Teeny Tiny Treasures

Teeny Tiny Treasures
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Good things do come in small packages!  Collect small objects from around your classroom or home that begin with each letter of the alphabet.  Place the teeny tiny treasures by letter in a small mint tin or other small container.  (I use Altoid tins.)  Students draw and label the treasures in their Teeny Tiny Treasures booklet.  These tiny trinkets provide big practice opportunities for initial sounds and hearing/recording sounds in words.

I would love to have 26 tins.  However, I decided that if I waited until I collected all 26, I would never get started.  You can do this activity with only one tin.  Students complete one letter per week in a literacy center.  At the end of the week, replace the old objects with the next letter's objects.  If you have more tins and less time to complete the entire alphabet, have your students complete more than one letter per week.

I think that I had just as much fun finding tiny objects to put into the boxes as the kids have had discovering what is inside of each box.  Once you start looking around, you will be amazed at what you can find.  I tried to find at least 5 objects for each letter.  Here are a few ideas of additional places to look to get you started:  office supplies, $1 bins at stores, garage sales, food labels, party favors, seasonal items, tiny erasers, stickers, miniature doll accessories, and collections of plastic animals.  Photos of kids in your class are especially terrific treasures.  The photo company that takes our school pictures provides teachers with several small pictures of each child.  These are the perfect size for the box.  

Available for purchase are two sizes of booklets for students to record treasures for each letter.  Click on the TpT button or follow the link under the picture of the Teeny Tiny Treasure C box for more information.  However, you can easily make your own booklets for free!

Tiniest Booklet (Quarter page booklet)

• Cut construction paper cover 4 1/2 X 12
• Fold in half (4 1/2 X 6), but open flat
• Cut 4 pieces of copy paper in half 4 1/4 X 11.  Fold in half, but open flat.
• Stack open pages and cover together.  Staple with long arm stapler in the spine of the fold.

(This booklet makes enough pages to add ch, sh, th, and wh at the end.)

 

Booklet (Half page booklet)

• Cut construction paper cover 9 X 12
• Fold in half (9 X 6), but open flat
• Fold 7 pieces of copy paper in half, but open flat.
• Stack open pages and cover together.  Staple with long arm stapler in the spine of the fold.

Do you teach Pre-K?  You might also consider a teeny tiny color collection.  Use a larger booklet for students to record or draw the treasures.