U is for Underwear... - Sharing Kindergarten

{Updated on 1/5/15 with a THIS freebie}

Letter Uu… you are so tricky for my little learners.

You confuse their brains and mix up sounds.
My kids always think you make the /y/ sound.

Poor Letter Uu… you have your own sound.

The week we cover the tricky u…

I have a little fun with my students to make this letter u memorable…

unforgettable…
and therefore meaningful.

Guess what I use to teach the letter u with?

Underwear!

{classy right…
When you teach 5 year old, you got to get down and dirty sometimes.}

I love using the books Aliens Love Underpants

http://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Love-Underpants-Deluxe-Edition/dp/0764166700/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=sharinkinder-20&linkCode=w01&linkId=JAJBK7MCDREPD5DM&creativeASIN=0764166700

to start our lively discussion on underpants.

First of all, kids call their under things lots of different names…

underpants, underwear, panties, and a few other things this book covers.

{Hello, grandma’s bloomers!}

I also love this book because the book describes underwear
in a fun and silly way, which encourages kids to do the same.

After we read a fun book about underwear and point out the /u/ sound about a million times

{and point up to get a motion in with the sound}

we write about underwear on a sheet that is underwear… so fun!

First we write about our underwear.

I remind my students that whatever they write is what they have to draw,

so make sure you keep that in mind.

Then we go over our writing with a black crayon.

Next, we color our undies like we described them.

Last, we cut the out.

I took some rope and clothes pins to show my students what a clothes line

{from Aliens Love Underpants} looks like
since that is something many of them can’t connect to since they don’t see it.
It also made a cute undie display.

Here are a few funny underwear books you might want to check out.

And I discovered a NEW fun Undie book…
U is for Underwear.

http://www.amazon.com/U-Is-Underwear-Lisa-Carter-ebook/dp/B00IUQ0ISU/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=sharinkinder-20&linkCode=w01&linkId=VYKLQEMJEUBADAVT&creativeASIN=B00IUQ0ISU

This sweet illustrator sent me this book last year after reading this initial post
for me to use in my classroom.
And I was thrilled to read it to my class this year.
They adored it.

Now, you know I didn’t just talk and teach about underwear this week,
we did a ton of meaningful activities with the letter Uu…
Here are some of them.

This activity is a letter U find.

https://sharingkindergarten.com/product/letter-pack-big-bundle/

My students LOVE these sheets.

We always do them on Monday.
This gives me a great indicator of who can recognize the Letter U.

We also played this FUN math umbrella game for building number sense.

A huge hit was this ten frame sheet.
We used paint to make the “raindrops” in the ten frames.

Was it slightly messy.
Yep… but kindergarten IS slightly a lot messy.

Here is what the basket look like.
I provided them baby wipes, a paint cup, and q-tips.
This was their set up.

Here are the umbrella letters we ordered.

We added rain drops initial sound cards to this chart for some extra phonics practice.

And what about building words?
Check out this Nutty Words activity.

We use the u pictures to guide our writing.

Fun!

All of these activities for the Letter Uu {Print & Play Pack.} are in my bundle.

But who doesn’t want a freebie?
Click on THIS LINK, then click on PREVIEW to download this freebie sheet.

You can check out this pack here to grab some more ideas for the letter Uu.

Amazon.com Widgets

Comments

Lori says

January 5, 2014 at 11:49 pm

Such a fun way to teach the letter u! It will definitely help the kids to remember the u sound with underwear! We love Aliens Love Underpants too. They just giggle and laugh. They are not sure if it is appropriate to laugh at or not! Then they just bust out! 🙂
Lori
Conversations in Literacy

Love, Laughter and Learning in Prep! says

January 6, 2014 at 12:37 am

I bought 2 new underwear books in the Christmas sales – Pirates Love Underpants, and Aliens Love Underpants with special effects sound buttons! I can't wait to use them with my class. 🙂

Lauren
Love, Laughter and Learning in Prep!

mary kearney says

January 6, 2014 at 3:12 am

Another cute book is " What Color is Your Underwear?" This book is a lift the flap and the undies are hidden underneath! One of the favorites in my class!

mj says

January 6, 2015 at 7:00 pm

I also like the book "Underwear" Jungle animals wear underwear in many different ways, except a grumpy buffalo. The others challenge him to say underwear five times without laughing. He of course can't do it.
I would love to get a copy of your undie writing page. I found some underwear clipart, but not as cute as yours 🙂