Welcome to Letter J Day!
If you haven’t read the Introduction to the Alphabet Activities, you should start there.
Don’t forget to check out the Letter J: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids, too!
Here are all the activities we did:
First, as always, we did our construction paper craft. But instead of one big letter that we decorated, we did a bunch of little letters.
I had cut out a pile of Letter Js and a rounded top so that my kids could make their own jellyfish with the letters as tentacles.
And googly eyes. I swear they get more excited about the letters that need eyes…
Then for our Letter Sorting activity, where they needed to separate out the capital and lowercase letters, I went with jack o’ lanterns.
My kids were still kind of little at this point in out Alphabet Activities, so I had cut out the pumpkins and faces ahead of time and all they did was glue the finished jack o’ lantern to the paper before gluing on the letters.
Now that they’re older, I might still have cut out the face pieces but I would have let them make the faces themselves first, probably from a selection of eyes and mouths.
Back to the chalk!
I love that my girls love being outdoors, so chalk letters are great way to get them moving.
I drew a bunch of big Letter Js to represent the word “jump.” And then we did just that – jump from J to J.
This was a TON of fun for my girls.
The night before Letter J Day, I made a couple of boxes of Jell-O in a big plastic bin and I threw a bunch of toys into it that started with the Letter J.
I didn’t get all fancy with worrying about where the toys would stay once the Jell-O solidified. I just tossed ’em in. Most of the toys floated to the top, but they were still partially submerged and, thus, still had to be dug out by little fingers that were eager to get messy.
We did it outside to keep the mess out of the house, but I suppose you could do it on a tile floor somewhere if you covered it in a tarp or with a tablecloth.
We made a pile of the toys in another bin (the sand castle-shaped container you see at the bottom), and then we rinsed off everything with the hose when we were done.
The toys we used were probably ones I found in the dollar store, but here are some examples of the plastic Jet party favors, craft Jewels, and plastic Jacks that are similar to what is pictured above.
I would check the party sections of your local store for similar items that are sold as party favors, and the craft section for the jewels.
We did a few worksheets, as always. There were my typical letter searches and mazes and such, but the jelly bean ones were the favorites of the day.
I wonder why….. (nom, nom, nom)
You can find these jelly bean worksheets, along with others, on my Letter J: Free Alphabet Worksheets for Kids post.
J is also for Juggling!
So we watched the video above, which my girls love because they enjoy watching kids doing things (plus he’s really good), and then we tried juggling with some light balls we had around the house.
We weren’t terribly successful, except at producing lots of giggles. :)
Gotta love jelly toast!
I cut out the J shapes with our letter cookie cutters, then slathered the toast in some butter and strawberry jelly.
I didn’t want to make a big, complicated dinner in between our projects, so I kept things simple with this chicken.
I marinated a package of boneless thighs in some Jamaican Jerk Marinade that I picked up in the supermarket and threw them on a grill pan. Easy Peasy. (Don’t forget to have the Little Ones seek out the Letter J on the bottle of marinade!)
That’s it for Letter J! Except for the free printable worksheets I made, which you can get here:
Letter J: Free Alphabet Worksheets
I’d love for you to share if you’ve done any of these projects with your little ones!
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