Letter activities

Letter of the week – Z

Posted in Food, Kid crafts, Letter activities, Molly on July 6th, 2010 by jen – 2 Comments

We made it to the end! Molly and I posed together with our last letter, Z for zebra.

Z is for zebra

Using a recipe for pinwheel cookies, we made zebra cookies.

Zebra cookies

With the help of the self-timer, I was able to capture our mommy-daughter game of Zingo. It's Bingo with a zing!

Zingo

We ended the week making zucchini chocolate chip muffins. Molly liked tap-tapping the eggs.

Zucchini muffins

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Letter of the week – W

Posted in Food, Kid crafts, Letter activities, Molly on June 30th, 2010 by jen – 1 Comment

Our week began by making a W for watermelon. While preparing this week, I remembered that a college friend had made these letters with her daughter months before I started with Molly. At the time I thought it was a great idea, but since it was the day before Leah was due, my pregnant brain obviously forgot about it. So now, 9 months later, thanks Christen for sharing!

W is for watermelon

When I saw these watermelon cookies, I knew we had to make them this week! Molly loved cutting and adding the special "seeds" to these cookies.

Watermelon cookies

Molly did a little watermelon math and sorted, counted, then graphed the different shaped watermelons.

Watermelon math

She also did this Wonder Pets puzzle all on her own!

Wonder Pets puzzle

The end of the week was spent in the water. First, Molly started swim lessons. Here she is ready and excited to go to her first lesson. Sorry, no pictures from the lesson as I couldn't manage swimming and taking pictures simultaneously.

Swim lessons

She then spent an afternoon at the pool celebrating a friend's 3rd birthday.

Run away

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Letter of the week – F

Posted in Field trips, Food, Kid crafts, Letter activities, Molly, Playdates on June 25th, 2010 by jen – 2 Comments

Flag Day was at the beginning of our week, so we made our letter F accordingly.

Flag Day F

Molly had a great time rolling, and pressing her thumb into our chocolate peanut butter fudge buttons. She had to be reminded to be gentle when pressing, or her she'd press her thumb right through!

Fudge buttons

I hosted a playdate to create wacky foam snakes by blowing air through a simple, homemade bubble-making device. I found the idea in my Family Fun magazine.

Making a snake

We took a field trip to a local farmer's market. The favorites from the loot? Blueberries, raspberries, and honey whole-wheat bread.

Farmer's market

We made several Father's Day cards during the week, and even went to a friend's house to make a special card for Daddy.

Father's Day card

And finally, we read The Very Lonely Firefly.

The Very Lonely Firefly

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Letter of the week – N

Posted in Kid crafts, Letter activities, Molly on June 15th, 2010 by jen – 1 Comment

Our N week began during our weekend roadtrip to North Carolina. We went to visit Grammy for her 80th birthday.

Shocked again

Again, our week was short due to our trip, but we did make our N for nest,

N is for nest

watched Finding Nemo,

findingnemo1.jpg

and worked on learning family names. I created flashcards of all our names. Molly then used milkcap letters to spell them out.

milkcap names

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Letter of the week – X

Posted in Kid crafts, Letter activities, Molly on June 13th, 2010 by jen – 1 Comment

Our X week was very short due to a long weekend trip. I tried to get Molly to show her X like Vanna White, and this is what we got!

X is for x-ray

Finding things to do during X week proved to be a challenge. (I chose not to use xylophone since it does not phonetically sound like x.) Here Molly is water coloring over a crayon tracing to create a wax resistant painting.

Wax resistant painting

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Letter of the week – P

Posted in Food, Kid crafts, Letter activities, Molly on June 1st, 2010 by jen – 6 Comments

Molly pulled out her Crazy 8 cards and asked, "Can we play patterns?" It was the perfect impromptu game to start off our P week.

Bug patterns

We made a pink pig for our P craft.

A pink pig

After 2 attempts to get the dough right, we were finally able to make whole wheat soft pretzels. Molly helped me roll them, "paint" them with egg whites and sprinkled them with salt.

Painting pretzels

We made some bubble wrap prints,

Bubble wrap prints

and finally played with the pattern blocks she got for her birthday.

Pattern blocks

Molly had so much fun painting with our homemade puff paint. You can see a video of her painting here.

Our little Picaso

For our stART project, we made blueberry pancakes just like Curious George in Curious George Makes Pancakes.

Curious George Makes Pancakes

Blueberry pancakes

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Letter of the week – I

Posted in Kid crafts, Letter activities, Molly on May 24th, 2010 by jen – 4 Comments

We worked on the letter I this week, starting out by making an ice cream cone with sprinkles and a cherry on top.

Sprinkles and a cherry on top

Molly wanted to paint, so I printed a picture of Isa the Iguana (from Dora, of course!) for her to create her masterpiece.

Isa the Iguana

Molly did a great job making an igloo, using royal icing as the glue. She kept asking to eat the marshmallows, and eventually she was given the OK! She also loved that she got to eat some of the igloo for an after nap snack.

Icing igloo

We've been working our way through I Spy A to Z. Molly really enjoys look and find books.

We spent some time exploring The New York Philharmonic Kidzone. We learned about instruments in the orchestra, sorted mixed up instruments, played an instrument matching game, had a percussion showdown, and created our own musical mingles. Molly really liked playing on Mommy's computer!

NewYorkPhil

The weather was nice at the end of the week for us to spend some time outside painting with colored ice cubes.

Ice cube painting

We did some learning with inchworms.

Inchworm patterns

Inchworm size sorting

You can't go through I week without making ice cream. We tried to make "ice cream in a bag" like in chemestry class. The result? Molly ended up drinking a milkshake instead. :(

Ice cream in a bag

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Letter of the week – A

Posted in Kid crafts, Letter activities, Molly on May 18th, 2010 by jen – 2 Comments

Molly loved her A alligator. Several times she took it off the fridge and pretended that it was eating Daddy!

I originally saw this idea in an issue of Family Fun, but have since seen it all over the blog world. We made an apple print painting. Molly really enjoyed painting her apple green, and then using it like a stamp. I tried to get her to paint a red apple, but she only wanted green! The stubborness of a three year old...

We learned a little about ants. We made "ants on a log" for lunch one day. Molly ate one piece, then decided it was more fun to use pretzels to scoop out the peanut butter and raisins.

Molly also practiced sorting the big and little ants.

We incorporated our stART project into our Apple Pie Day celebration. In addition, I found a clip counting activity that coordinated with the Ten Apples Up on Top theme.

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Letter of the week – V

Posted in Kid crafts, Letter activities, Molly on May 9th, 2010 by jen – 4 Comments

Our V week began with some pretty violets in a vase. This is what you get when you bribe a 3 year old with a treat if she'll smile for a picture!

We did a science project this week - the old school baking soda and vinegar volcano. Molly loved it! We did it at least 4 times.

We listened to Bob & Larry's Sunday Morning Songs all week and watched VeggieTales: Minnesota Cuke & The Search for Noah's Umbrella.

For our stART project (A Story + Art = A Great stART), we read The Surprise Garden. The story follows three young gardeners as they plant surprise seeds and anxiously await to see what vegetables have grown.

Molly then used vegetables as stamps to make a veggie print. She used a red onion, green pepper, squash, carrot, and celery. All the different shapes and textures were fun to paint with.

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.

Letter of the week – R

Posted in Field trips, Kid crafts, Letter activities, Molly, Playdates on May 3rd, 2010 by jen – 3 Comments

We made an R for rabbit. At dinner that night, Molly was asked what letter she made. She responded with "R," and then when asked what animal it was she excitedly answered, "A bunny!"

This project took a few days to complete. Molly didn't quite grasp the idea of coloring the entire rainbow arch the correct color. She just wanted to color the number. She eventually came back to it and at least got half the rainbow colored.

Molly worked on her fine motor skills by lacing beads on to pipe cleaners,

then we arched them to make our own bead rainbow!

We met some friends at Rita's Italian Ice for a sweet treat during R week. Allison's Italian ice must not have been enough; looks like she wants a taste of Molly's custard too!

We ended our week working on some math skills. First we did rainbow clip counting,

then worked on rainbow size sorting. Molly did really well comparing the sizes of the rainbows so we could put them in order.

This week I also hosted a playdate to make felt flower hair clips so that we were all ready to show our pretty May flowers! These girls sure do love each other!

You can check out what other moms are doing with their tots at 1+1+1=1.