Q Day: Q-Tips, Quack, Quiet, Quarters, Quesadillas

Somehow, I lucked out and scored being in charge of the letter Q. Please note my sarcasm. :) Luckily there are a lot of people out there who are more creative than I am, so I was able to find some fun ideas by looking online.

I made this Q poster in Word and printed it on a piece of card stock. I put the big Q and the little q and then a picture of all the different Q words we would be talking about for the day. Then each of the boys got a hand full of Q-tips and I got out the watercolor paints and they painted their Q posters using Q-tips.

Sponge wanted to play too, but I wasn't in the mood to clean paint off of him, so instead I just put him in his highchair, gave him a couple Q-tips and Aaron's Popular Science magazine and he "painted" that with invisible, dry, easy to clean up, imaginary paint. He was tickled. :)

We put the posters aside to dry, and I got out my flannel board for the next activity. It was my first time using the flannel board, and I was really excited! I've been thinking up, printing out, and laminating pictures and stories and ideas to use on the board for weeks now, but I hadn't gotten around to putting flannel on the backs of any of them yet, and today was the day. I had done the characters from one of Scientist's favorite songs, 5 Little Ducks. Here are the lyrics:

5 little ducks went out to play
Over the hill and far away
When the mommy duck said, "Quack, Quack, Quack."
4 little ducks came waddling back.

4 little ducks went out to play

Over the hill and far away
When the mommy duck said, "Quack, Quack, Quack."
3 little ducks came waddling back.

(...and you keep counting down until you get to)
0 little ducks came waddling back.

But when the daddy duck said, "Quack! Quack! Quack!"
5 little ducks came waddling back.
 

 
The boys took a little bit to get used to the idea that I wanted them to keep moving the ducks back and forth and count them as we did so. But I think they still enjoyed it, and hopefully more exposure to the flannel board will get them accustomed to it.
 

Next I read one of Scientist and Sponge's favorite books, Quiet Loud by Leslie Patricelli. It's a really simple book that talks about quiet things and loud things. For example on the first two pages it says, "Whispering is quiet. Screaming is loud." And has corresponding pictures. I had the kids do the quiet things and the loud things. At first they looked at me strangely that I was actually encouraging them to be loud inside, but they got over it rather quickly. It was a good chance to talk about how quiet starts with Q, but also a good chance to introduce opposites.
 
Then it was time for a more energetic activity, so the boys could get their wiggles out. I got the idea for this activity and the next one here. I got out 5 paper plates on each one I had drawn either a big Q, a little q, or both. and arranged them fairly close together on the carpet. Then I put a tape line a little ways away and had the boys stand behind it. I gave them each a handful of quarters and showed them how to toss the quarters and try to hit the Q's on the plates. I'd say this was probably the favorite activity of the day. :) The pictures that I took didn't turn out though, so I'm going to see if Suzy will share hers with me, and then I'll post them.
 
Last it was time for snack. We made Q shaped quesadillas. The boys were really excited about helping to spread the cheese, and about eating the tails.

 Linked up with: