Pony Bead Letters (Great first week of school activity!)

I'm always looking for fun and engaging table activities to do with Penelope. In the mornings, Penelope has to wear a patch on her left eye to help strengthen the vision in her right eye. The doctor has recommended that the best activities for her to do during this time would be activities that are up close so that she can help her eye grow nice and strong! That said, I am constantly trying to find new ideas that will be fun for her and not only help her eye get stronger but will also keep her mind off of the fact that she has that pesky patch on! 

One morning we were looking through our art cabinet and found a big bag of pony beads. So many options! I have found, however, that asking Penelope to string tiny beads on a thread can be frustrating for her, and that is not the feeling we are looking for! 

What to do?! 

She is really into spelling her name right now, so I thought we could try something out with that. I drew a large P on a piece of white card-stock. Penelope then traced the P with the glue bottle, and we were ready to cover it in beads! 

I tried to see if she would be into creating a color pattern, but it wasn't happening, so I threw that idea out the window and just watched her "do it myself!" 

Here in the picture you can see that it was a hit! Penelope did a P for her name, a C for Cooper and a D for daddy. I wrote in the remaining letters of each name and then we put them on the wall in the play room. By the time we were done, she did try to make a necklace, which was a little tricky, but it never hurts to try! 

Classroom Connection

This activity really took me back to the first few weeks of school. I was thinking that it would be a great way to work on a few things that first week with a new class. 

1. I might be more likely to have students either do their entire name in beads or their initials. 
 -If you do initials, it would be a fun "get to know you" activity for them to tell the class their full name after creating their project and even a story about their name. My First Grade teacher team did a fun homework asking families to write the story of their child's name. This might be a fun tie in to have them share the story of their name as they share their initials. 
2. Encouraging work with beads can show you your students fine motor skills. Watch as they work on their letters. Are they working fast? Are they working slow? Are they sloppy? Are they getting frustrated? Who feels comfortable with the glue bottle? These are all such important things you need to know about these learners and activities like this one could be a great way to get a feel for everyone early. 
3. Work on patterns. Penelope is too young for the pattern work, but Kindergarten and up could be a great time to see who understands patterns and maybe who could push themselves to do more complex patterns with the beads. 
4. Make a "me map". After students finish their letter or letters, have them use the remainder of the page to draw things they would like to share about themselves. What makes them special? What makes them happy? What do they want to share with the class? 
5. Use all of the letter pages to create a large class bar graph! See which letter is the most common first letter for a name in the class and which is the least. You can do tally marks with your bar graph! 
6. Enjoy the book "Chrysanthemum" by Kevin Henkes to get started talking about names. 
**These would look fantastic up as a border around the chalk board, or a bulletin board. Keep them up all year! What a fabulous way to show off those letters and personalities! **