Letter A–Summer Mode

We are officially in summer mode which means we will put a pause on our letter-of-the-week stuff (we’ll pick it back up again in the fall) and just do some fun themes and other activities.  We did do a little bit of letter A review but mostly just had fun..

Since “A is for Astronaut,” I put together this fun sensory bin filled with our Moon Sand, this toob, rocks, glow-in-the-dark stars, and beads.

We read this awesome book to go along with it!

I switched out her rice box and filled it with Aa’s and anything I could find that started with A.

She got creative and used brother’s Potsy toy to transfer the rice into..

And then served me some “letter A soup.”

I hid some jewels inside her Play-Doh for her to find (she picked black and white this time). 

Then she balanced the jewels on a craft stick with stickers on it.  This was more challenging than I thought it would be!

She rolled the Play-Doh into a snake and then I gave her her scissors to practice cutting with.  Love this activity!

She thought it was cute that she made a bunch of “people.”  She’s pointing to the baby, of course.

Then she wanted to do the same with the black Play-Doh.  You better believe we talked about skin tones ; )

I put a small paper clip on each of her vocabulary words and she used her fishing pole to fish them up!  She loved this.

She watched letter Aa on Starfall.

We painted on watercolor paper using colored ice cubes!  Fun!

I put our foam letters (A-M) in a bug catcher (from Target dollar spot a while ago).  She had to close her eyes (she loves this), pick one out, tell me what it is, practice the sound it makes, and then find the corresponding flash card laid out on the ground.  She had lots of fun with this game!

All matched up!

I got these cute little ring toss games at the Target dollar spot recently (I may have bought one in almost every color). 

I was saving this puzzle for a unit on the body, but a babysitter came over and found it.  She has not stopped asking for it.  She LOVES it.

We did some tracing..

Using our Kumon Workbook (inside a sheet protector).

She did really well with this.

And diligently erased her work when she was done!

I found these plastic nuts and bolts at the Target dollar spot recently (love that place).

She struggled with these a bit, good fine motor practice!

I tried to get her to lace these ABCs..

But she preferred to line them up instead : )

 

Ivan is 1!

This post is overdue, but our little brother B/beefy/BB turned 1! I can hardly believe it. On each of my children’s birthdays, I can’t help but think back to their day of birth and through the past year. Even though it has been sometimes hard having two-under-two years apart, it has been so fun and so completely worth it. Ivan has been a sweet addition to our family. He is constantly giving love and has the biggest heart for such a little {beefy} guy. We sure do love you little man!

Ivan just after birth..

Ivan at three weeks..

Ivan at one month..

Ivan at One Year..

Ivan and Sissy a year ago..

Ivan and Sissy a year later…

Some fun facts about Ivan at 1 year:

*He is not walking yet but he is super close (holding onto one finger while he walks).

*He says about 8 words: Dada, Mama, Car, Ball, Bubble, Cracker, Uh-Oh, and Bonk

*He gives the BEST bear hugs. He gets his little arms right around your neck and squeezes like he never wants to let go. It melts our hearts!

*My absolute favorite thing is to watch his chubby little hands wave, clap and play peek-a-boo. I wish his hands would stay that way forever (although, that might be kind of awkward at age 30).

*He is very patient with his {super} affectionate sissy.

*He has four teeth.

*He weighs 25 lbs! {just 4 lbs less than sissy} He is one. solid. kid. Lookout world, we have a linebacker on our hands.

A Month of Letter C

OK, so it didn’t take Norah a month to learn the letter C (in fact, she knew it prior) but it took ME a month to get my act together!  Between visitors (my Grandma spent 3 weeks with us!), sick kids (yuck), and catching up on sleep after said illnesses passed it took me this long to cover the letter C (and I didn’t even do all that I had planned).  SIGH.  I was also terrible about having my camera on hand so not everything is pictured, but here is some of our month of randomness : )

Tot Trays

Balancing different size marbles onto golf tees stuck in styrofoam.  It’s a great fine motor workout.

Opening and closing a pill box to find mini-erasers.  This is great for fine motor as well as a memory game.

For this activity I just colored a bunch of dots on a piece of paper then she used the colored reinforcement stickers to place around the matching color. 

 

Letter Fun

Her rice box (always a favorite) was filled with all sorts of C’s and C objects!

Diving in!

Tracing the letter Cc.

Gluing her Cc collage together.  This time she chose to use a glue-stick.

Lacing the letter C caterpillar.  I printed this from here, laminated and punched holes in it.  She still needs quite a bit of help lacing but she is getting so much better!

 

Number Fun

For this activity I would call out a number and she would place the large accent rock on top of the correct number.  She really enjoyed when the rock would make the number look big! (This sheet was also printed from here).

We watched Toy Story 3 on Netflix and she really enjoyed it so I pulled out this simple puzzle I grabbed from the Dollar Tree a while ago and we worked on putting the numbers in order.

 

She played with her LeapFrog Count and Scan Shopper a lot!  It is such a versatile toy and currently one of my favorites ; )

 

Color Fun

I printed these color puzzles from here, laminated and put velcro on them.  She can already identify her colors correctly, but they were also great for language development (we talked about the objects underneath).

Brother got in on the action too (he had a thing for the black cat)!

I guess these wore her out! : )

She was really proud of herself when she sorted by color this matching game (yard sale find) without any initiation from me!

 

Artsy-Crafty Fun

Since we had the marbles out, we made a marble painting.  I didn’t realize what a good motor activity it would also be since it took quite a bit of skill to tip the tray at a certain angle to roll the marbles. 

Her masterpiece ; )

We finger painted our letter C (her first experience with the official “finger paint!”)   I really had to coax her to get messy.  She kept asking for a wipe, silly kid!

 

Playing Fun

Her favorite thing to do on a hot summer day is play on our back porch with her kitchen, table and water table (what more could a girl need?)  I got the plastic “dinnerware” for about $6 at TJMAXX.  She has already spent hours with it!

And when it starts to rain on us, it makes it even more fun.