Letter D Duck Craft

As I was planning our letter D theme, I saw this duck craft and knew it was the one for us! Erik has never been a big fan of coloring so instead we decided to paint our duck. We started out revisiting our Dot Painting technique from a day or two before, but Erik just wanted to dive in and the cotton swabs quickly fell by the wayside. 

After our letter D had dried, we cut it out and glued it onto a fresh sheet of paper. Great chance for some fine motor skills!

I gave Erik the duck's body parts (which I had cut out of construction paper), and he glued those on as well.

Last, but not least, the feathers! We found these at WalMart for cheap, and there are lots left to play with.

Finished!

We came up with a short description for his duck so we could incorporate some lower case D's into this, and then hung him on the well next to our other ABC animals.

Dot Painting, Exploring Pointillism

For our letter D art activity, we explored Pointillism, or Dot Painting as we called it. 

Let's gather our supplies:
Paint (we were out of store-bought paint, so we made some of our edible finger paint and it worked great)
Cotton Swabs
Paper (I traced clipart of things that started with D, as well as the letter D, but I also gave Erik some blank pages to explore with too.)

After demonstrating the idea of "dot" painting, I turned Erik loose with the paint and let him dot away. Or not, whatever suited him. He dotted for a while, but (as always) it was just a matter of time until this morphed into finger painting, and body painting, and just general mess making. 

 It was fun to talk about the sound the letter D makes while exploring a new art technique. This took some fine motor skill and hand/eye coordination, which makes it a great physical learning experience as well as a creative one.

Throw Back Thursday, Edible Finger Paints

We needed some paint for one of Erik's letter D activities, so we made some edible finger paint. After Erik was done with the paint, we took Sharli to the bath tub and gave her some to play with too. It's a good thing it's edible!

 Sharli loved painting so much she decided to roll in it! It was about this point we got rid of the diaper and washed the mess down the drain. One thing about this paint is (being flour and water after all) that it can be hard to wash off once it dries, and is not much fun to get out of hair. So, as soon as the mess started getting all over, it was time to be done.

Deal A Story

This is another activity given to us by my amazing mother-in-law. It is very simple to put together, and the odds are good that you already have what you need right in your home. 

Let's gather our materials:

Playing cards with numbers on them (regular face cards, UNO cards, Rook cards, Skip-Bo Cards, whatever you have)

That's it! Piece of cake, right? No prep, although this is a game that requires your participation. 

 So how do we play?

Deal two or three cards facedown to each player. Choose a child to turn over a card and name the number on it. Use the number as you begin telling a story. Then continue, each turning over a card and saying it's number to incorporate into the story. For example: (child turns over a ten) "Ten little rabbits went to town." (child turns over a two) "They went to two houses looking for food." (next card is a five) "At the second house they met five kind children." (next card is a seven) "The children gave them seven carrots." Continue the story using the number cards. Older children can take turns being the storyteller, adding to the story on their turn.

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Exploring Density (Sink or Float)

For our letter D science activity I followed the lead of this post and we did an exploration of Density. This was super easy to set up, and kept both kids entertained for a long time. 

Let's gather our supplies:

A selection of toys and other objects, some that will sink and some that will float

A large container to fill with water

A piece of paper that says "sink" and on that says "float"

 We took this activity outside because I wanted to be able to turn the kids loose to have fun without any worries about messes. We could have also done this in the bathtub and it would have worked great. 

The first thing we did was talk about what it means to sink or float. Then we took all the toys out of our bin while hypothesizing on how each one would behave in the water.

 Erik was thrilled to turn on the hose and fill up our tub. Sharli wasn't too sure what was going on yet, but we were outside so it must mean something good!

 Then we tested each item and placed it on the paper that described what it had done. Sharli just splashed around and had fun.

 After we'd tested all our objects, I just turned the kids loose with the water and sat back and watched. Water free-play is one of our favorite activities. Almost no prep, and SO much fun!

 There is so much to be learned from just exploring with water. Fine motor skills such as scooping and pouring, spatial awareness when deciding if water from one container will fit in another, hand-eye coordination, sensory awareness, social skills like cooperation (when you've got more than one child involved), language development as you discuss things like cold or wet.

 Since this day, Erik asks often if we can play with density again (he actually uses the word density, it really stuck with him). He also loves to test all his bath toys to see if they'll sink or float. This was a hit in a major way!

Letter D Activities

Here's our lesson plan for learning with the letter D. We had lots of fun with this one, hope you do too!

Language Development:

                Letter D Books

Math Concepts:

                Deal a Story

Social Studies:

                People in our Community; Doctors
                      *So I never did make the Doctor's Coat and Stuffed Animal Bandages that I had planned for this one, but I wanted to share the ideas in case you want to give it a go. We also have this fun Dr's kit that Erik's Grandma gave him to round out our imaginative play. 

Science:

                Density Experiment

Health and Physical Development:

                Dance a Dot or a Dash

Creative Arts:

                Letter D Duck Craft

                Painting with Dots