I decided to assign one letter to each week of the year; therefore each letter got 2 separate weeks. I tried to pick letters that would fit into that season or go along with holidays coming up. The letters that didn't meet that criteria just got randomly placed. I've tried to incorporate several different ways into learning each letter (reading books, doing crafts, making/eating food, watching movies/tv episodes, going to cool places, and anything else I could think of). I've been putting all my ideas into a spreadsheet, which has been useful, but I wanted to a place to report if what I did was successful or not. So here we are!
The first week of the year featured the letter Y. I admit, this week I didn't do much, partly because I was still gathering all my thoughts and such. We talked about the color yellow, played with yarn, ate yogurt on our pancakes and I took the kids out for frozen yogurt. The frozen yogurt really helped K1 remember the letter :)
Trying smores for the first time
Sister enjoying a strawberry smoothie at breakfast :)
I can't remember what we ate for dinner, but you could eat soup, stew, spaghetti, sausage, scones or a sweet and sour dish. I checked out an episode of Bill Nye featuring Space Exploration (big hit!). I also took the kids to the Air and Space Museum here in DC. We walked around and saw different exhibits for a little over an hour. It was great because we happened upon a storytime at the museum that talked about airplanes and then they had a craft coloring a suitcase (another S!) and toys for the kids to play with. My kids loved it. Lastly, we read a bunch of 'S' books. Some of our favorites were: Snowflake Sisters- Lewis; All You need for a Snowman- Schertle; Space Vehicles-Rockwell/Brion (really liked this one, perfect for my son's age); and Zathura- Allsburg (a book about a space game). All in all, I felt the week was a success because K1 could recognize the letter S and knew it said 'sss' by the end. And now he's obsessed with outer space :)
The next week (Jan 13-19) we covered the letter I. The topics I chose to focus in on were Ice, igloos, insects and instruments. It was a fun week. I made Indian food and Italian food (fettuccine alfredo...nothing fancy I assure you.) The kids helped me make icecream!
This was a good lesson on patience for my son. Poor kid, after each step he expected to eat icecream (we first had to assemble ingredients, then chill it for a few hours, then put it in the maker and then wait for 20 or so minutes for it to become icecream consistency). One day we made this igloo craft. I thought it was fun, but my son doesn't like getting his hands very dirty, so he did two strips and then I did the rest. Our didn't look as smooth and nice as the picture, but it still turned out once it dried. They recommended only doing one layer, and I think we did 3 or so. Anyhoo, K1 really enjoyed using it as a garage for his cars. The day we talked about instruments was fun (sorry I keep saying that, but it really was!). We, of course, listened to great music all day (mostly classical) and I played some youtube videos where they could see different people playing different instruments (as a side note, K1 really loves the piano guys and always pretends he's playing the cello). I bought some maracas, a xylophone and an harmonica for each kid. K1 eventually got the hang of the harmonica over the next few days. We talked about insects on Thursday and Friday. Friday I took my kids to the Natural History Museum, specifically up to the Insect Zoo Exhibit and paid to go inside the butterfly pavilion.
Checking out the ant colony
Crazy large beetle. It was probably half the size of my palm.
Pretty, orange butterflies
K1 checking out the different chrysalises
Me and my cuties
We watched Bill Nye episodes on insects, invertebrates, and inventions. (That may seem like a lot of TV time for a three year old, but each episode is only 20 minutes) We also own the Discovery series called Planet Earth and within it there's an episode called Iceworlds, which we, of course, watched. I meant to do a simple science experiment talking about freezing (we'd put water in an ice tray (even better you could do juice in a popsicle mold) and see the change after a few hours. We checked out these books from the library: Zin!Zin!Zin! a Violin-Moss; Ice-cream cones for sale!-Greenstein; Isaac the Icecream Truck-Santoro; A remainder of one- pinczes. All in all, a really fun week!
The next week (Jan 20-26) we talked about the letter D. I wanted to focus on doctors and dentists, but eventually expanded to dogs and dinosaurs too. We started out the week by taking a tour of the dentist office that K1 will be going to. His appointment isn't until March, but I thought this might be a good introduction. He loved it. In fact he cried when we had to leave. Ha! They gave each of the kids a balloon at the end too. We checked out several doctor/dentist books from the library -Dr Ted- Beaty (probably my son's favorite of the bunch); Dr. De Soto-Steig, berenstein bears go to the dentist; I also let K1 watch an episode of Curious George about going to the doctor. The next day we made this craft and specifically made our dogs be dalmations. As a side note, you could also do this craft with a paper bag, but I didn't have white paper bags (I think they would have held up longer using a paper bag) We then watched 101 Dalmations (a favorite Disney movie in our house). I meant to do this density experiment, but never got my act together. I still plan on doing it sometime in the future. I made donuts one morning for breakfast. So yummy!
The next week (Jan 20-26) we talked about the letter D. I wanted to focus on doctors and dentists, but eventually expanded to dogs and dinosaurs too. We started out the week by taking a tour of the dentist office that K1 will be going to. His appointment isn't until March, but I thought this might be a good introduction. He loved it. In fact he cried when we had to leave. Ha! They gave each of the kids a balloon at the end too. We checked out several doctor/dentist books from the library -Dr Ted- Beaty (probably my son's favorite of the bunch); Dr. De Soto-Steig, berenstein bears go to the dentist; I also let K1 watch an episode of Curious George about going to the doctor. The next day we made this craft and specifically made our dogs be dalmations. As a side note, you could also do this craft with a paper bag, but I didn't have white paper bags (I think they would have held up longer using a paper bag) We then watched 101 Dalmations (a favorite Disney movie in our house). I meant to do this density experiment, but never got my act together. I still plan on doing it sometime in the future. I made donuts one morning for breakfast. So yummy!
I filled a couple with whipped cream- Oh My Goodness!!! I might as well give myself a heart attack :)
Here I am showing what proper donuts look like (on the left) and what a burnt crispy donut looks like when your oil gets too hot.
This same day I had the kids do a letter D craft. I drew a block D and had the kids stamp their finger on an ink pad and then touch the space inside the D (over and over again). At the top of the paper I said 'D is for Dots'. I checked out two Bill Nye episodes: Deserts and Dinosaurs. We also read Dogs don't wear glasses-Geoghegan; Dogs-Gravett.
The final week of January (27-Feb 2) I covered the letter X. This one is tough, but I decided to carry on with the Doctor/ being healthy theme. We went to the park and I mentioned how we were eXercising to keep our bodies healthy. We discussed how X-rays help up see our bones. I couldn't find a great book that just showed x-rays. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to take them. We mostly reread all our doctor books and I added berenstain bears and too much junk food (that one talks about eating healthy, exercising and has a few pictures of bear x rays). K1 really glommed onto the idea of eating healthy food. He would (and still does!) say, "Mama, I want to eat some 'healfy' food." I tried to have a few new vegetables on hand that week (sugar snap peas, cauliflour...). I checked out the Magic School Bus Human Body dvd from the library. The 'flexes muscles' episode specifically talks about bones and muscles and K1 liked the robot in it. The last major thing we did was trace my son's body and I drew in the bones and he colored certain parts.
