C Week

          Week 3…letter C.  Brooklyn is still enjoying school but getting through our entire circle time before moving on to our craft has gotten a little challenging.  Brooklyn seems to get more excited about the song of the week (because of the motions) and craft and less excited about sitting down and going through our list of circle time activities.  Because of that, I have chosen the most important things from circle time and gotten a little creative on how we do them.  We march around and sing our Good Morning songs (being active is more fun than sitting), count our snacks (raisins, goldfish, and grapes are always fun to count J), and talk about the important things while eating - the meaning of our Bible verse and the sound our letter makes.  Whenever I see her disengaging, I tell her it’s time to sing our Caterpillar Song (or whatever her favorite thing is that week).  This week, the Caterpillar Song has been such a big hit!  (The words are written out in the lesson plans.)  I gave Brooklyn one of my old scarves to help her act out the song.  We start with the scarf folded up to look like a caterpillar who is “wiggling around.”  Later in the song, the caterpillar builds a cocoon; Brooklyn loves lying on the floor pretending to be asleep while I wrap the scarf around her.  While she’s lying there, I explain how the caterpillar takes a long nap and when he wakes up, he is a butterfly.  Then we sing the last verse while Brooklyn flaps the scarf around and pretends to be a butterfly.  I love watching her excitement as she jumps out of the cocoon each time and giggles as she runs around flapping her wings.

          The C sound is difficult to learn because unlike a lot of letters, the C sounds like is should make more of a “sss” sound (which it does sometimes).  I have also noticed that Brooklyn pronounces her C’s as T’s, so we had a hard time this week with the C sound!  I am happy to say that by the end of the week, she was remembering the correct C sound and identifying some words that start with a C.  Brooklyn also learned her verse very quickly this week and was able to quote it all by herself!

          On Monday I introduced C, and we talked about the different sounds that the C can make.  We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and discussed the life of a caterpillar (with a little help from our Caterpillar Song).   I cut out 8 green circles to use for our Caterpillar C craft which we first of all counted.  To help Brooklyn have more independence in making her craft, I drew 8 dots in the shape of a C on a piece of paper.  I then told her to glue the circles on the dots.  She followed my instructions perfectly and was so proud of herself for making her Caterpillar C of Circles all by herself!  She then put on the eye stickers, and I drew on the mouth and antennas.  (She also insisted on adding a little nose!)  We enjoyed carrots for our snack. 

          We were thankful for the cool fall weather on Tuesday morning and took a walk around our neighborhood in search of a big leaf.  As we walked, we talked about how the leaves are starting to change their colors since the season changed from summer to fall.  We brought our leaf home, and Brooklyn could hardly wait to see what we were going to make with it.  First, we put a piece of paper over the back of our leaf and used a crayon to color over it to make a leaf print on our paper.  (I did most of the coloring to make sure we got a good leaf print.)  It was a little difficult to notice our leaf, so I decided to cut it out and let Brooklyn glue it onto another piece of paper to show off its shape.  Next, I painted Brooklyn’s toes green and we stamped them onto the leaf to make a cute little caterpillar.  Once it dried, I added eyes, a mouth, antennas, and feet.  For snack I gave Brooklyn some green grapes which she lined up to make a caterpillar.  

          

          Wednesday we went to MOPS so we took the day off from school.  

          Thursday we focused on clouds.  We spent some time outside looking at the clouds and talking about what they are made of.  We then made our cloud print craft by dripping white paint onto a piece of blue paper, folding the paper in half to spread the paint, then unfolding the paper to reveal our clouds.  As soon as we opened ours, Brooklyn said “I see an airplane!”  She was right – one of our clouds did look like an airplane!  We also talked about chocolate chip cookies – now that’s one topic that is sure to keep a kids attention! We played our math chocolate chip cookie counting game, using mini M&M’s for our chocolate chips, and Brooklyn successfully finished the entire game before eating them.  After a busy morning, we didn’t have time to bake chocolate chip cookies together like I had wanted, so we had cheese and crackers to go along with our M&M’s for snack. 

     

          Friday’s C words were Caleb and Canaan.  We read the Bible story about Moses sending the 12 spies, including Joshua and Caleb, into Canaan.  For our craft we made a spyglass using a toilet paper roll and a paper cup.  I let Brooklyn pick a piece of paper in the color of her choice which she decorated with markers.  I then assembled her spyglass and taped on her decorated piece of paper.  She enjoyed “spying” out the window and even let your dolls take turns with her new spyglass.  We had fruit for snack just like the spies brought back from Canaan.

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