N is for... Numbers and Noodles!

     Another week, another letter!  This week’s letter was multi-faceted.  As you can see from the video with Sammy the Toucan, as well as the blog title, this week wasn’t just about letters, but NUMBERS too!  The mix of alphanumeric is always fun because kids often see these at different entities.  Most of my kids who come to the library know their alphabet and their numbers.  However, when I explained to them that when spelled out, numbers actually have letters in them, it blew their minds!  Perhaps a little too in depth for 2-6 year olds!

     This week’s craft looked a little something like this.  Side note:  not all of the letter N’s looked the same.  I ran out of number stickers and had to improvise with glitter numbers!

Materials:  Index card with capital N, number stickers, crayons

Front of card

Back of card

1)    Color the capital N.

2)    Trace the capital and lower case Nn on the back of the card.

3)    Peel and stick those number stickers anywhere!

     The second craft this week for my older kids was really fun!  I always like to challenge this age group as much as possible.  This week’s craft, noodle necklaces, really challenged my kids on their manual dexterity skills!  It’s amazing how much hand-eye coordination is involved in string pasta on yarn.  The other amazing thing to watch is how much age matters in some of these believed to be simple tasks.  While my four year olds had a couple of problems, the five year olds were a little bit better, and most of the six year old needed little if any help.

Materials used.

The first few "beads" put on.

The finished product.  I like patterns!

Styling up our penguin with a Noodle Necklace!

     Noodle necklaces were fun because the kids were able to be creative.  I gave each kid 12 pieces of pasta.  Some shapes were dyed red, blue, green, purple, and orange.  Although I did not personally do the dying (I used materials my library already had) there are a lot of great websites out there for how to dye the shapes.  Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to dye pasta.  My necklace turned out so great, that not one person commented or asked me why I was wearing a noodle necklace for two straight days! HA!  One woman did tell me that she thought it looked like wooden beads so that might explain why!

     In sticking with my New Year’s resolution, the books I chose for this week were very fun.  For the numbers portion, I chose Bill Martin, Jr.’s Chicka Chicka 1,2,3.  Its funny how many people know of the alphabet version of this book, but have never read this numbers version.  One of the many reasons I chose this book is that it goes past 1-10 and on until 100.  Although it doesn’t cover every number from 1-100 in the text, the last page does have all the numbers if you are looking for a great visual representation.

     As for a pasta book, well, is there anything better than On Top of Spaghetti?  Now I know that this book doesn’t expressly say “noodle,” however, spaghetti are noodles and this book allowed me to sing and read, which I love to do.  There are many different version of this song out there in book form, but the one my library owns is the version written and illustrated by Paul Brett Johnson.  Like I said, I love books that incorporate a song within the story.  Not only did I get to sing and read, but there were lots of fun fake-sneezes going on as well!

     I had a really great time this week finding a new numbers song as well as noodle song!  When finding music, I always go through the list of CDs that my library offers first!  Why buy music on iTunes when I can download from a CD my library already owns?  I have been able to find a lot of great things that way, however, sometimes, I just have to bite the bullet and pay the $1.06 for a song I know my kids will love!  That what I had to do for the “Numbers Rhumba” by the Wiggles!  The song is very upbeat, educational, and great for teaching about not only numbers, but cultural music, too!

     The other great song I found in my library is called the “Noodle Dance,” by Playhouse Disney!  Now I admit that the noodle in this song is actually referring to your brain, but that works great too!  I love explaining to kids how the same word can be used to mean different things.  It’s almost like a light bulb moment when they understand!  It’s great!

The "Noodle Dance" song starts at 2:08.

     That seems to be it for this week!  Next week we tackle the letter Pp.  I can’t wait to hear what P-words my kids come up with!  Hope to see you then!