Letter U crafts

We finished up some letter U projects to add to our alphabet books.  Considering how slowly we have moved through the last few letters, this letter seemed like we zoomed right though it!  I got inspiration mostly straight from Pinterest for all these projects.

1. Umbrella

That is her fake smile for a camera face.

 Yep, it's as easy as it looks.  You could use different shapes on the umbrella to work on shapes, or you use one or two shapes and work on simple patterns.  Make them varied colors AND shapes, and you can work on both .  We just made it simple and I let them pick out colors and shapes they liked and do whatever they wanted.  :)

2. UP

(the craft is inspired by the UP movie with the balloons taking the house up and onward to Paradise Falls)

Fun for counting and colors.  

We just drew a house and then cut out different colored circles from construction paper and glued them on for the balloons.  They loved this one.  Probably because we dressed up with an UP theme as a family for Halloween this year.  

3. Underground

Easy, peasy.  It's just some construction paper for dirt and add stickers!

We just learned about trees and roots, so I was happy to see that my 5 year old was listening and put the tree roots purposely under the ground a bit.  My 3 year old just loved putting the bugs and seeds in the "dirt" and the butterflies in the sky on hers.  Fun, fun, fun! 

 I saw a cute underwater picture that was similar except it's water obviously and you put fish stickers.  

U have a happy day crafting now!  ;)

Letter "T" projects

Just a few projects for letter "T" to add to our ABC book....

1.  Trees

Easy peasy: all you need is a penciled basic outline of a tree, paint, and Q-tips and you can make a sweet tree for letter T!  My 5 year old made a plum tree, while the 3 year old and 2 year old made apple trees. 

2. Turtle

Example 1: 

This was done by my 3 year old.  We focused on naming colors and shapes while she glued them on in any manner she chose.  Great for fine motor skills (gluing on the little pieces) and practicing colors and shapes. 

Example 2:

 This is my 5 year old's. We are homeschooling her for Kindergarten and are currently working on patterns.  Each row she made up a new pattern to practice and she cut out the turtle body and head to practice scissor skills.  She knows her colors and shapes, but of course, you can always review those too, because why not?

3. Tulips

Cover a piece of paper in paint of all colors (be sure there is a good amount of green for stems!) Once the paint is dry, you can cut the green section into long, skinny rectangles for tulip stems and the other colors into tulips.  I cut out the basic tulips and my 5 year old cut the tops zig zag to practice her scissor skills.  The 2 year old merely painted, the 3 year old painted and glued on the tulips and stems (hers is the picture at the top) and my 5 year old painted, cut some parts, and glues hers and the 2 year olds.  Fun project, pretty result.  We made some of the tulips into little cards to send to people since we had extra tulips.  :)

4. Trains

 

You need 3 rectangles (1 big, 1 medium, 1 smaller), 2 small triangles, a sqaure, and 4 circles. 

5 year old: I drew outlines of the shapes, and she did the cutting herself and glued the train on and drew all the train tracks (on both pictures actually because she got so excited)

3 year old: I cut out the shapes, and we worked on shape recognition and following directions as I verbally directed her to glue to the pieces on the paper.  I did need to show her a few times what I meant, but we worked using phrases like "place the circle next to the other circle" or "place the little rectangle on top of the medium rectangle".  

Lots of fun with letter T!