Early Years Activities for the Letter Cc
How to Promote Hands-on Learning of the Alphabet
Oct 19, 2009
A child understands the word “cat” means a furry four-legged animal. When learning about the letter Cc, a child will now understand that the letters c-a-t placed together makes up a word and that word has meaning. Making these connections gives the student a deeper understanding of the letter and letter sound.
Planning hands-on activities will give a student time to internalize each letter and sound of the alphabet at a child's own learning pace. Learning the alphabet is so much more than memorizing the name of each letter.
When teaching about the letter Cc, the hard c sound needs to be the sound taught at this time. However, there needs to be a large group discussion how this letter as well as other letters have other sounds.
Here are some hands-on activities for students to learn about the letter Cc.
Letter C Items From Home
Have each student bring in one Cc item from home. Listed here are some suggestions for items to be brought in to class. Students can bring in a camel, camera, crab, carrot, clown, cat, cars, clothespin or candle to name a few.
Children can draw a picture of the item he or she has brought in. A teacher can write the name of the item on the bottom, glue the paper to construction paper and laminate the pages. Using the pictures create a memory book where the student has to remember what items comes next in the book and if he or she is wrong, he or she has to start again from the beginning.
Letter Cc Activities
Cat Activity: Cut out a shape of a cat and print an uppercase letter C. Have student cover the letter with beans or paper squares. Ask student to give an example of an item beginning with the letter C and print this word on the cat.
Car Activity: Cut out a shape of a car. Print a lowercase c on the paper. Have student glue beans or squares on the letter. Ask student to print the word "car" from the board on the paper car.
Clown Shape Art Activity: Students can cut out a large white circle. The children are free to choose which colour construction paper to use. A wide rectangle and a thin rectangle make the clown's hat. Triangles make up the clown's eyes and nose. Squares make up the clown's mouth.
The teacher can show the students how to cut each item out from to make a rectangle into a square then into a triangle simply by cutting each in half. This project makes a very good cutting skills and following directions activity.
Car Painting: Using tiny cars, dip the wheels of the car in paint. Have students drive the car around the paper to create tire marks on the paper. Try playing music for each group painting and choose different music for each group. For example, one group could listen to classical music the next group could listen to jazz etc. Then compare each group's paintings to see if music affected the paintings.
Catalogue Cutting: Using catalogues have students cut out pictures they find interesting. Then glue pictures to index cards. Using these cards as a centre, combine the cards with alphabet cards or letter tiles. When a child picks a picture card he or she needs to match that card to the correct letter tile or card.
Food that Begins With Cc: As a class make chocolate chip cookies, cupcakes, corn bread, coleslaw or glazed carrots. A large group activity can be taste-testing corn. If a child does not want to taste the corn he or she can smell the item instead. Some corn treats are: popcorn, cream corn, canned corn, and fresh corn on the cob.
Taste-testing corn, car painting to music and making a clown out of shapes are great ways of teaching children about the letter Cc. Making connections between letter, sound and objects of meaning in a child's world will help a child develop an understanding of the alphabet.
Anselmo, Sandra; Rollins, Pamela; and Schuckman Rita. R is for Rainbow: Developing Young Children's Thinking Skills Through the Alphabet, USA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. 1986.
If you found this article helpful, try Early Years Activities for the Letter Bb.
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