OLD

Unplugged Project this week:

We decided to go the reading/rhyming route this time. Using some small wooden alphabet letters and a homemade cardboard pattern we rhymed the word "old". If you don't have a wooden alphabet, try using the plastic magnet letters or even the foam ones.

A found the right letters for his template and then we set about looking for 'real' words that rhymed with old by trying out each of the letters in the alphabet.

Our favorite part of the activity was making silly words. A couldn't help laughing at the sound of some of them.

**Update: I had no idea my little set of letters would spark such interest! Unfortunately they are something I found in a Fijian nickel and dime store for about $5. There was no brand or "made in" information on the packaging or on the wooden box itself. So sorry to everyone interested. :-(
Check out Carrie's comment below to see some links to other wooden alphabets. Thanks Carrie!

Color and I Spy Books

Here are a couple mini books I've made during the past few weeks. As usual, nothing fancy. But A always enjoys a little surprise.

For both books I used the hot dog booklet pattern at Making Books with Children:

My Rainbow of Colors
Using markers we colored A's index finger with ink. He stamped the same color as many times as he wanted all over a page. Each page had a different color. Then I went back and drew in some simple (very simple!) faces and scenery for the characters and added the color word.

I Spy the Alphabet!
I saw an idea on Crafty Crow for a personalized I Spy book. It was taken from this post on marytree where they took photos of toys, then cut and pasted them into a book. I simplified it a bit and cut letters out of an old catalog, then glued them onto the pages and made a list of what letters needed to be found. I'm going to make a few more I Spy books with different and increasingly more difficult themes, but I need to get some doubles of catalogs /wrappers /magazines first. This is also the kind of book that A can help make by cutting and gluing the pictures if we needed an activity.

Cup Memory

When we moved in there was an opened package of plastic cups in one of the kitchen cupboards. For sanitary reasons I wasn't too excited about drinking from them, however I found several other ways to put them to use. One of the most successful was a new version of the Memory game. I used alphabet stickers and placed them on the inside bottom of the cup; although any kind of medium-small stickers would work as long as you have two of each picture to make a pair. Turning the cups over to find what was inside kept A's attention a bit better than cards. And in the end, storing them was as easy as stacking them up.

B is for...

Butterflies, bats, blue, brown, black, and beach.

I figured the best way to learn about the beach was a field trip. Here is A washing some of the huge sea shells we collected and brought home. His favorite are the 'butterfly shells'.
















This is a beach collage we both worked on. A did his pretty much all by himself. (I mostly pointed, he did the action.) Materials: torn construction paper, sand, shells, blue watercolor, and glue. It's a masterpiece.

Bubble B Quiz

No pictures for this one, I was too busy in the activity aspect this time. A is really into blowing bubbles now, and I say great! Heres why:
1. he gets out so many of those unending toddler wiggles while he chases around the balcony or the driveway catching bubbles.
2. The kinesthetic activity turns on his imagination: he loves to pretend he is a predator owl swooping down to catch his prey (yeah, those are all HIS words picked up from past learning times and wonderful books). Oh sometimes he's a crocodile catching the rabbits and mice.
3. He doesn't get frustrated at this activity, ever. It could go on for hours if I let it.

Today we started the letter B. I pointed out the Bubbles had two b sounds in it. I decided to take a chance and try making this an educationally challenging moment at the risk that he might just get mad at the whole experience. It turned out fantastic, so we might just pull it out again sooner than later.

Before I could blow bubbles he had to give me a B word--they all wound up beginning with b sounds, but I would have taken a middle or end B if he had suggested it. I gave hints for words, but I could tell by his responses that he was definitely thinking in terms of the B sound. He would give words that I wasn't even thinking of! We came up with a lengthy list of words which in turn gave me several ideas for other activities and conversations this week. It was a hit!

food coloring paint

We pulled out the old food coloring and water in an ice cube tray trick for a bit of painting fun. I explained to A at the beginning that he needed to rinse off the brush every time he dipped it into a new color otherwise it would spoil the colors. For the first five minutes I would say "Rinse!" each time his brush approached the paints. After that he was great at it...when he wanted to. Sometimes he would start at one end and dip his brush in every color just for fun. So the yellow was a bit green and the blue was turning purple. Oh well. He loved it.
At first I let him be creative and do what he wanted. After five pieces of paper I started drawing simple pictures for him to color in. He enjoyed both types of canvases. Several days later we did it again, but this time I made some 'educational' pictures to be colored: the number and letter we were studying for the week. It was an easy and fun activity for us both.