J Week

          Life is getting a little bit crazy these days.  As the holidays are approaching, I have been struggling with finding time to do lesson plans, craft prep, and carrying out school time.  Because of this (and traveling) I decided to take my time (rather than stress) and spread the five lessons of the letter J out over the course of two weeks.  I have also decided to take some time off from teaching around the holidays and just have fun doing holiday crafts.  Sometimes I get so wrapped up in following through on these lessons and crafts that I plan, that I miss out on the teachable moments that happen in everyday life.  Instead of adding the stresses of planning and teaching to the already crazy holiday season, I am going to try to take a deep breath, relax, have fun playing with my kids, sing Christmas songs with them, bake Christmas cookies, teach my girls about the true meaning of Christmas, give to others, make Christmas ornaments, spend time with friends and family, and enjoy these sweet moments.  Sometimes it’s nice to slow down when the busyness of life is speeding up all around you…and when everything else in life slows down again, then I can spend more time teaching!  Now on to the letter J….

          Day 1 – We talked about the letter J and the sound it makes.  Brooklyn immediately knew that J is for jump and wanted to jump around the room for a while.  We also practiced writing the letter J on the chalkboard, and Brooklyn did her J dot worksheet. 

          Day 2 – We talked about jellyfish and where they live.  I had originally planned to use watercolor to paint a coffee filter to make a jellyfish but decided to make it a different way.  I used some contact paper (leftover from our Jonah craft) cut into 2 half circles.  I taped one circle down to the table and let Brooklyn sprinkle glitter on it.  Afterwards, she placed pink squares of tissue paper on top of the glitter, and we added legs made out of streamers to the flat side of the half circle.  Once she had her jellyfish decorated, I laid the other half circle on top – attaching the 2 sticky sides.  Note:  try to keep the glitter away from the edges of the jellyfish so that you are able to seal it.   I skipped the jellyfish math game because we were busy packing for our trip to Asheville the next day. 

          Day 3 – We had such a fun day talking about the jungle.  I printed out pictures of jungle animals (since we don’t have many jungle stuffed animals), cut them out, and let Brooklyn name each one.  We then made binoculars by rubber banding 2 empty toilet paper rolls together.  I had her leave the room and then hid all of the animals.  When she came back in, she looked through the binoculars into the “jungle” to find the animals.  She loves hiding/finding games so this was a big hit!    We played several times, and I had lots of fun finding new tricky places to hide the animals each time.  She even hid them for me to find a couple of times.  Next, I gave Brooklyn a piece of green paper and let her glued green strips of tissue paper onto it to make her jungle.  She then painted each of her animals (the same ones we used for the jungle hunt).  Once they were dry, she glued them onto her jungle paper.  For snack, she enjoyed animal crackers.

Searching for the jungle animals

She found a giraffe 

Brooklyn's jungle before adding the animals

Painting the jungle animals

          Day 4 – We started the day with a fun game.  I had printed out 7 clip art pictures – 4 that started with the letter J and 3 that did not.  I had her color the pictures, then I cut them out.  I held each one up to make sure that she knew what they all were, and then I placed them in a circle around the room.  I had her start by standing in front of one of the pictures.  She had to tell me what the picture was of and then tell me if it started with the letter J.  If it did start with a J, she jumped over the picture, if not, she walked around it.  She really enjoyed this game, and she went around the circle several times.  Later, she made her craft.  She started by using markers to color a popsicle stick (she used red, green, and yellow).  I then glued on 2 bells to the top of the stick (hot glue works best).  Once it was dry, she used it to make music while we sang “Jingle Bells.”

Jumping over J words

jingle bells

          Day 5 -  We read the story of Jesus birth and sang “Away in a Manger.” Then we made our craft which was baby Jesus in the manger.  Once Brooklyn finished gluing all the pieces on to make her craft, we sang “Away in a Manger” again.  After singing the song again, Brooklyn told me that we needed to add stars in the sky of our picture.  I gave her some star stickers that she added which was the perfect touch! 

         I hope everyone is enjoying the fun, exciting, busy month of Christmas lights, cozy fires, hot chocolate, parties, Christmas songs, and spending time with friends and family.  Don’t let the busyness of this season distract you from focusing on the true meaning of Christmas.

          For details and instructions of these crafts and activities, please click to see my lesson plans.  If you have more ideas for the letter J, please comment and share - I would love to hear them!!