Letter Crafting: A

     Recently I have taken on the project of teaching my four-year-old how to read. After much research, I decided to use the Distar reading program. This program was described as a very forward way of teaching. No fancy tricks or reward systems. In fact, a former teacher recommended the book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons written by Engelmann, Haddox, and Bruner. As if the title didn't say it all, this book simplifies all the twenty-minute lessons. The words you use for approaching the lesson are highlighted and even directions for correcting a child's misstep are clearly listed as the lesson unfolds. My four-year-old is sounding out words and we are only on lesson 7 as of today! She is so engrossed with the unraveling of a word when sounding it all out, and the best part is, I'm not stressing how to approach correcting her! We are loving it!

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons written by: Siegfried Engelmann, Phyllis Haddox, and Elaine Bruner

     The one point that I wish this process included was a bit of creativity. I know I love the simplicity of it, but I also love those little crafts that fit with a lesson oh so well. I took it upon myself to do something fun as we went through the lessons. So we started an alphabet book. Creating fun with letters while expressing their sounds. After the craft, the kids love recalling the work they did in order to remember some of the sounds we are learning. While learning the short A sound, we created a craft depicting our upper and lowercase as words we associate with this short A sound.

Uppercase alligator and lowercase apple!

To complete this craft you will need:

• Pencil
• Construction paper of preferred color
• Green construction paper with a stenciled uppercase A 
• White paper cut into small triangles (for Alligator teeth)
• Scissors
• Glue
• Red glitter
• Black marker
• Googly eyes

Instructions: During this whole process we sang, "The A says AAAHHH, the A says AAAHHH, every letter makes a sound, the A says AAAHHH" (Tune of the Farmer in the Dell).

1. Ask children to write their names on their construction paper. This is how I start every project as it helps them practice writing their name and reinforces the idea of how best to claim ones' work. 
2. Supervise each child as they use safety scissors to cut along the lines of the stenciled out A. 
3. Aid children in the application of glue to the underside of the cut-out A and placement upon their own paper. 
4. Give children a few white triangles to place on the inside of the legs of the letter A. Let them know that this will be their Alligator's mouth! (I like asking the kids what they'd say if they were chased by an Alligator... AAAAAAHHHH!)
5. Then allow the children to place and glue down googly eyes on their Alligator. We decided two eyes weren't enough for ours!
6. Next to the alligator write out a lined space for writing using the black marker. This helps show the children where to start and stop when writing upper and lowercase letters.
7. Allow children to write out or trace the lowercase A on this space.
8. Then aid them in tracing over the lowercase letter with glue. 
9. Dust the glue with red glitter
10. Add a leaf onto the letter for adornment as an apple. 

Gluing down her Alligator teeth!

Placing googly eyes on the Alligator!

She thinks she is hilarious.

Dusting her lowercase with some red glitter!

Our finished products!

     I hope this craft was just as fun and memorable for your little ones as it was for mine. We'd love to see how your work turned out too! Be sure to follow us on Facebook or Instagram to share your letters and progress in your alphabet books! We will continually add letter crafts to our blog site at Waking Woolslayer. Next week we are working on the letter M!