P is for Princess Pigtoria and the Pea

My new favorite book for teaching the alphabet and specifically letter P is Princess Pigtoria and the Pea by Pamela Duncan Edwards, illustrated by Henry Cole.

Based on the classic tale, The Princess and the Pea it's a great teaching tool. The alliteration is plentiful and makes it a fun silly read. The entire storyline is infused with P word after P word giving teachers plenty of opportunities to stress the beginning sound while reading, example:

Presently, Pigtoria stood in the portal of Prince Proudfoot's palace. She pounded on the door. A page led her into the presence of the prince.

Book Description: Poor Princess Pigtoria heads off to see if Prince Proudfoot of Porksville will propose and help make her palace pretty again. The prince ends up being a pompous porker, a partner Pigtoria can do without. She prefers Percy-the-Pizza-Pig. They marry and open a chain of profitable pizza palors and paint Pigtoria's palace. Everyone ends up perfectly happy even Prince Proudfoot.

Letter P ideas to use with the book:

• Give students a letter P die cut, have them hold it up each time they hear a P word.
• Take turns having a student stand by the whiteboard and make a tally mark each time a letter P word is said. Count them all up at the end.
• Photocopy a page of the book or type out the text and enlarge. Have students highlight or circle the letter P every time they encounter it. While this might technically be copyright infringement, I think most children's authors would be pleased to have their work used to help educate. As long as only one page is used and it's not for commercial gain it's probably okay.
• Make a letter P book and have students choose five letter P words to copy and illustrate.
• Have students write a letter sentence or two with as many P words as they can and still have it make sense or let them make silly letter P sentences and illustrate.
• Take the sentence from the activity above, type and print out, and then attach to a pig art project (like the one below☺)
• Make a paper plate pizza with as many letter P toppings as you can think of. Write what's on your pizza on a piece of paper and staple below.
• Plate of P Foods, if you were at the party with Pigtoria and Percy what letter P foods would you have? Cut our magazine pictures or draw them onto a plate, be sure to label them to get some handwriting practice in!

Pretty simple, my kindergarten students used to really like them and it engaged their active listening skills. Many of the ideas are easily adaptable for any letter of the week book.

Now onto the perfect book related craft, a Paper Plate Pink Princess Pigtoria Pig, try saying that ten times super fast, to go along with our book. Here's a quick how to: Paint two paper plates, a dinner and dessert sized one. Stack on top of each other, as shown above.

To keep this craft as mess free as possible, I used my new mini glue dots. They come in a handy rolling dispenser! Did you know they came this way? They're my new favorite☺ You can learn more about Glue Dots on their Facebook Fan Page. Cut four legs, two triangles for ears and a circle for a nose out of pink paper. I freehanded these and if ER was a little older I'd have let her cut them out. Right now we're still working on straight lines so I didn't want to frustrate her.

We used bigger glue dots, the kind on the individual sheets to attach each. Remove the clear backing, press down onto your paper, rub in, and the peel off the mounting paper. I've been in love with these ever since I saw our librarian use them for craft at storytime. She loves them because huge amounts of kiddos can came through and make foam crafts without any mess. They are great for foam crafts, white school glue doesn't usually work too well with those.

I use them mainly for scrapbooking and papercrafts. They are the easiest way to adhere things like metal accents, ribbon, and other bulky embellishments to layouts and projects. I am never without them on hand.These are the half inch size and while it took a few tries for ER to get the backing off, she's now an expert. We also used the mini glue dots to attach the wiggly eyes.Now you have a cute pink paper plate pig, but she's not a princess yet! She's missing a few important things don't you think?Now that's better! Don't forget Princess Pigtoria's crown, little curly pipe cleaner tail, and nostrils for her nose.

A Summer Bonding Project with Glue Dots and Shared At:

Disclaimer: I wrote this blog post while participating in the TwitterMoms and Glue Dots blogging contest to be eligible to receive a $30 gift card. For more information on how you can participate, click here. While the Glue Dots used in this project were provided to me, I have and continue to use and purchase them myself.