Letter L

Here are some ideas for the letter L:

• Leaf ideas - jump in a leaf pile (if it's fall), gather leaves and glue on a piece of paper, put a leaf underneath a piece of white paper and use the side of a crayon to rub over the paper, make a leaf placemat by putting leaves on a piece of paper and putting the paper between two pieces of contact paper (this takes careful work!), gather leaves and sort by size or color.
• Print off a picture of a lamb (find some at http://www.coloring.ws/coloring.html) and glue cotton balls on it.
• Make a ladybug with two paper plates.  Cut one plate in half (good time to practice scissors skills with your toddler/preschooler!).  Color the halves red and the whole one black.  Use a brad to attach the tops of the halves to the top of the black plate to give the ladybug wings.  Add a head with black construction paper and antenna with black pipe cleaner.  Cut out (or punch out if you have a fancy scrapbooking circle puncher) black circles from construction paper and let your child glue them on.  Or, if you don't have black paper, draw circles on the wings and let your child color them (or let your child draw them if they're ready!).

 

• Have your child help with the laundry!  My kids like to help put the clothes in the washer or dryer.  They're not so helpful with the folding...
• Read stories about lions.  Then roar like lions!
• Make lilies with paper and pipe cleaner.  Trace your child's hand on several pieces of construction paper.  Cut out the hands and curl the palms of 1 or 2 hands tightly around a piece of pipe cleaner so that you can staple once through the paper and pipe cleaner (stem).  Then curl the fingers out.

Letter K

I do wish it would have been spring for K week because I haven't flown a kite for a very long time.  I think the last time was at my grandparents' farm in a field.  Brings back many fond memories!  Needless to say, we will most definitely be flying a kite the first warm windy day that comes this year!  Here are some of the activities we did for K week and some additional ideas:

•  Fly a kite :) Or make a kite out of a large sheet of paper and either dowel rods, craft sticks, straws, etc. for the cross section.  Let your kids decorate the paper however they want and with whatever you can think of!
• Kick some balls around the yard.
• Make a kaleidoscope with a toilet paper or paper towel tube.  We didn't do this because after looking at several instructions online, I felt it was too difficult for Asher.  But they looked really cool!  Just do a search for a homemade kaleidoscope on Google and you will get lots of ideas!
• Make a kangaroo. Again, lots of ideas online for ways to make a craft kangaroo, but I used a simple one with a pattern to cut out and glue.  Asher got practice using stick glue and had so much fun that he wanted to make three.  We sent them to Aunt Kristy and Aunt Katie :)  Here's the link to the one we made: http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mpaperkangaroo.htm.

 

• Watch videos of kangaroos on YouTube.  Then hop like them!
• Continuing with the kangaroo theme, you can make an easy "pouch" with 2 paper plates.  Cut one in half and staple it on the whole one (around the circle part) so that you have an opening.  Staple the ends of a piece of string to the paper plate and put it around your child's neck like a necklace.  Make sure it hangs so that the "pouch" is on their stomach.  Now they can carry things in their "pouch"!  Don't forget to let them decorate it :)
• Make a crown with paper.  Let your child decorate it and tape or staple it together around your child's head and declare them a king!  If you want, you can put a blanket around their shoulders for their robe and give them a scepter :)  Tell a grand tale about your kingly child!
• Kittens - play with kittens, pretend to be kittens, watch "Kittens Inspired by Kittens" on YouTube, whatever you want!
• This isn't specific to the letter K, but whenever we learn a letter, I always connect the sound to the visual of the letter.  So we always talk about what the letter says.  There are a million ways to practice letters, but one thing I did this week was get a large piece of paper and write a huge bubble K on it.  Asher painted inside the K and around it.  You could get pictures of things that start with K and have them stick them inside the K or trace it with their finger or a marker.

Letters I and J

Okay, so the letter "i" was really difficult for me to think of activities, partly because from letter "i" to now, we have been really busy and I didn't have much time to think!  That is why I am joining letters I and J!

Letter I activities:

•  Insects - look at insects with a magnifying glass.  Capture them and put them in a bug catcher (look online for instructions on how to make a bug catcher! - the easiest one that I used to do as a kid is a clear jar with holes punched in the lid).  Make an insect out of paper - I got this pattern from http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals/insects.htm and used the "B is for Bee" link.
• Inside/outside - we have a turkey blind that is somewhat broken (or at least unable to use while hunting, according to my husband, who had to buy another one).  It's huge and like a really big and fun tent.  It just pops up!  So we popped it up in the kitchen and went inside the tent, then outside the tent!  Asher had a blast!
• Ice - do lots of ice experiments - put an ice cube in warm water and one in cold water.  Which melts faster?  Put an ice cube outside on a warm day and time how long it takes to melt.  Freeze some colored ice cubes with food coloring (use primary colors - red, blue and yellow).  Melt the red and yellow together and predict what color the water will be.  Do the same with red and blue, and blue and yellow.
• Make some ice cream - there are tons of homemade ice cream recipes.  Use an ice cream maker, an old crank ice cream maker, or just some easy ice cream in a ziplock bag.  Look online for lots of ideas!  Look at my other blog post for a snow ice cream recipe!
• Igloo - make an igloo with sugar cubes and frosting.  Just build with brick (sugar cubes) and mortar (frosting)!

Letter J activities:

• Make a jellyfish - I found this idea in Family Fun magazine.  Just take an old fruit cup (the clear plastic kind) and poke a hole in the top.  I used a small nail and gently hammered it in.  This was kind of hard for me, so my hole looked more like a broken top.  But it still worked.  I would probably suggest putting the cup right side up so the bottom is against a piece of wood before hammering a hole.  Then it might not break as much.  Anyway, then you take pieces of blue tissue paper and modpodge it around the inside of the cup.  Then take several shades of blue yarn and ribbon, all cut to relatively the same length, and tie a large knot at the top.  Put the knot in the cup and pull one string through the hole.  Hang up with that string!
• Jump in various places.  Discuss how it feels different to jump on the bed or couch versus the floor or grass.
• Jump in the leaves - if it's fall!
• Make Jello Jigglers
• Eat jelly on something
• Teach your child a knock-knock joke

Letter H

Activities for H week!

• Cut out hearts (you know, do the folded paper thing) - this is good for practicing scissor skills! A little more difficult than straight lines, but still good practice - and decorate them with heart stickers, markers, paint, whatever. We gave a decorated heart to a girl named Haley at church.
• Hats - pull out all the hats in your house (or if you're like us and have a bazillion, just get the kids' play hats) and sort them by size, color, etc. Wear them and have a parade of hats.  If you have one you can decorate, do it!  Asher actually hates wearing hats, so this activity wasn't very exciting to him, which saddened me, because I think it's so fun!
• Dig holes in the sandbox or dirt.
• Give lots of hugs!
• Play with a toy hippo.
• Draw a house, talk about your house/home, play with a dollhouse.
• Sing "If You're Happy and You Know It"
• Make a newspaper hat - we did this, decorated it, and gave it to Asher's friend Hayden at church.
• Make handprints with paint on a large piece of paper.

• Cut out some additional hearts from colored paper and a few from newspaper print.  Then glue them onto another piece of newspaper.  Have your child see if they can find all the hearts and discuss camouflage.  You can tailor this to your child's age - I only used 2 colored ones and 2 newspaper ones because Asher is so young. I numbered them after he found them.

Letter G

Activities for G week!

• Green - you can do tons with the color green!  Paint with green paint, go on a hunt to spy green things, sort M&Ms and eat the green ones first, etc.
• Make some green frosting and put it on graham crackers for a snack. Asher asked for this one nearly everyday for the next 2 weeks.
• Read "Green Eggs and Ham" and use green food coloring to make scrambled eggs for breakfast.  Asher was excited, yet skeptical about this.  But he eventually tried it and loved it!
• Pan for gold in a sandbox.  We painted some really small rocks with gold spray paint for an activity at church.  When that was over, we just put them in our sandbox and pretended to pan for gold!
• Color a picture of a giraffe.
• Watch a video of giraffes on YouTube.
• Go to the grocery store.
• Teach your child a new game or play an old favorite.  Like golf!
• Play in the grass.
• Look at things you've grown in the garden (during G week, our garden still had some produce).
• Eat some gum (if your kids are old enough.  Mine wasn't.)
• Most importantly, talk about God!!

Letter F

We had lots of "F"un during F week!

• Flowers - we didn't do this particular activity, but I found a neat craft in Family Fun magazine (instructions posted below).  What we did do was take a flower sponge and used paint to stamp some flowers across a piece of paper.  Then I had Asher practice drawing lines by drawing the stems with a marker.  Then we completed the picture with some bug stamps and other flower stamps!

  

• Fingerprints and Footprints!  You can do so many things with this.  I had plans to do the following activity with our play group, but we ran out of time and didn't get to do it.  Read Dr. Seuss' "The Foot Book", then roll out a long sheet of easel paper on the ground and have the kids step on a paper plate with paint and walk down the sheet of paper to make lots of fun footprints!  Left foot, left foot, right foot, right!  For fingerprints, use a stamp pad, paint, or just color marker on the fingers and make them into bugs, caterpillars, letters, etc.
• Frogs - the day we did this was a rainy day, so it was perfect for an indoor activity.  Take several paper plates and color them green.  Then cut a wedge in each plate to make a lily pad.  I will insert here that it would be a wonderful and easy opportunity to help your child learn to use scissors with these wedges.  I didn't even think about it until Asher said "I do it!" I helped him get his fingers in the holes and held the plate.  Once he got started with each new cut, he actually did pretty well!  And your preschool teacher will thank you a million times over if you've worked with your child on this skill beforehand!!  Anyway, we pretended to be frogs and jumped on the lily pads.  We have a small toy frog that Asher liked to make jump around on the lily pads too.
• Make a small and simple family tree with photographs and help your child understand some easy concepts about family (like his grandma is actually your mommy).
• Four - do everything in fours!  And practice that counting!

Letter E

Our activities for the letter E week:

• Ears and eyes - listen to different sounds (you can get into high and low sounds, loud and soft sounds, play 2 sounds and ask your child if they were the same or different, etc.), look at things and talk about how we see with our eyes, use a blindfold to put on and see how hard it is to walk around in the dark, etc.  Just be creative with this one!
• Put googly eyes on a picture (one that has eyes, of course, or it might look silly :)
• Put silly glasses on your eyes!
• Eggs - go somewhere where you can get messy and bring a few eggs and a bowl.  Let your child play with the eggs and see how hard they have to push for them to crack.  Let them feel the inside of the egg and see the different parts.  Then cook some eggs (not the ones you played with!) and eat!
• Save the eggshells to make some crushed eggshell art.  Be sure to peel out that thin lining so that all you have is the hard shell part.  When the shell is dry, let your kid have fun crushing the eggshells on a piece of paper.  Put some glue on a piece of paper and sprinkle the pieces on.  When it's dry, you can paint them with watercolors.
• Watch a youtube video of some eggs hatching.
• Make this elephant craft: http://www.first-school.ws/activities/shapes/animals/elephantshapes.htm - you can discuss the shapes and have your child glue (we used tape) the pieces on a piece of paper to make an elephant.  But really, if you just search for elephant crafts on google, you find a ton more to do!  We just used this one because it was really easy. (picture above)
• Exercise!!

 

Letter D

It's been busy in the Regier household and we haven't had much time to do our letter activities lately, but we are getting back into the groove this week!  I also haven't had much time to update the blog, so although we are farther down the alphabet than the letter D, I'm just getting to writing about our fun activities.  We didn't do a whole lot for our D week, but here are the activities:

• Dance to music!
• Make drums out of butter tubs, canisters, pots, etc. and make some noise!
• Read a book about dinosaurs
• Hide a toy dinosaur around the house and have your child search for it
• Hide a toy that starts with D (dinosaur, duck, dog - we used the duck and dog) in the dirt and have them dig to find it!  This was Asher's favorite activity - he wanted to do it everyday for the next week!
• Make a day/dark picture (I know the opposites are day and night, but to make them both start with D I had to get a little creative).  We divided a large paper in half and I drew a sun on the day side and a moon and stars on the dark side.  Then I had Asher paint blue all over the dark side and color the rest of the picture with markers once the paint dried.
• Watch Dumbo - this movie has been played about a thousand times in our house, so it was a no-brainer to include it in our D week!
• Let the dogs out to run around
• Draw pictures!
• We gave a jar of "delicious" salsa to our friend Dana!

Letter C

Here are some activities we did during C week:

• We baked cookies for lots of people we know whose names begin with the letter C!
• During naptime one day, I cut out 10 circles from colored paper and taped them around the house.  When Asher woke up, I told him to go hunt for the circles.  I thought 10 would be plenty, but I really should have done 50!  He loved it and I was continually taping them back in different areas to keep the activity going!  When we were done, we taped them to the floor and counted them.  You could also do different sizes and colors and sort them.
• Using 3 different sizes of jars/cans, we stamped circles using paint and the tops of those cans.

• We also used sidewalk chalk (a staple in our house) to draw very large shapes on the driveway.  I pointed out the circle and wrote "circle" inside it.  Then we walked around the "perimeter" (new vocabulary word!) of each shape, jumped inside and outside the shapes as I named them, etc.
• During our playgroup one day, we read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and made caterpillars from egg cartons.  The caterpillars are really easy to make: cut out a section of 3 from an egg carton.  Have the kids paint, then attach pipe cleaner for legs and antennae and either draw eyes or glue on googly eyes.
• At the end of the week, we took a "field trip" to our local Casey's General Store to buy some chocolate with coins (this was my husband's idea - and probably the best one for C week as my son still gets excited to go to Casey's and get some chocolate!)

Letter B

Here are the activities we did during B week!!

• Baked brownies and brought them to our pastor's (Brian) house and gave them to Brian, Ben and Brad.
• Gave a book to our friend Brody for his first birthday!
• Took a "field trip" to the bank to exchange the coins in his piggy bank for "bills" and then went to the library for some books, many of which started with B.
• Colored on one of the Diapers.com big boxes with markers (this is all we did with this idea, but if your kids are a little older you could put things in the box that start with B!  You could also "bury" something in the box and talk about that vocabulary word!)
• Make bubble art - mix 1/4 cup of dish detergent, 1/2 cup water, 1 teaspoon of sugar and divide the mixture into small cups or bowls.  Put a different color of food coloring into each cup.  Either use bubble wands or make your own (just use pipe cleaner and bend the ends to make a circle and secure it).  Then get out some white paper and blow bubbles, letting them pop on the paper! (I got this idea from http://www.perpetualpreschool.com/preschool_themes/bubbles/bubble_art.htm where there are lots of other bubble ideas!)
• Blow bubbles!  If you want to make your own or do something a little different, make the bubble solution from above and put it in a container (like a yogurt container) with a lid.  Punch 2 holes in the lid on either end and stick a straw through one side.  Have your child blow on the straw to make the bubbles come out the other hole!  Make sure they don't suck on the straw, like my son did.  Although he did have a nice bubble come out of his mouth when he tried to talk!!
• Grab all the balls you have in your house and sort them - size, texture, bounciness, etc.
• Make a bug - take a styrofoam ball and paint it.  when it's dry, give it some eyes (you can use googly eyes if you want) and a mouth and use pipe cleaner for the legs.

Here's our bubble art: