Pages

Our Letter of the Day: I {31 Days of ABC's}



31 Days of ABCs - October 2013


This post is part of the ABC's learning series hosted by the wonderful Leanna from All Done Monkey,  and co-hosted by a group of amazing bloggers. Please be sure to scroll to the end to check out the other wonderful post in this series.  

Our letter for the 31 Days of ABC's is "I"! 

This past summer we spent the summer in the beautiful island of Puerto Rico. So it felt just right to pick the letter "I", and the activities would be in both English and Spanish.   

  • "I" is for island 
  • "I" es para isla

Little one and I read the book "Mi Isla y Yo" (My Island and I) by Alfonso Silva Lee.  I love that this book is a bilingual edition in  both Spanish and English. 


It is a book about the natural ecology of an island, with enchanting pictures that allows children to visualize their relationship between the island creatures, insects, flora, fauna, the water and the sky; and how we are all connected to the island as being one. It sends a message of love and respect for our environment, and for our island of Puerto Rico.

After little one, and I read the book he insisted on drawing an island "isla".  While he worked on his masterpiece, I was making playdough for our own playdough island. I found the link to the recipe on Mud Hut Mama


  

We used little one's drawing to make our island. To make the island I used cinnamon to give it a brown color, and I must say it didn't come out too shabby! :) The rest of the dough I used food coloring, and for the people yes, we used red playdough. I guess you can say they are really, really tanned! LOL He helped pressed down the blue playdough on the cookie sheet, and then he helped with the rest. Since he wanted to make it like a real island we added a coquí (tiny tree frog from Puerto Rico), and some of his boats on the blue ocean water. 

  • "I" es para insectos 
  • "I" is for insects 

We also worked on making insects "insectos". We have the cutest insect flashcards in English that I made into bilingual ones by adding the Spanish word at the top of the card. 

To make the insects I used card stock paper, recycled fruit pouch caps, different shape buttons, googly eyes, and permanent markers. 

He was busy as a bee making all of the insects. After he glued all of the pieces to the cardboard stock paper he would draw the legs or antennas of  the insects. 


We went over the insect words in both English and Spanish, and to reinforce he also wrote the names in Spanish on his cards. In this picture you can also see a bird, and an apple tree (nothing to do with insects); but my child wanted to make it, and I couldn't say no. It's his creativity in it's full splendor! :) 

Insects (insectos) 
  • ladybug - mariquita 
  • bee - aveja 
  • ant - hormiga 
  • butterfly - mariposa 
Hope you enjoyed our activities, and the book for the letter "I".  If you have a letter "I" post with fun activities, crafts or a great book in either in English or Spanish, please feel free to link-up. Then take a minute to check out the participating blogs, and their letters.