This week BooBoo Bear and I worked on the letter ‘D’. He had
a lot of fun pointing at the letter and saying “Duh duh DEEEEE!” Having worked
in an elementary, it’s very important to me to focus on not only the letter but
its basic letter sound as well. BooBoo thought it was fun to have the letter
written out so he could point to it and put the various things we made that
started with ‘D’ on it.
The first thing I thought of when I started brainstorming ‘D’
ideas was dough! I know Christina did an awesome activity using dough in her lesson plans here last week, but I wanted to put my own spin on it since I knew BooBoo would have fun. I quickly Googled “homemade play dough’ and found this gem. It
has a very easy to follow recipe with detailed pictures and step by step
instructions. Follow them carefully and I guarantee it will turn out great!
When I initially pulled it off, it was still sticky, so I put it back on the
heat as suggested and within 2 minutes it was perfect!
With our dough BooBoo and I made dogs, drums, dinosaurs,
door, and rocks… the last one obviously being his addition. He just HAD to
include rocks. He even kept saying “Duh-duh-duh ROCKS!” when I’d try to help
him find a ‘D’ word instead. Oh well. At least he has a good imagination.
 |
| My Dog |
 |
| Door |
 |
| Dinosaur |
 |
| 'Duh duh ROCK!' |
Then we broke out our matching game.
Because this week is
Valentine’s Week here at Howling Horn we matched hearts. Now, I am in NO WAY an
artist, but I made simple drawings of things BooBoo has seen before and tried
to clearly label them so he can start becoming familiar with their names.
He
was especially excited to see the ‘DinoSAURS!’ As we matched them BooBoo would
say the name of each item we were currently matching… and then try to pile them
all in one big pile. This was the first time we’ve done a game like this and by
the third round he was pro…enough to have picked up on the fact that matching
pairs were on similarly colored hearts so he didn’t even bother to turn them
over and look at the pictures. He's too smart sometimes.
As we were driving in the car that night he had fun telling
McGee all the ‘D’ words he’d learned “Dad! Dinosaur! Dog! Door! Optimus Prime!”
“Um, bud… does Optimus Prime start with D?” “Uh…. No! Bumblebee!” In short- he
gets it, but certain vehicular robots are a lot cooler.
I really enjoyed all our hands on learning this week. BooBoo
loved being able to shape letters and objects in the dough, and I loved watching
his imagination bloom. I highly recommend using this recipe if doing it with a
younger child because, though it’s high in salt, it is OK if they eat a bit.
BooBoo tried to scarf some down “Eat playdough Mama?” and while I was able to
talk him out of it, it was a comfort to know that if he had he would have been
OK. Also, don’t be afraid of your lack of drawing talent. Your toddler really
won’t care if your drawings aren’t completely perfect and they’ll love being
able to play with you. Booboo was only puzzled by my ‘dinosaurs’ and once I
told him that’s what they were, he was totally OK with calling them that for
the rest of the day.
What are some ways you’d teach the letter ‘D’?
Duh duh rocks! Too funny :)
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