Letter N Week!

There has been much anticipation for letter N week since N was the first letter Natalie learned. It was a very busy time when we came to N.  The start of the week was the end of my re-certification course, and the end of the week was prepping for our Christmas party.  While Natalie loves the letter N and probably would have liked to do more with it, this is one letter I know she knows well and don't feel too badly about slacking a bit. 

I continue to struggle with having our supplies ready on a consistent day to change our letter.  I'm hoping that once my class is over tomorrow, I'll be able to just put in a chunk of time and prep through the new year.  One of our favorite sites (Confessions of a Homeschooler) is  no longer letting me print the magnet sheets, but a Google search found this web site with all the letters.  I really like that there are multiple options for each letter, which will expose Natalie to more words and keep the activity interesting throughout the week.  Even though the other printables have some glitches right now, COAH did post the do-a-dot alphabet.  So, I downloaded the whole alphabet so I can print them more easily whenever I want.  We usually use stickers on these. 

Books:
Nuts to You by Lois Elhert
any collection of Nursery Rhymes (I like Appley Dappely and Rosemary Well's collection)
The Best Nest by P. D. Eastman
I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child
Llama Llama Nighty-Night by Anna Dewdney
Little Owl's Night by Divya Srinivasan
Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
Scaredy Squirrel at Night by Melanie Watt
On the Night You Were Born by Nancy Tillman
The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore
Princess Baby, Night-Night by Karen Katz
Night Shift by Jessie Hartland
There's a Nightmare in My Closest by Mercer Meyer
Ten, Nine, Eight by Molly Bang 
Yes Yes No No by Leslie Patricelli
No David by David Shannon
Fancy Nancy series by Jan O'Connor 
The Nutcracker (many different versions)
No by Claudia Rueda

Natalie favorite of the week was Princess Baby, Night-Night.  We read that every night and she also read it to her doll.  She also really enjoyed a Fancy Nancy title we hadn't read before: Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet. 

When searching for books, I usually stick to what we already know, but I couldn't find the author for No and had to do an Amazon search. I've done Amazon searches before for my mom's group when looking for books on our themes (apples, fall, etc).  I'm thinking I will try to do this more often since I saw many interesting titles, but having to then search them again through the library database is time consuming and often frustrating.  

Letter N ideas: nest, nut, necklace, nurse, night, Nani (from Lilo and Stitch), Nibblet (from Flying Fairy School on Sesame St), no, not, never, nine, night, nut, neon, noes, naughty / nice

Activities:
Since Natalie knows the letter N so well, we didn't spend a lot of formal time on N.  We did do a few of our regular activites.

• Letter N bin (though I had a hard time finding items - I had N flashcards and fridge magnets, nectarine, nuts (as in nuts and blots), necklaces, and a night light.)
• Magnet letter sheets
• Watch letter N playlist
• Read letter N books
• Make letter N for the hall

Making the letter N was very fun this week.  The crafts I saw on line were all for nests, which isn't very exciting, or really even shaped like an N.  So I thought we would decorate an N with pictures of our favorite N item - Natalie!  But as I thought about it, I came up with the idea to make the N out of Natalie pictures like the lines of the N.  It was quick and easy to make, and also taught me that Natalie needs more work like this constructing the letters.  It was also a nice change of pace from our animals and it will be fun to see it hanging in the hall.  I'm looking forward to making a W out of Williams!

Letter N Playlist:
When I started making these, I used Sesame St almost exclusively.  One very useful find is that YouTube has a podcast from Sesame St for almost all the letters.  It cuts down on the searching time and is a nice presentation.  My favorite part of the Sesame St videos is seeing the ones I remember growing up watching.  We stumbled across Cullen and Gator a few letters back and Natalie really liked them.  I've now added them to every letter we have left and plan to add them to the old playlists when we go back through later in the year.  I like that they focus on food and teach about that as well as the letter.