Carrot Letter of the Week Activity
I am always trying to find activities that can be part of a holiday we celebrate, but aren’t so targeted that readers who do not celebrate it can’t use it either today or another time in the year. So this Letter CÂ is for carrot letter of the week activity was born. Carrots can be part of a unit on gardening, healthy eating, or for us, something we make in preparation for the Easter bunny.
- Gather your materials. You will need some cardboard ( paper will do but cardboard just makes it more substantial), a marker, a small dish, scissors, 3 or more green pipe cleaners, a sponge, hole punch, orange paint, a sheet of construction paper, and glue if you are going to display it. Ours is resting on the blue paper in the picture but we didn’t glue it on. It’s part of our Easter craft mish mash on our table!
- Start by writing a C on the cardboard. I made mine thicker at the top and thinner at the bottom to make it resemble a carrot. Don’t forget to remind your child of letter sounds, as you work on your carrot letter of the week activity.
- Pour some orange paint into a dish.
- Paint! My son loves this glass sponge and how it paints. I love that the sponges make the paint go on thinner, which makes it dry faster.
- Let it dry, cut out.
- Punch 3 holes in the top. My son was able to do this with help, the cardboard was too thick for his hand strength to do it alone.
- Chase your son around the kitchen when he runs off with the pipe cleaners pretending to conduct an orchestra. Try to decide if it’s brilliant or if you are just too tired and frustrated (and pregnant) to indulge him when he says “No mama you need to play the Bassoon, I’ll be the trombone!”. Give in for a bit, then consider bribing him with Easter candy just as he decides to come back on his own. Thread the pipe cleaners through the holes.
- Twist together.
- If you are gluing to the paper add glue to the back of the carrot letter of the week activity, press onto the paper and let dry.
Want even more letter of the week crafts?
Check out my eBook Alphabet Crafts, it’s filled with letter of the week crafts from A-Z including 5 exclusive never before seen crafts !
Books
Coco The Carrot by Steven Salerno is an absurd tale of adventure, and I loved it. Coco is a carrot who dreams of a life larger than the vegetable drawer. She dreams big and goes for it. Unlike most carrots that end up in stew, she becomes a famous hat designer and is the toast of Paris with her Monkey companion, Anton. If you are scratching your head but oddly intrigued, you will like this book. My son sat through the rather long book with me, giggling and telling me ” Carrots can’t do that?!” more than once.
I loved it because it is so absurd that she is a carrot. However, the story itself is about going for your dreams, hitting bumps in the road, and realizing that your dreams shift and change and that’s ok. There are great bits of humor for the adults as well, something I always appreciate!
A Very Big Bunny by Marisabina Russo is a nice book about 2 bunnies that don’t fit in at school. This book opened a good dialogue between my son and I as we read about how both the tallest and the shortest bunny in the class got picked on. The students in their class were mean but not purposefully bullying. They excluded these bunnies because they simply didn’t fit. The part that hit me the most was when the teacher lined the kids up by height, Amelia the tall bunny was always last. It just made me think of how adults so often single kids out without trying to be terrible, but really hurting them. All that aside, the book itself comes to a nice conclusion. I think it’s worth grabbing for any child tall or short!
Carrot Soup by John Segal is a cute book about planting a garden, in this case, carrots, tending it and then reaping the rewards…. or maybe not. Rabbit carefully planned out his garden and took care of it. But when it was time to gather all the carrots, they were all gone! Throughout the pages there are hints to where the carrots might be. Your child will likely figure it out before Rabbit does. My son liked this book and I loved reading it with him. He found it rather exasperating that the Rabbit couldn’t figure out the mystery!
Jen says
I love these ideas! I am a Literacy Coach in an elementary school and also the mom of three young boys. We will SO be visiting your site often for more fun stuff to do! WOW!!!!! I’d love to have you do a guest blog for me sometime. (If you do that!)
admin says
Thank you Jen! I do do guest posts as time allows – email me at allie@notimeforflashcards.com and I would be happy to chat about it.
Jen says
I love his carrot C! Will he put carrots out for the Easter Bunny?
Jen
Creative and Curious Kids!
.-= Jen´s last blog ..The Spring Rabbit =-.
admin says
He will! We have a weird tradition that started because of a bedtime story ( that I made up not a book) about leaving eggs out for the Easter Bunny to hide then making egg salad salad from them before church. So we will leave those out too – helps cut down on the sugar/ stickers etc…
Susan @ DreamSakes says
Very cute! I love the tip of using a sponge to paint…no more glops!
Susan
.-= Susan @ DreamSakes´s last blog ..What is DreamSakes? =-.
Nancee says
You could also use a carrot to paint with. Get a large carrot and cut off the top chunk and use to dot the paint with
Sandra A says
You could use a paper plate instead of cardboard – just use the rim, trim as needed.
I’m going to do this tomorrow. Thanks so much.