The letter W introduced some very important things to us. We learned that…
W is for Water
I introduced water in a science lesson after we were done with our W tracers. We learned the importance of water through these activity sheets that taught us that all living things need water, as well as ways in which we can do our part to save water.
The worksheets are zapped from the book “Little Thinkers: Nurturing the Child’s Creative and Critical Thinking Skills | Water | Activity Book for Kindergarten One”, published by EPB
The kids practised their hand-eye coordination by pouring water from big containers to small containers, and learned about liquids and solids by freezing water in ice cube trays.
All we need: bottles, jugs, funnels and ice cube trays
Learning to pour water slowly with lots of control
And no W-for-Water is complete without a wild session of waterplay! Which we do at the comfort of our own home – with warm water! (I recycle the water and limit the free flow to only a few minutes.)
Water play with lots of empty containers
Getting ready to pour water!
W is for Weather
I did up a simple velcro board that described three kinds of weather: sunny, windy and rainy and got the kids to place the appropriate pictures under each weather condition. Ben learned to sight-read the words sunny, windy and rainy.
The kids match the appropriate pictures under each description of the weather
W is for the Days of the Week
I also did up a velcro board for Ben and Becks after reading (for the nth time) Eric Carle’s The Hungry Caterpillar that featured the days of the week. They know it by heart now and can recite them easily, but they don’t know the words. So as practice, they arranged the days of the week on the board while reciting to learn the words by sight.
W is for Watermelon
Watermelon, watermelon, On the vine, on the vine. Sweet and red and juicy, Sweet and red and juicy, Please be mine! Please be mine!
I chanced upon this little song online (sung to the tune of Are You Sleeping?) and thought it was so cute! I got the kids to paint a paper plate using watercolours and we made watermelons to “eat”, but not before teaching them some fractions. We cut our watermelon with a pair of scissors, and learned about halves and quarters.
Making a watermelon: we first painted red on the inside, green on the outer circle, and then dabbed black dots on the red circle
W is for Where’s Waldo
To train Ben to focus, I got him to sit down for at least 10 minutes to look for Waldo. I absolutely loved the series as a kid and relived it by searching for Waldo with him!
During my time, the series was called “Where’s Wally?” Now, Ben enjoys searching for Waldo and it’s been great fun for him!
We stopped the moment we started seeing stars! Hurhurhur.
W is for Whale
We wrapped up our homelearning for the letter W with a lovely story by Julia Donaldson.
The Snail and the Whale is a beautiful story about a tiny snail longing to see the world and hitching a lift on the tail of a whale. Together, they go on an amazing journey, past icebergs and volcanoes, sharks and penguins. The journey, however, made the little snail feel so small in the vastness of this big, big world. But when disaster strikes and the whale is beached in a bay, the tiny snail is the one that saves the day.
The book was a great resource to learn rhyming words. There’s plenty of rhyming in the story, and the kids got to listen to the rhymes again and again. I made these word cards of all the rhyming words for Ben and Becks to refer to when they listened to me read the story, and they had to identify the words whenever they heard the rhyming pairs.
Rhyming words found in The Snail and the Whale
Becks had the most fun with this activity. She is now three and finally understands rhyme. Now she frequently shouts words out loud to check if they are rhyming words!
The letter W has been great fun, but we’ll be moving on to another pretty pristine letter next month that involves pandas and prehistoric creatures!
2 Comments
As always, I’m extremely impressed by you and all the wonderful things you do. You need some chocolate, courtesy of Willy Wonka (must begin with ‘W’ mah)! 😉
Hahaha… I am sure when it’s Noah’s turn, I’ll be reading of even more stuff you’d do with him! Now, time to get some chocs – thanks for the suggestion!