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Letter of the Week A- Day 1

A is for Airplane
Today we started my Letter of the Week- A plans. You can read more about my plans here. 
 
I found fabric letter stickers at a craft store and I placed one on a blank flashcard. They did not have lower case letters so I modified. I had Jacob trace the letter with his finger. I said, "Down, down, across" for the upper case and "around and down" for the lowercase. I have heard cutesy phrases to remember how to write the letters but at this age I feel Jacob would be distracted so I wanted to keep it very simple. Plus, we are not focusing on writing the letters but rather recognizing them.
Next, we went to the Gel Lettering. I filled a large ziplock baggie with hair gel and green food coloring (his favorite color). I left the flashcard out and had him draw the letters on the gel pack by looking at the flashcard and repeating the saying, "Down, down, across" for the upper case and "around and down" for the lowercase.
 
After that we worked on a Letter Puzzle. I had him create the letters with foam I cut out into shapes. He did this exceptionally well, I was surprised! This is just another way to practice "seeing" the letters and letter formation.
I pulled out paper airplanes after the A practice. We flew the airplanes around the room for a while I read, My A Book by Jane Belk Moncure. As I read the story we pointed out words that started with A, just like airplane. Then we used the two airplanes to create an A on a piece of construction paper. This paper will go into a binder that we will reference when practicing the alphabet. This ABC Binder will be all the letters by the end of our unit and each page will focus on a piece of transportation!! FUN! :)
These were Monday's activities for the Letter A. More fun A activities tomorrow! 





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