Dalle de Verre – Kitengela Glass Studios

Dalle de Verre in a bank in Nairobi by Kitengela

My good friend and glass goddess Leigh Adams just returned from Kitengela Glass Studios in Kenya. What an adventure. The day before yesterday I was fortunate enough to get a look at half of the pictures she took while there. This coming week I’ll see the rest. I’ll also get some copies form her to share with you. One of the glass techniques that was all over Kitengela is dalle de verre which is a cross between mosaic and stained glass. It’s really beautiful. It’s used for windows quite a bit. Leigh said it was all over her house she stayed in while at Kitengela. She has the pictures to prove it.

Dalle de Verre at Kitengela

Dalle de verre is created with cast glass…blocks of glass…sometimes almost like billets. The various pieces are connected together with cement or epoxy depending on the creator of the piece. This is a technique I’m very curious to learn about. In my search around the internets I even found that Blenko Glass sells dalle de verre glass.

Dalle de Verre glass from Blenko Glass

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

Have you read?