Letter “U” -Letter of the Week Program

Welcome to letter “U” week everyone.  Letter “U” is for umbrella in our letter craft this week. There was the possibility of making the letter “U” into a unicorn but I really want to stick with the short vowel sound of letters for my preschoolers.  There will be lots of time for unicorns, unicycles and uniforms next year.  For now, I focused on words this week that had the short sound of letter “U” like umbrella, up and ugly.

We read our AlphaTales letter books and practiced saying the sound of letter “U”. I drew the children’s attention to the fact that their mouths are open when we say the letter “U” sound correctly.  The sound comes from the back of their throats and I had them put their hands on their necks to feel the movement as they made the letter sound.

The children worked together to make a letter “U” on the carpet.  They also made the letter with their legs, hands and arms.

I found these drink paper parasols at a dollar store months ago and saved them in the craft cupboard for our letter “U” week.

I taped the umbrellas to the top of a few markers and had the children trace their letter “U” sheets.  The children were highly motivated to try out their printing practice with all the different umbrella markers.

My daughter has a dress-up doll wedding kit where you can change the magnetic clothes.  I brought it out this week because underwear starts with the letter “U”.

We noticed that the word ‘up’ starts with the letter “U” and made it into a balloon game.  The children each received a balloon and tried to keep it up in the air as long as possible.

My letter review activity this week required a few supplies.  I used two letter puzzles we have and an umbrella.  You could use whatever letters you have and some sort of reference alphabet page for matching.

We started by putting together our large floor sized alphabet train puzzle.  This will be used to match letters.

I chose some letters from the small wooden alphabet puzzle and put them into the upturned umbrella.

Each child had a chance to spin the umbrella (like a roulette wheel) and watch the letters bounce around until they come to a stop. They picked up the letter that stopped closest to them.

The child gets to name the letter and bring it over to the floor puzzle.  They match their letter onto the same letter on the floor puzzle.  The game continues to the next child until all the letters of the alphabet have been matched.

We used the drink umbrellas for a second activity this week.  I wrote a few letter “U”s on a plain piece of paper.  Each child used the sharp pointed end of the umbrella to poke holes in the paper in the shape of the letter “U”.  Make sure to lay your paper on carpet or something a bit soft so that the point will puncture the paper easily.  You could also use strong toothpicks, skewers or a giant push pin for this activity.

The children like to hold their completed work up to a window to see the light stream through the tiny holes.

You can also flip the page over and trace the letters with your finger when you are done.  The back of the holes create a nice ridge and it makes it into a tactile activity.

We embraced the word ‘under’ and decided to hold snack time under the kitchen table one morning this week.  I enjoy creating experiences that help to give my preschoolers memories to link to some letter words.

The last activity this week was suppose to be finger painting an ‘ugly’ picture.  I was going to give the children a bunch of paint colours and let them mix them all together.  Given the opportunity to use all the finger paints, the chances of the children producing a muddy ugly colour was very high!  I then had googly eyes on hand which I was going to have them add at the end to their muddy blog picture. We would title the pictures, “U” is for Ugly Monster.

However, we ran out of time this week and I never got to this activity. My two kids saw the bag of craft googly eyes still sitting on the counter Friday evening and wanted to use them.  They drew their own ugly pictures with crayons and used the googly eyes.

I hope your letter “U” week is Unbelievably Upbeat!

Note***  We are away on holidays next week so Letter V Activities will be posted on Monday, March 10th.