Can You C What I See?

 

C is for Cookie! - can you tell I grew up with Sesame Street?  My children did too, but even if we hadn't, we'd still love cookies for the letter C week.... and all the other weeks too!

Activity #1 this week is cooking!

Children love to cook, or at least, that's been my experience.  There's something almost magical about spending time with your favorite grown up, doing grown up things like cracking eggs and measuring flour, and turning all those ingredients into something delicious!  It definitely takes longer to cook when you have little hands helping you - but let me jump waaaaaaaay ahead and tell you that you'll be so glad you took the time to teach them when you have a teen who can make dinner for the family!  I've taught at least 100 children (age 3-5) how to crack an egg, and you can too!  You'll do a lot of explaining and hand holding, and you'll probably pick some egg shells out of the bowl and wipe some egg of the counter top, but how else will our little ones grow?  

I digress.  C is for cookie - so help each other make a simple sugar cookie dough, then roll it on the counter like you would to make play dough snakes, curl it a little into a C shape, and bake.

While they're baking, I recommend reading any one of the books about Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar.  Your kiddos will let you know what to do after you cook them 😄.

For times when you can't actually cook, making a camera cookie is a fun alternative!  You'll need a square of graham cracker, some peanut butter (or other spread), a small round cookie, and a few small round candies.  Give your child a butter knife, and let them spread the peanut butter on the graham cracker, then arrange the toppings to look like a camera.  Smile!

Activity #2:  Hungry Caterpillars

Surely you know the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle?  It's wonderful for learning about the life cycle of butterflies, but that little caterpillar lends itself to making a letter C shape to reinforce the letter sound too! For the upper case letter C we make a simple clown face on our letter cut out - and hey, cutting starts with C too, so remember to let your littles work their finger muscles and cut their letter out!

Activity #3 Hand prints - are you and your little ones loving the hand painting process as much as mine always have?  Here are some cute ideas for letter C!  (I've linked the original source for each handprint below, you can see many many more on my Handprints and footprints Pinterest board.)

Cake - paint your child's palm and enough fingers to show how old they are.  When the paint is dry use markers or glue on small pieces of paper to make the "flames" on the candles.

Camel - paint their whole hand, then let them add a neck and head to their camel.  When the paint is dry they can draw on the details.  For the sandy background on my example we tore some tissue paper, then used a glue stick on the solid paper, and stuck the tissue paper down.  (If you try to put the glue stick on the tissue it will probably tear.)

Caterpillar - perfect for anyone who is hesitant to get their whole hand painted, just finger tips and a leaf cut out.

Crab - paint one hand at a time, make the palm prints overlap slightly.  When it's dry let your child add wiggle eyes and claws.

Castle - paint their whole hand, when it's dry they cut and paste triangles to turn their finger prints into turrets, and add doors and windows.

Clifford - one big red hand print.  I have to admit I drew the outline for Clifford's features, then the children added a triangular nose and wiggle eyes. 

Activity #4: Crawl into a cave and find things that start with Cc.  "Sure," you're thinking, "Let me pop out to my local cave with my babies in tow and see if there just happen to be C things in it.  What could go wrong?" 

Well... nothing if your "cave" is a card table with a blanket thrown over it, and you and your child look in the toy box or around the house for things to put in the cave.  Think cup (I had a clown cup from the circus!), cows, caterpillars, cats, castles... it's amazing what you'll find when you start looking!

No room for a card table cave?  Put your letter Cc things on a table to play with!

Activity #5 Sensory play with construction vehicles or toy cars in corn.

If you've been following me a while you will know this, but for those of you who are new: if you can take sensory play outside, you'll have less clean up.  I love using feed corn for sensory play: it's super inexpensive, natural, and the squirrels clean up everything we spill.  One bag lasts a whole year, as long as you keep it dry.  I store it in our sensory play table in the garage, then scoot it out when we want to play with it.  Some people store sensory materials in tubs, and choose which one(s) to play with.  Some people don't like the mess of it at all, and choose not to do this kind of activity.  Do what works for YOU!

I hope these activities keep you and your little one happily busy learning!  If you post to social media about these activities I would LOVE to see!  Tag me on IG @PaulaBeckerman2399 or on FB Paula's Primary Classroom.  

Come back on Wednesday for 5 MORE ideas for the letter Cc!