Letter 'ઘ' = 'GHA'

We are starting our Gujarati learning journey with Letter 'ઘ', as guided by 'સરળ વાચન' series. I strongly believe learning something new with hands on activities will improve interest in the process and make a strong impression in mind that will last forever.

(Letter tray for 'ઘ', I had also added a sheep and a watch, not shown in the picture)

1). We started with exploring the objects in the letter tray and learning their names in Gujarati. I included letter 'ઘ' hand written on a card stock, a house(ઘર), a watch(ઘડિયાળ), grass (ઘાસ), an owl(ઘુવડ), A rattle(ઘૂઘરો), a sheep(ઘેટુ), a horse(ઘોડો); the watch and sheep were added after I took this picture.

2). The first activity was washing a horse. I planned to do it at the table, since J has been enjoying sponging (cleaning/transferring with a sponge) for a while, but ended up working at the bath time, which was much fun undoubtedly. Don't water and a toddler goes hand in hand? This tray included, a horse, dish soap, a clean toothbrush (never used for brushing), a spray bottle, a sponge to clean up the water spilled (was not needed at the tub though) and a napkin to wipe the horse. I chose spray bottle for it helps to strengthen the finger muscles. Filling up the bottle and screwing/unscrewing the sprayer is another practical life activity. This was his favorite and was asked for every day during shower. 

(bathing together, J and the horse)

3). The next one was to cut and create grass. J loves using scissors, not much of purposeful cutting yet, but correct hold and safe handling was the aim.  I used green construction paper rectangles, snipped one of them halfway as a starting guide, a bowl to put back the finished work and a pair of scissors in a tray. I am very confident in this activity as he has always been careful handling a pair of scissors and contained the tiny pieces of paper in a bowl, sending to the trash can at the end.

(J containing the small pieces inside the tray while cutting grass)

4). The owl activity was planned to work with three ways. Aim was to recognize/ differentiate/ connect colors and patterns from left to right. I freehand drawn the owls on a paper with different colored patterns on them. Then used post it notes of two different colors, one had different colored owls with no patterns on the body and the other one had only patterns in the colors to match. 

The first one was to connect the owls from left to right by their patterns.

 

The second one was to match by color. Peeling off the post it notes was none the less fun.

The last one was to match the patterns with those on the owl. For control of error, I kept the colors same as those on the owls.

5). The clock activity was all about number recognition and gluing on purpose. I wrote down numbers on the clock and J looked for matching numbers and pasted them. He can already identify numbers 1 to 5 in Gujarati, so this time our aim was to go further.

6). I used silver and black card stocks to make these sheep and painted the clothes pins to match, for this activity. Also wrote letter 'ઘ' on the body to mimic wool pattern. We had tried using the clothes pins before, but J's finger muscles were not ready until this time. He clipped them without any struggle/ frustration and tried to stand them up figuring out both the pins needed to be at the same level to stable the sheep up on its feet. This idea came from Pinterest.

 

7). The foam cutouts to form the letter 'ઘ' were interesting, although he needed help to form it correctly.

8). We also sang the song 'ચલ મેરે ઘોડા રે...' playing the rattle and running around the house, having much fun.

9). Finally we concluded our letter 'ઘ' activities by pasting all we did on a card stock. The house was done very independently by J, without any guiding shapes put up on the paper.