It's official! We've gotten our first letter completed for our Letter of the Week Series. I'm going to be real honest here.... This is actually my attempt at being a cool Pinterest Mom (which I'm totally not). Seriously though, I always plan to do activities and I always think I will get to it. And then I don't. My intentions are great and my follow-through is awful. I mostly try to follow Harper's lead when it comes to learning and allow it to happen organically, but as an extremely busy single parent I need something to keep me accountable. Creating and committing to a specific path is the best way for me personally to stay the course. With that said, I do not expect my 2.5 year old child to master her ABC's by the end of this. What I do expect is to have a lot of fun, be ready to adapt and adjust, and to be observant of what Harper needs. If she really doesn't want to make a silly animal out of a letter, then we won't. Learning should be fun and some days she just isn't feeling certain activities. That's ok.
I've found many of our activities via Pinterest (you can follow me here) and I create my plans using the Trello app. By planning a few weeks out I can ensure I have everything I need on my shopping lists each week. My goal is to have a variety of activities that are inspired by the featured letter that touch on different aspects of learning; such as art/craft, cooking/life skill/sensory, science/nature, reading and math. Again, my goal is not to "force" the alphabet, but to simply explore it in a variety of ways.
To kick off our week I used our chalkboard to display both upper and lower case "A's" and we went to the library and picked out a few books inspired by the letter "A". This letter was tough, but we managed to find a new favorite. We picked up Animals, Animals by Eric Carle (some of the most beautiful illustrations in children's books), Our Apple Tree by Gorel Kristina Naslund and Kristina Digman, and Amanda & Her Alligator by Mo Willems. Amanda & Her Alligator quickly became Harper's favorite last week as it's a little silly!
The following day we made an "Alligator A" with construction paper and glue. For Harper's age group I cut all of the pieces out for her, but an older child could use child safe scissors to cut the shapes out themselves.
This activity is so simple and quick. All you need is 2 plain white pieces of paper (we just used printer paper), 1 sheet of green construction paper, scissors, Elmer's glue, and a black ink pen or fine point marker. Simply draw an "A" on the green construction paper, draw teeth and eyes on one sheet of white paper, and cut it all out. Then, give a little guidance in glueing all of the pieces together. It is really that easy!
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| Harper's Finished Masterpiece Apple Stamping was by far Harper's favorite activity! She did this for almost an hour (which in the world of toddlerhood might as well be a decade). All you need for this one is an apple (we used one that was already going bad), a few sheets of white paper (again we just used printer paper), 2 paper plates, 3 containers of paint (red, green, and brown), and a paintbrush. |
You'll first want to slice your apple in half. Then, pour a small amount of green and red paint on a paper plate and apply the paint to each half of the apple. And start stamping! Once the stamping is complete, create stem with the paintbrush.
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| Cutest apple stamper ever! |
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| The finished product! |
For our math activity I found this free printable here. This is also great for fine motor skills! All you need is the printable, enough poms in varying sizes (we didn't have any red so I settled for pink and green) to fill the letter and object, and a cookie sheet. The cookie sheet isn't entirely necessary, I just like to keep everything organized and feel it helps her focus.
I showed her how to fill the dots first by doing a few myself and then cleared the sheet. We counted each pom while we worked and practiced sorting the colors and sizes. At first, this was not something she loved, but as you can see once she got the hang of it she became intent on doing it over and over.
To wrap-up our letter "A" week we also explored ant hills outside, made an Apple Pie Milkshake together, and watched the "A" music video on ABCmouse.com via the app for iPhone. Throughout the week we still sang the alphabet song and noticed other letters.
Next week we are moving on to Letter "B" where we are building Bumble "B's" and whipping up Blueberry Banana Smoothies!
