown up" and "baby letters." We are also learning the sound for each letter. My goal by next year is to begin popcorn letters and early reading. 

    This week's letter is "L". I have found that spending a full week on one letter and trying a variety of crafts, games, songs, stories, and discussion helps us to really learn and commit our learning to memory... which is basically what learning is, right?... committing the information to memory.  For letter "L" we tried the following activities: L is for Ladybug, Our Favorite Reading List for Letter L, and Helping Baby Animals to find their Grown Up.

   Please scroll down to find each of these projects for the letter "L".

"L" is for Ladybug

This craft requires:

1. Red and Black construction paper for the Ladybug and Green paper (or any color) for the background
2. Scissors
3. Glue
4. Black glitter for the dots on the wings, or a black marker works just as well
5. I used a ruler as my straight edge to create the letters, it's also just as easy to find letter L to print out and trace for free in google images.
6. I used a cup and lid as circles to make the Ladybug wings, but anything round and approximately 2-3" in diameter will do the job.

Image with supplies shown here.

Image with paper colors shown here

I created the letter "L" with the assumption that a thickness of 1 1/2", a height of 5", and for the base a width of 3" would fit well on my background and it fit perfectly. The baby L is 1 1/2"x4". To use the least amount of paper, I tried to fit as many of the letters I need for three kids onto just one page.  

Image of ruler measuring letter base

Image of ruler on black paper

Image of letter outline

Image of letter flipped to trace again

I used all the pieces of scrap to make legs and antenna for the ladybug,

Image of letters cut out

Image of scrap paper

When I had finished cutting out the letters, legs, and antenna, it was time to make the ladybug wings. I used a kids cup to trace a perfect circle for the Grown Up letter L to have ladybug wings and a cup lid that was slightly smaller than the opening of the cup to make a ladybug wing for the Baby letter L.

Image of cup used to trace wings

Image of pencil tracing cup

Image of cup lid on paper

Once I had cut out the circles I had traced from the cup and lid, the only thing left to finish was to cut the circles in halves to have two wings for the Grown Up L and one wing for the Baby l. I had purchased these fancy edge scissors a while ago for scrapbooking and thought they would give the ladybug wings a fun edge that my littles would enjoy and let them try to use them to cut (which is not shown here for sloppy reasons..LOL). I also laid out the images for the kids so they could get an idea of the desired finished results before I handed them glue sticks and glitter.

Image of shaped scissors

Image of cut out patterns laid in place

For the finishing touch, the ladybug dots on the ladybug wings, we used Elmers glue to make the dots and sprinkled them with black glitter before brushing them off to reveal the final product.

Image of glue dots with black glitter

Image of finished Ladybug craft

Our Favorite Reading List for Letter L

     When using books to teach a letter of the alphabet, a favorite game the littles and I like to play is to do something silly whenever we here a word in the story that begins with our letter. In a few of these books there are several opportunities so they are not great "before bed" books. "Willoughby and the Lion", by Greg Foley is NOT one of these. The word "lion appears only once per page. While, in the book "I Love Lemonade", by Mark and Rowan Sommerset, the opposite is true. The word "lemonade" appears frequently. 

    Some of the silly things we've done is to try to say the word that we're waiting to here like "llama" in the Llama llama books, in a silly voice or with a silly expression on our faces while we say the word "llama". When we need to get out the "sillies" or move around, we might jump or wiggle when we here the word. Of course, the sky is the limit with how creative the littles and I can be on any given day of the week.

    I would like to add that the first book in my list, "I Love Lemonade" is a silly book that includes references to pee and poop. My littles and my biggies love this book and think it is hilarious, however it is not for all listeners as I imagine some kids would use the book as an opportunity to embarrass their grown ups. I know my kids well enough that I can trust them to enjoy the content of this book, responsibly.

    Our all time favorite, is "Leonardo the Terrible Monster". If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend this book. 

HELPING BABY ANIMALS FIND THEIR GROWN UP

     Kids love animals, especially baby animals. I couldn't find images to borrow, so I freehand sketched out the Lion, Sheep, LLama, cub, lamb, and baby llama. Because my littles are still working on their ability to draw a simple line, the object of this lesson is to draw lines (an "l" word) that connect the Grown Up animals to their babies. Also, with the exception of the sheep (grown up lamb) all the animals begin with the letter "l". I had the littles write the Grown Up "L" for the grown up animal and the Baby "l" for the baby animal, before drawing the lines to connect the grown animals to their babies.

Image of grown animals and their babies

Copy of image from above with completed work by little

THEMED FOOD ALWAYS SUPPORTS THE LESSON PLAN! 

Even when I worked in an office, the best way to attract an audience was with food. It works well with kids too.

Image of Lemon Jello and a whole lemon