I think it’s understandable that I’m a little biased about our letter of the week: C is for Carissa! It is also for a variety of other words we will see this week, including crackers, cupcakes, and carved pumpkins!
C can be a very challenging letter in the English language. The letter B was difficult to write, but easy to spot and sound out in words. This morning, we all noticed that C is easier to write than B, but much trickier to pick out of words. C and K both make the “kh” sound, so when they hear that phoneme, it can be difficult to decide which letter is making the sound. Additionally, C also makes the “ss” sound and the “ch” sound when paired with the letter H. There are so many phonemes to keep up with! As Peter read Little Cloud by Eric Carle, the children quickly and eager chimed in as they heard and saw the letter C in the text.
I’m so impressed with how the Tugboats have embraced our alphabet curriculum. Each week, the children arrive eager and excited to share the letters and words they collected over the weekend. They’ve also begun to look for words that begin with our letter of the week all on their own. At lunch today, as I was enjoying a burrito, one of the children noticed, “Hey! Burrito starts with the letter B! Like last week!” Another child commented, “Yeah! It does! And B is different from C. This week is C.” Not only are they excited about the working we’re currently doing, but they’re recalling things we’ve already explored and integrating the new information with the old. It’s so exciting to see they way their thoughts process!
In other news, we welcomed our first Dad parent helper today: Natalia’s dad, Kevin! The children were absolutely overjoyed to have yet another male adult in the classroom. Everyone was excited to build with Kevin, to listen to him read stories, and have him push them on the swings. He’s become quite the super start parent! We had such a wonderful time getting to know Natalia better through her father. We can’t wait to get to know more families as well!