Who knew the letter Ii could be so difficult? Of course, when most of us think about the letter Ii, we immediately think of ice, ice cream, ice trucks… you get the picture. Another word that may come to mind is iguana, but can you think of anything after that? Of course there is always interesting, interrogate, and other words that start with Ii but have little or no meaning to a four year old! I was highly IMPRESSED with a 3 year old who exclaimed IGUANADON, in which I had to then ask him, “That’s a dinosaur, right?” Nothing like being outsmarted by one of the kids! J
My safest bet this week was to go with iguana. I figured that most of my kids would know what an iguana was and I even had a really good book to go with it. Ever heard of a gem of a book called I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff? Normally, I would NEVER promote a book that uses improper grammar, however, this one was just too cute that I couldn’t resist. At least I thought it was cute. To continue on with my streak of pulling subpar books, my kids just didn’t seem to think this one was as funny as I did. The material may have been a little too long for my younger kids and some of the joke may have been too subtle, but I just couldn’t pass it up. This book had me in side-splitting laughter, my kids, however, thought it was a big YAWN! Oh well, you win some, you lose some.
My other book choice this week, for the four to six year old, was all about igloos. There is just something so mysterious about igloos that even if you are reading a non-fiction book, the kids just love it. I like to try to add in a little non-fiction every now and then. It is great to mix things up, but also because it exposes children to literature outside of the everyday picture book. My kids at the library love non-fiction, as long as it is minimal and about a topic they are interested in, so I knew igloos would be great. The book The Inside Story: Igloo by Dana Meachen Rau is a great book filled not only with a lot of age-appropriate information, but some pretty awesome photos too. I didn’t even need to read the words for my kids to be enthralled. We flipped through the pictures and the kids asked questions based on what they saw. Sometimes it’s fun to stray from the norm.
My letter flash card this week was a cute one. Although not necessarily a well-known critter, when I explained to the kids that an iguana is kind of like a lizard, they were all onboard to create the creature. What is it with creepy-crawly ways, what kid wouldn’t love an iguana? Below is what our little Ii iguana looked like. Although it required quite a bit of cutting and glue dots in preparation, the kids loved it.
Materials: Letter I flash card, 2 goggle eyes, green cardstock, red cardstock, and crayons
1) Cut the green card stock to create a semi-circle, three triangles, and a tail. Apply to glue dots.
2) Cut the red card stock to create the tongue. Apply to glue dots.
3) Color the letter Ii to resemble an iguana.
4) Trace the capital and lowercase Ii on the back.
5) Attach the green and red cardstock pieces. The semi-circle is the head. The three triangles form the spikes on the back. Place the googly eyes on the head. Stick on the tongue and the tail.
As for my igloo craft, well, I took things back a bit. I don’t know what it is about stickers, but my kids love them. Maybe it is the sense of independence they like, considering they need little to no help in using stickers. So this week, I cut out an igloo shape from construction paper. Then, being that I work in a library, I used spine labels cut in half to create the ice blocks of the igloo. I gave each kid a couple of rows of “blocks,” and had them stick away! They loved it because it was easy and they had no instructions to follow, and I liked it because the preparation work was simple! Nothing like a win-win situation!
Materials: Black construction paper cut out of an igloo and white labels
1) Attach labels to igloo! Remind kids not to cover the "entrance."
2) If you want to get extra crafty, create a snow scene and glue the igloo to it.
This week’s music included one of my favorite songs. I like to rotate music as much as I can; however, “Knees Up Mother Brown” on the CD 30 Playtime Songs always seems to make it back into the rotation. I also downloaded an iguana song this week from iTunes. “The Green Iguana Bellyflop” by Brent Holmes has a great Caribbean feel to it which is especially nice considering the weather here in Indiana is starting to cool down. Anything to make it feel a bit “warmer” is fine by me.
"Knees Up Mother Brown" performed by Raffi!
"The Green Iguana Bellyflop" performed by Brent Holmes.
Well, I think that is it for this week. Stay tuned next week for the letter Jj. This is an extra special letter for me and Sammy may just be sporting an extra special accessory!
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