(light music) (upbeat music) It is a great day to learn something new and I am more excited than ever because today I have Magnolia and Tucker with me and we are going to be learning and working with you.

Today, we are going to look at letters and we're going to notice the difference between some uppercase and lowercase letters.

Do you guys think you can help me with that?

Magnolia: Sure.

Tucker: It's fine.

Jessica: Good.

So you guys know how to do this?

This might be some review for you, but it's really good practice as we think about writing and doing other word work.

OK?

So look at these letters with me, OK?

Notice how sometimes uppercase and lowercase letters look the same and sometimes they look different when I think about uppercase letters, I think about how they are used to start a sentence or in names like Tucker and Magnolia or for other special places.

And then when I think about the lowercase letters, I think how they make up every other word and then those words help us make sentences.

OK, are you ready to work?

All right.

I'm going to have you help me with the uppercase letters and have you help me with the lowercase letters.

So first thing I want you to do is find me the M. I found it.

Very good.

All right, Tucker, we put those on there.

Looking at the M, what do you notice about these letters?

I noticed that the M, the capital M is all straight.

Very good.

So you have some straight lines with that capital and uppercase.

And what about the lowercase?

So lowercase only has one straight line, and it's really small.

Very good.

So this one, it looks a little bit different, doesn't it?

All right, let's try one.

That looks pretty similar.

Can you find the C for me?

Uppercase.

Lowercase.

Very good.

Very helpful.

Put those on the board.

Now, these look really, really similar.

So how would we even be able to tell the difference between the two of them?

What do you think, Tucker?

I think that's a good way to tell the difference between the uppercase and lowercase C would probably because the the ... Jessica: They look the same.

But what's different about them?

One is bigger.

The uppercase C is bigger.

Yes.

And the lowercase C is smaller.

Very good.

So that uppercase C goes all the way to the top of that line.

The lowercase C starts, stops at what's that place called?

The fence, that dotted line in between.

Very good.

So not every letter is going to look the same.

Some of them are going to look pretty different.

I want us to move on and work on practicing this.

So a fun way to practice writing if you don't want to do it on paper, is to use a sand tray.

And this is something you could do at home as well.

If you want to get a baking sheet or a small tray, you can use sand or salt.

You could even, with an adult's permission, get some shaving cream or whipped cream to write in.

Just make sure it has some raised edges so it doesn't make too big of a mess because that shaving cream can make a pretty big mess.

OK, so if you want to grab your materials, you can work with us or you can try this again later at another time.

So we are going to practice writing in this sand.

Are you guys ready?

Magnolia: Yes.

Jessica: Ok, same thing.

I want you to do those lowercase letters and you do the uppercase letters for me and we'll look at them and see what if they look similar or different.

All right.

Ready to get going?

You have your sand tray ready.

All right.

The first letter we are going to do is, let's do a T for Tucker.

Very good.

Now, with the T, are we using curved lines or straight lines.

Magnolia and Tucker: Straight.

Both of them have straight lines.

Tucker, how do you notice the difference?

The difference between the two T's is that the lowercase one has the line in the middle and the uppercase one has the line on the top.

Very good.

Both of them are pretty tall letters, but the lowercase has that line in the middle, the uppercase at the top.

All right.

Take your tray and gently shake it.

If you're doing it with us at home, do it very gently and let's do an M for your name.

Do you want to try that?

An M for Magnolia.

Uppercase.

Lowercase.

But these are going to look pretty different.

Maggie, what kind of lines are we using with that uppercase M?

Magnolia: We're using very straight lines.

Jessica: Very straight.

And Tucker, what about your lowercase M?

Tucker: Extremely curvy lines.

Jessica: Very good.

You did a little bit of a straight line and then two curves.

Let's do one last letter.

Are you ready?

Let's do an S. Now these, again, look very similar, but I need to be able to notice the difference, so make sure I can when you write it, do your uppercase for me.

Oh, I love how you fixed that.

That was amazing.

That uppercase S starts way at the top.

It's really big.

And even though the lowercase s looks the same, how did you show me it was different?

Because the lowercase starts at the fence.

Jessica: It stops, starts at the fence.

Very good.

And we start our letters at the top and go to the bottom.

You guys did fantastic with that.

And even though we didn't have paper or lines, we can still make sure that we wrote these letters in a way that we can tell the difference between them.

Let's try to make it a little bit harder.

Let's try two words.

How about that?

Oh, OK.

I want you to write the word mom, but I want you to write it as if it was the first word in a sentence.

So both of you do that.

So what, we're going to have to M's in this word.

Very nice.

Perfect.

We did an uppercase M, an O, and then a lowercase M, and I can clearly tell the difference because we have a straight line and curved line.

One last word.

Shake the tray for me and we're going to do our last name Saum.

Make sure we have four letters that can fit on there.

Ooh, very nice.

Awesome.

S a u m we have that uppercase s, and the rest of the letters are lowercase.

You guys did fantastic with this today, and I am so glad you were here with me.

I had so much fun writing and learning, working with you.

Is this something you would like to do again at home?

Magnolia: Sure.

Tucker: Yes.

And it's a great thing you could do outside, so it doesn't make that big of a mess.

When you're at home practicing reading or writing, this is a great way to get extra practice with a fun way writing those letters.

Thank you guys for being here with me today and keep on learning and working and having fun at home.

(bass music)