Muffin Tin Matching: Letter Bb

I love finding things around my house to incorporate learning activities with. It's almost like a treasure hunt for me! I did get this idea, using the muffin tin, from another blog I read. Except this mom would call it Muffin Tin Munchies, and I think she would serve snacks in the muffin tins. Instead of snacks, how about some more letter Bb review? I wanted to touch on capital and lowercase. Here's the materials I used.

I traced six lowercase, "b's" and six uppercase "B's" on a muffin wrapper. Then colored them in different colors (not gonna lie, this was confusing for an 18 month old. Duh. Sometimes I forget she's not the five year old that I teach). I did have to use a small piece of tape to tape down the muffin wrappers. They wanted to come out.



I then traced the same amount of lower and uppercase "Bb's" onto construction paper to match the ones in the muffin tins, so she could match them. The matching was very much mommy-directed. I think this would've been a little easier if the "Bb's" were all one color. Then we could focus on just matching the uppercase to uppercase and lowercase to lowercase. The colors were a little overstimulating to a year and a half year old, I think.

So, after matching them once or twice, we chunked the wrappers and just practiced manipulating each letter in each tin. We talked about it being uppercase and lowercase. This was much more fun! AB did this for half an hour!



Like I said, I sometimes forget I'm not the mother of a five year old. I feel like I'm a five year old mom, most of the day!! Just like teaching, not all lessons go as planned. Luckily, we came up with a modified version and really enjoyed it. This activity would have been great for a two and a half or three year old I think! I'm glad this muffin tin got some use, it hasn't been used for it's original purpose in a long time! :0)

Cross-curricular: Math: Muffin tins would be great to use for math activities. What an awesome way to pattern. Each row of the tin could be a different pattern. Also, what about sorting? Give your kids their favorite cereal such as fruit loops for sorting the different colors or Alpha-Bits cereal for sorting each of the letters (you'd need two muffin tins for this) or, instead of muffin tins you can use ice cube trays. Use the muffin tins for number identification. Also, you can put a certain number of objects in each tin, and the child can match the number with the correct amount. How about a good game of memory or concentration using the muffin tins? Since the muffin tins are metal, you could incorporate magnetic activities. Kids of all ages love using magnets! ELA: You could draw or print out pictures with matching rhymes. Students could match the rhymes using the muffin tin. Introducing letters, a few at a time and matching them. Same with using pictures for beginning and ending sounds.