Cater-spelling, An Egg Carton Game

Despite the fact, that snow showers are still in our weekly, weather forecast, the seasons are changing.

Leaves are budding, birds are singing, and the insects are returning to our yard. I have mixed emotions about that last one, but the children were quite thrilled to find their first caterpillar of the season.

Again, I had mixed feelings. Did you know not all caterpillars are really caterpillars? The larvae of other insects, like sawflies, crane flies, and beetles can also look a lot like a caterpillar. Ours did seem to be an actual caterpillar though (more on that for Science Sunday), so we celebrated with a spelling lesson.

I know, I know, a spelling lesson doesn't sound like much of a celebration, but this was cater-spelling - a craft, a game, and a lot of fun.

I cut the bottoms off of a couple of empty egg cartons.

The younger girls painted them green, purple, and yellow.

When they dried, we turned the green ones into heads, like normal for an egg carton caterpillar (Michelle, over at A Mommy's Adventures made a cute one with her girls this week, to go along with Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar).

Then, I painted letters on top of the purples (two sets of vowels), and yellows (only one set of consonants, because I ran out of empty egg cartons)...

...so that after a bit more drying time, we could practice our alphabet...

...and simple spelling skills.

Best of all, the pieces can be stacked, to turn one word into another.

Of course, once we empty another egg carton, or two, to add another few sets of letters, we'll be able to spell larger words, and the older children can join in for a full fledged, family game.

It's great to be a homeschooler.