B is for Bee

We started the letter B and what better way than with a bee!

Once again we used the idea from totally tots and made a bumble B.

Then we made these cute little bees, found here.  Instead of using a coffee filter for the wings, I just used wax paper and crinkled it a bit.

Then we sang the song, "I'm bringing home my baby bumble bee" and used our little bees for the actions.

Then we read "Buzz Bumble to the Rescue".

This was such a good book for teaching the letter b because there are lots to find on every page.

A is for Ariel

For our last day with the letter a, we had a fun day with Ariel.

Originally, I was planning on making this clothespin ariel.  

Turns out I couldn't find the right clothespins here in town so I gave up on that idea and I found this coloring page here.  

After Addy colored it, we added some red yarn for the hair, ripped up green construction paper to make the scales and glued small pom poms for the fishes crazy hair.

I'll I helped with was the cutting of the yarn and adding the glue to the paper.  So this was a pretty great spur of the moment Addy creation!

Then I printed and cut out these Ariel dress up dolls which can be found here.

 Addy spent the rest of the day playing with her baby ariel princess doll.  We were also going to watch "The Little Mermaid" but the day got too busy so we still have to do that.

A is for Airplane

We were a little busy today running errands and cleaning up the house but we still managed to have a little time for our Airplane day.

We read two stories with airplanes in them.

This was another book I was wanting to get but it was already checked out from the library.

Then Addy painted this little airplane set.  When her dad came home from work, she helped him put it together.  

A is for Ant

This was our day for ants.

I found an image of an ant on google and printed out ten little ants which Addy very much enjoyed coloring.  It took her an hour to do one page so I helped her with the second page.  After all the ants were colored and cut out, we sang the song "The Ants go Marching".  

We had great fun marching and dancing around the house being little ants.  This was also another good way to incorporate numbers and counting to ten.

 Then Addy started painting herself a pink, purple and blue ant. 

 Instructions for the ant as well as words to the song can be found here.

She absolutely loved that ant!

A is for Apple

Today we had lots of fun with apples.  

We read the book "Ten Apples Up On Top!" This was a good book for us because it had apples so we could pick out the letter A but it also was great for counting. So this lesson incorporated both of those things.

We painted an apple tree by using an arm for the trunk, hands for the branches and fingers for apples.

We made apple number flash-cards.  I wrote the number word and symbol then drew on little stems and Addy created the apples with her fingerprint.  This was a great fine motor skills activity and we got lots of practice counting.

Then we made our lowercase letter a apple.  Addy even helped cut out those little seeds and I traced the stem and leaf and she mostly cut them out. For a fun little after lunch snack we made these apple treats.

Here are all of our apple creations.

A is for Alligator

For our first day with letter A, we focused on alligators.  

We read "Alligator Baby" by Robert Munsh.

Some other good books about alligators that our library didn't have (sad day):

'Alligator Alphabet' by Stella Blackstone and 'Snip Snap, What's That' by Mara Bergman

Then we made this alligator A from totally tots. 

Colored this fabulous picture which I just googled in 30 seconds.

Sang the song "Five little monkey's swinging in the tree".  It is one of my daughters favorites because Grandma taught it to her. 

Then we told the story of 'The Monkey and the Crocodile".  I'd made several felt story book character things many years ago and this just so happened to be one.  I read the story, but I changed it from crocodile to alligator, and Addy acted it out with the pieces.

  

Getting Started

This week I started teaching my crazy little three year old the letters in the alphabet.  I just have to say that I am loving it!  Sometimes I think I love researching and planning just as much as she does creating and learning. Maybe it is because it is the middle of the winter and really we have to get creative in order to get through each day.

So I've created this blog to help me keep track of what we've done so when I forget later I will have somewhere to look back too.  Plus this will get me to take pictures of all the things we make, so I won't feel so bad when I throw some of them away later! 

Enjoy.

Oh and I'll try to link back to all the sites I get my information from because we all know I'm not creative enough to come up with my own ideas!