Field Trip: Corning Museum of Glass

When you think of glass do you think Corning? Well if you don’t you should. And if you can take a glass vacation The Corning Museum of Glass is the place on the east coast to go. It’s located in Corning, NY which is upstate from NYC. they have a studio where you can take classes and see glass blowing and they have the coolest museum that houses an incredible collection of the history of glass. I went years ago for a Society of Glass Beadmakers conference (before they became the International Society of Glass Beadmakers), before they renovated the museum. I am really looking forward to my next east coast vacation so I can fit in a trip over to the museum.

If you wander around their web site you can see the museum is chock full of activities and glass learning experiences. The pictures I’ve posted show a bit of the museum’s attempted at creating the world’s largest glass pumpkin. Crazy…but totally cool. Check out their flickr account to see all of the pictures. Just traveling around their web site and their flickr account will make you want to go to Corning to check it all out. I know I want to go.

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]

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