Cupcakes and Commentary

I was thinking back the other day on all of my past posts from when I used to do learning projects with A when he was around J’s age. Working with J on letters, shapes, numbers, and colors recognition has been successful at times and not so successful at other times. J very much likes to do things himself, so I have to choose things that he can do most of the work. For example, he doesn’t like me to trace his hand…he wants to trace his hand. And he definitely doesn’t want me to help him trace his hand. In addition to that, his attention span to doing “sit down” learning is much shorter than A’s used to be, so I have to use my time wisely and switch up activities.

Based on this idea, I have started a “learning hour” with him several times throughout the week where we dedicate that one hour to learning about one of the recognition items I listed above. So this week we talked about the letter C…

So in keeping with the ideas above I first drew a big letter C on a piece of easel paper, then J glued construction paper cookies to. While I was getting the supplies together and cutting out the cookies, I found a stack of post it note type letters that I let J search through to find the letter C. Once he found his post it note letters he glued that to his paper as well. Then we flipped through magazines together (which he loves to do) and found pictures of items that started with the letter C. Then he glued those to the paper. J loves to glue items, so that was the main plan I had with our project.

After he started to get restless with pasting items, we moved on. We found different items around the house that started with the letter C, and then we ate a cookie and cantaloupe…snack time is always J’s favorite. After his picture dried we hung it on the wall so that he could see his letter Cs all week. And admired it. And counted the Cs on it. We also read “If you Give a Mouse a Cookie” and “Click Clack Crocodile’s Back”…two books that focus on a word that begins with the letter C.

J loved each of the different activities, especially singing C is for cookie, and gluing the letters on the easel paper. Next week we are going to work on recognizing the number 1 and I’ve got some plans with stickers (another J favorite). Oh and the best part? How proud J was to show off his letter C picture to B and A. A happy boy….who now knows the letter C (most of the time).