Messes do not always have to be a yucky disaster!  We’ve taken a turn in our alphabet curriculum this week and added a new project: sensory letter formation.  For the first few weeks, Peter and I drew upon the students’ obvious interest in coloring, markers, and the early stages of forming letters.  During weeks A, B, and C, we were able to observe where our Tugboats are in terms of pre-literacy skills like holding a marker and letter recognition.  Many of our students love the connect-the-dots letters we’ve been creating, while others gravitate more toward the stencil letters we’ve been painting.  One project relies heavily on fine motor skills, while the other prominently features the ever-popular sensory element of paint.

Today we debuted a letter project that is a hybrid of the two previous projects: shaving cream letters!  Each child was given a mixture of shaving cream and liquid glue (which helps the cream remain on the paper once it dries instead of flaking off), and they used their hands to spread the mixture over their papers.  With the careful, step-by-step instruction of a teacher, each child made a line from the top of her paper to the bottom, then made a curved line connecting the top and bottom of the line.  If they were unhappy with their letters, they could simply smear the shaving cream and start over again!  Peter and I were able to visit with each child individually, offering the scaffolding they needed in order to be successful.  Some children benefited from having a model drawn on their page while others appreciated a teacher guiding their hands across the page.