An introduction to lowercase

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We have officially finished the capital letters and the kids are very proud!  As a transition between letters and numbers we spent a day talking about and investigating lowercase letters.  They will learn them in depth in Kindergarten, so we just looked at them today and briefly spoke about what they are and why they exist.  This was a great time to use the HWT flash cards, they have capital letters on one side and lowercase on the other- I laid them out in alphabetical order and allowed the kids to flip them and see what the lowercase letters looked like.  WHAT FUN!  Jaxon and Mercy were very surprised by the lowercase J, and everyone loved when the letters looked the same- just smaller.  Please enjoy the slideshow of our exploration, we shall begin numbers towards the end of the week!

Izzy’s letter story

Letter stories are a fun way of helping kids remember letters that are often tricky.  They are memorable.  The HWT teacher guide shares a few examples, I have learned a few from HWT lecturers, and made up a few on my own.

This week we started lower case q.  Lower case q and g are often confused and/or reversed and the kids really loved the letter story for lower case g- ask them about it and they will tell you a tale of a boy named George, who loved to eat grapes, but he was a very messy eater and he always dropped his grapes, luckily his tail caught them for him.  We did this at the beginning of the year and I remember mentioning it to many of you in the fall conferences.  Often when writing words, sentences, and paragraphs George resurfaces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I learned about letter stories at an HWT workshop and kids often ask “is there a story for this letter?” when we explore a new letter.  There is no story for q and I have never invented one.  Today after practicing q a few times Izzy made a letter story.  Q is for queen.  Izzy made a queen with long hair and showed it to me and her friends and it was an immediate phenomenon!  Thank you Izzy for being an inspiration to all of us, even me!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.