Letter Of The Week - I

Again, catching up on our letter-of-the-week posts. 'I' was a great week. It was challenging to think of themes for the days that I could come up enough activity for, but once I got going, we made out pretty well!

Day One:

The letter page we made was decorated with Ichiban noodles. I could not come up with a craft supply that starts with I. Well, except for 'ink' but we had done stamping on our letter D, and I didn't want to repeat it. If you have any other ideas, please leave me a comment and let me know!

To make the Ichiban more appealing as a craft material, we crumbled it up and painted it. Then when the paint was dry, we glued it by clumps onto our letter I. It ended up looking more like colourful candy popcorn than anything else, but my guy was happy with it.

I went onto our local library's website to see if there were any alphabet books that went with the letter I, and came up with this one. I checked it out, and put it aside until our letter I day, when we pulled it out to read. I didn't read it first, which I normally do with children's books I borrow. It turned out that this was not, strictly speaking, an alphabet book. The only letters that it highlighted were the ones in the word 'Inuksuk,' while I thought it would have arctic terms for all the letters A-Z. Kind of disappointing, but not a huge deal.

Day Two: I is for Ice Cream.

This may be his favourite alphabet moment to date.

* We made shake-and-make ice cream

* We read Clifford and the Big Ice Cream Mess, and The Ice Cream King.

* I remembered this number ice cream cone visual from our Joy School numbers lesson, and made some for us to use. First I had him stack the scoops from 1-5, then from 5-1. Then I flipped over the scoops so that the number was face down (to avoid confusion) and we looked at some simple adding and subtracting equations. Ie: 2 scoops plus 2 scoops makes how many? etc.

* We coloured an ice cream colouring page

* We played an ice cream computer game here. (It focuses on colours and counting)

* But the happiest moment of the day, hands down, was when I surprised the kids with a trip to Dairy Queen! Everyone got a child's size sundae and we sat in a booth, and enjoyed every last lick.

Day Three: I is for Iqaliut

*We spent this day learning about Canada's North, and the people, environment, and heritage it holds.

*We used rocks to create our own Inuksuks

*We read A Promise Is A Promise, The Littlest Sled Dog, and Here Is The Arctic Winter

*We watched a segment from the Planet Earth DVDs we own, and I found the corresponding clip on Youtube, just for you!

*We ate fish for lunch.

* We build our sugar cube igloo

Day Four: I is for Instruments

* We read Chuck's Band, and Zin, Zin, Zin A Violin

*We recited and sang the nursery rhyme, "Hey Diddle, Diddle."

*We played on our piano

*We listened to music on the stereo

* We made a couple instruments from household objects. These shakers are paper towel tubes that we decorated. The ends are sealed with wax paper held in place by rubber bands. We filled one tube with a couple tablespoons of uncooked rice, and the other with the same about of popcorn seeds. Then we shook them to hear the difference in the sounds they produced.

*We made this drum from an empty Nestle's Quick can. Again, decorated. Our drumsticks were the markers we used.

*We read the Shel Silverstein poem, "Ourchestra."

*We played this computer game