Fun with the Letter "T"

T is for Turtle

 

Of course, we could have done trucks, trains or tractors (all pretty exciting to my son) but we decided to do Turtle since we've been talking about turtles a lot recently.   I love that my son helps pick out what the theme should be.

 

 

We had so much fun finding turtle activities to do this week: books, snacks, crafts and a story-play game. 

The best part though has been the real turtles we encountered.  We've been finding young turtles crossing our yard several times a week, heading to the pond, and this week was no different.  Then we saw a big snapping turtle on our gravelly road.  We took the picture on the lower right on my phone and then came home to identify the type of turtle using one of the library books.

We had fun looking for turtle books from the library.  Here's the ones we read:

• Look Out for Turtles! by Melvin Berger
• All About Turtles by Jim Arnosky
• Franklin Makes a Deal by Sharon Jennings
• Tortoise and the Hare
• Ten Tiny Turtles: A Crazy Counting Book by Paul Cherrill

He worked on a T worksheet from confessionsofahomeschooler.com.  He requested to use his watercolors instead of crayons or markers.

We also practiced the letter T on the whiteboard, but we've been spending more time on writing his name as its something they try to do each day at preschool -- so I'm trying to help him practice on days he doesn't have preschool :)


We made Fruit Turtles for snack out of apples, grapes, and mini chocolate chips.

And a quick turtle craft out of an egg carton.  The trick to helping them stay together is to glue a second egg carton "bump" inside the one your child colors after you've glued on the head, legs and tail.

One day we also did some story play with the Tortoise and the Hare story.  First we read the story outside and then acted it out.  Below he's pretending to be the tortoise in the race, with a laundry basket shell :)

Slow and Steady wins the race!

It seems to work pretty well to just have a list of possible activities in the back of my mind and fit them in as we are looking for something to do during the week -- not scheduled in any way. My son has a lot more fun if he's decided its a good time to work on a color sheet or a craft, instead of it being my idea :)  Another great week on the Gravelly Road.