N is for Name

With summer break in full swing we've been keeping busy with big brother and big sister, so tot school has taken a back seat. But Sweet E and I did manage to do a few N is for Name activities along the way. Keep scrolling to see what we did, or click on the links below to visit similar themes from previous years.

N is for Nose - 2015

The Letter N - 2013

Introducing the Letter N

We started with the usual activity page. She has an N in her name, so she already knows this one. The page included tracing, stamping, poking with a giant pushpin, building with beads, and painting with a q-tip. With the latter she went a little paint-happy lol.

Stamping

Stamps are a favorite activity to pull out here and there, so we started our name recognition activities with this simple one.

DIY Geoboard

There was a giant piece of Styrofoam in one of our many Amazon packages this summer, so we turned it into a big geoboard! After some free play, and having Sweet E hammer in some golf tees for fun, I arranged them to spell her name. Then I invited her to form the letters by stretching rubber bands over them. I was so busy playing with her that I don't have many pictures, but here is an example of what we were doing!

Crayon Resist Watercolors

I wrote Sweet E's name in white crayon, then gave her the seemingly blank paper to color with watercolors. As she painted, her name was revealed!

Sorting Letters

Next she sorted the letters of her name with circle stickers.

Color Sorting

For our final name activity we combined color sorting, fine motor practice and a snack! I printed out dot marker pages in the letters of her name, scaled down to size. Then I colored them in Froot Loop colors, and invited her to cover the circles with the cereal.

She just loved this!

So pretty!

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N is for Nose!

Books

We chose these two books for our N is for Nose day! The first was a simply-written text about various smells, and how some are pleasant and some are bad. The second was just a cute, rhyming book about the many uses of an elephant's trunk. We enjoyed both of these!

Letter Recognition

For our letter recognition activity of the day, we printed dot marker pages from Shannon's Tot School and used our dot markers to fill them in.

Honey Pot did a pattern!

And here is Little M&M's.

Sight vs. Smell

I found this super cool activity from Brilliant Beginnings Preschool. I filled the clear glasses with water, white vinegar and rubbing alcohol. Then filled two more with water + food coloring. Then I asked the kids to tell me, by looking at them, which were filled with the same liquid.

As predicted, they chose the three clear ones.

Then I asked them to use their noses to see if they were correct.

They thought it was pretty neat that their eyes and noses were telling them different things!

In the end, they were able to choose which three were actually filled with the same thing.

Scent-Matching Game

For further smelling games, I created this quick activity out of baby food jars, cotton balls, and various cooking ingredients. I put peppermint extract, lemon extract, vanilla, teriyaki marinade, vinegar and maple extract into two containers each. The kids had to smell their way to finding the matches. It was pretty fun, and a neat variation to usual matching games.

Letter N

Honey Pot is 3 years and 3 months old

Little M&M is 16 months old

Letter N Worksheets

We started our theme this week with a few worksheets that focus on fine motor development. The first is a pattern block printable from Confession of a Homeschooler. Honey Pot likes these pattern blocks and chose to do a picture that came with her pattern block set after finishing this one. We also listened to Scout's N song on her Leap Frog Fridge Magnet toy.

Little M&M worked on a magnetic pom pom page from Homeschool Creations. He doesn't place them in the right spots yet, but seems to enjoy picking them up and placing them on the cookie sheet. 

Then Honey Pot had her turn with this activity. First, she placed the pom poms all over the N's! So I raced to the computer to find her a page that was meant for it, lol. She did that one next.

Getting creative with her extra pom poms!

 Here is the N page from Early Learning Activities. First Honey Pot used her pom poms on it.

Then she used her Do-A-Dot markers!

And finally, a tracing page from Twisty Noodle. She is really enjoying these prewriting activities, and I love to watch her do them! First she traced the big N.

Then she saw the dotted line (meant for writing your own N) and said, "I want to do this one." So as you can see, she traced it, lol. Then she traced the little Ns too.

Paper Towel Art

I haven't done this activity since Honey Pot was very little. Triangle theme, perhaps? I just needed something quickly to occupy them, and this fit the bill. First I used washable markers on paper towels to draw multiple N's.

Then I provided each of them with paintbrushes and a bowl of water. They seemed to enjoy this simple activity.

And Honey Pot in particular was very focused on her work. Used to tracing letters now, she used her paintbrush to very carefully go over each N, whereas Little M&M just painted haphazardly.

When it dries, it looks quite nice actually!

N is for Nine Noodle Necklace

We finally dyed some noodles! I had been wanting to do this activity for a while. So for our letter N theme, Honey Pot made a noodle necklace.

She really enjoyed doing this!

And after threading each noodle, she stopped to count them. That's when I decided to take the N a step further, and have her create a nine noodle necklace. She seemed ready to stop at that number anyway.

So hard at work...

She loved wearing her necklace and wore it all over town this week!

Noodle Fine Motor Practice

Next it was Little M&M's turn with the leftover noodles. I used a plastic container from the grocery store. (Yes, I splurged this week and bought those giant muffins.) And I cut a small hole in the center. I didn't even need to demonstrate, Little M&M started dropping the noodles right in there.

He opened it up by himself, and had some sensory fun.

Then returned to work. I tell you, this kept him occupied for quite a while. And he returned to it often throughout the week! Great activity for while I'm busy in the kitchen! I just had to keep an eye on him so he didn't put any in his mouth.

He liked shaking the bin around to make a loud sound!

And when Honey Pot returned from her morning at preschool, she wanted to join in too!

N is for Number Walk

One of our local parks has a half mile loop that we like to walk. As I was planning this week's activities, I remembered that the park had number posts along the trail, from 1-14. So I decided to let Honey Pot search for numbers and do rubbings of them along the way!

Every time she found a number, I'd ask her to identify it. She did really well!

"I see a number!"

It was a lot of fun for both of us, and I am so pleased with how good she is getting at recognizing her numbers!

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