S Day: S is for Sssssssnake!

I was very grateful to have the letter S this week. It just seems so easy compared to the last couple of letters I've had. Usually, for letter day we focus on a couple of different words that start with S, but today I only wanted to use one. Snake. I like the snake word, because not only does it start with S but snakes say sssssss, which is the sound the S makes, and I thought it would be a good way to help the boys associate the letter and the sound.

We started off reading the book Snake Stew by Tami Hunt. It's about a garden snake who tries to steal some eggs from the cook and ends up in a pot of boiling water and has to figure out how to get back home. It's a cute story and has lots of fun rhymes. But what I like about it is that any time the snake says a word ending in S, the S is dragged out. For example, the snake talks about moving through the graSSsssssss. And so on. So the S's really stand out and so does the S sound.

For our next activity, I dug down deep to a song from my preschool days called Sally the Swinging Snake by Hap Palmer. It's a fun song, and while you sing, each kid gets a piece of yarn that is their very own snake, and they have to make the yarn do the actions that go along with the song. Here are the lyrics:

1. Sally The Swinging Snake
Words and Music: Hap Palmer


Chorus:
Sally the swinging snake
She does the shimmy shake
She loves to rock and roll
Feels that rhythm in her soul


Sally can you swing from side to side?
Oh my yes I can
Sally can you stretch out long and tight?
Oh my yes I can
Sally can you curl up in a ball?
Sally can you jump up high and fall?


Repeat Chorus


Sally can you crawl in a small space?
Oh my yes I can
Sally can you crawl all over the place?
Oh my yes I can
Sally can you quickly vibrate?
Sally can you make a letter shape?


Repeat Chorus

The boys had a lot of fun with their Sallys and liked making her do the different actions, I think it kept them interested in the song for a lot longer than they would have been just singing it.

After that we colored and cut out "Springy Snakes". I found the template for this activity on the San Diego Zoo website. It's really easy, all you have to do is print it out on cardstock and cut out the snake. I did one for Sponge too, to keep him occupied while the big boys colored theirs, and I think this picture of him shows the template the best.

Scientist was thrilled with his finished project, he kept running around going "Spring! Spring! Spring!" and making the snake spring up and down. I think once he's done playing with it, we'll hang it up outside so the wind can do the springing for us.

After the kids ran around with their snakes and got some wiggles out, we sat them down at the kitchen table and gave them each a different color of playdough and had them roll out playdough snakes. After they got the hang of the snakes they took it upon themselves to make other kinds of animals too, and even though most of them didn't start with S, we didn't mind letting them be creative. :)

After that we had "Chocolate Snakes" for snack. It's a no bake cookie recipe I found online. Originally, I was going to have them help me make it, but I didn't think we'd have enough time. As it turns out, I'm glad I made it by myself before hand....the recipe has a 1/2 cup of honey in it, and it was a sticky mess! If you're interested here it is:

Snake Refrigerator Cookies

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:


•1/2 Cup Peanut Butter
•1/2 Cup Powdered Milk
•1/2 Cup Honey
•1 Tbsp Cocoa
•1/2 tsp Vanilla
•1/2 Cup Chopped Nuts
•1/2 Cup Raisins
•Mini M & Ms


Preparation:

Combine the peanut butter and the powdered milk until blended. Stir in honey, cocoa, vanilla, nuts, and raisins - in that order. Roll your mixture into small snake shapes. Add 2 mini M & Ms for eyes. Attach the Mini M & Ms with peanut butter. Place the snakes on wax paper on a cookie sheet and chill in the refrigerator until very firm.

It probably wasn't the best tasting snack we've ever eaten...but the kids enjoyed it. Especially because I let them put their own eyes on.

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R Day: Robots, Rowboats, Running Races, Rice Cakes

To start off R Day, Suzy read the boys a fun touch and feel book called Rusty Robot. It had lots of great R words in it that the boys got to pick out as we read. (Not to mention that reading starts with R.)

Then we talked about row boats and sang Row Row Row Your Boat. Suzy had saved diaper boxes for each of the boys and made oars out of the top, so they each got their very own row boat. First the boys got to tape pieces of water to their boats, so it would look like they were floating. Then they got to decorate them using markers, crayons, and stickers.

Here's Scientist in his completed rowboat. I tried to get him to hold the oars the right way, but he insisted on holding them that way.

Suzy even made a rowboat for Sponge so he wouldn't feel left out. He loved it! He especially loved being aloud to decorate it with markers. He got slightly carried away and also decorated himself and Scientist pretty well with a green marker. :)

The next activity was running a relay race. We went outside, and Suzy put one full bucket of water in the walkway and then by the stairs she put an empty bucket. She gave each boy a cup. The goal was to fill the cup with water from one bucket and then run to the next bucket and dump the water out and then run back for more water. This was the kids' favorite activity. They would have kept playing all afternoon if we would have let them. Once one bucket was empty, we'd have them switch directions and use the other bucket (which was now full) to fill their cups.

Sponge and K enjoyed watching the older boys running back and forth. Sponge tried to run with them for a little while, but gave up on that idea and decided to just stick close to Mom, and splash his hands in the bucket of water.  

Our cute little relay racers

To finish up R Day we had Rice Cakes for a snack. All four kids were thrilled.

Q Day: Q-Tips, Quack, Quiet, Quarters, Quesadillas

Somehow, I lucked out and scored being in charge of the letter Q. Please note my sarcasm. :) Luckily there are a lot of people out there who are more creative than I am, so I was able to find some fun ideas by looking online.

I made this Q poster in Word and printed it on a piece of card stock. I put the big Q and the little q and then a picture of all the different Q words we would be talking about for the day. Then each of the boys got a hand full of Q-tips and I got out the watercolor paints and they painted their Q posters using Q-tips.

Sponge wanted to play too, but I wasn't in the mood to clean paint off of him, so instead I just put him in his highchair, gave him a couple Q-tips and Aaron's Popular Science magazine and he "painted" that with invisible, dry, easy to clean up, imaginary paint. He was tickled. :)

We put the posters aside to dry, and I got out my flannel board for the next activity. It was my first time using the flannel board, and I was really excited! I've been thinking up, printing out, and laminating pictures and stories and ideas to use on the board for weeks now, but I hadn't gotten around to putting flannel on the backs of any of them yet, and today was the day. I had done the characters from one of Scientist's favorite songs, 5 Little Ducks. Here are the lyrics:

5 little ducks went out to play
Over the hill and far away
When the mommy duck said, "Quack, Quack, Quack."
4 little ducks came waddling back.

4 little ducks went out to play

Over the hill and far away
When the mommy duck said, "Quack, Quack, Quack."
3 little ducks came waddling back.

(...and you keep counting down until you get to)
0 little ducks came waddling back.

But when the daddy duck said, "Quack! Quack! Quack!"
5 little ducks came waddling back.
 

 
The boys took a little bit to get used to the idea that I wanted them to keep moving the ducks back and forth and count them as we did so. But I think they still enjoyed it, and hopefully more exposure to the flannel board will get them accustomed to it.
 

Next I read one of Scientist and Sponge's favorite books, Quiet Loud by Leslie Patricelli. It's a really simple book that talks about quiet things and loud things. For example on the first two pages it says, "Whispering is quiet. Screaming is loud." And has corresponding pictures. I had the kids do the quiet things and the loud things. At first they looked at me strangely that I was actually encouraging them to be loud inside, but they got over it rather quickly. It was a good chance to talk about how quiet starts with Q, but also a good chance to introduce opposites.
 
Then it was time for a more energetic activity, so the boys could get their wiggles out. I got the idea for this activity and the next one here. I got out 5 paper plates on each one I had drawn either a big Q, a little q, or both. and arranged them fairly close together on the carpet. Then I put a tape line a little ways away and had the boys stand behind it. I gave them each a handful of quarters and showed them how to toss the quarters and try to hit the Q's on the plates. I'd say this was probably the favorite activity of the day. :) The pictures that I took didn't turn out though, so I'm going to see if Suzy will share hers with me, and then I'll post them.
 
Last it was time for snack. We made Q shaped quesadillas. The boys were really excited about helping to spread the cheese, and about eating the tails.

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M Day: Monkeys, Magnets, Marble Mazes, and Milk Mixing

Today for M day, I introduced the letter M by reading the book Five Little Monkey's Sitting in a Tree. It's one of Lincoln's favorites right now and he can sing along with the whole thing. Then we played a simplified version of Barrel of Monkeys. I had tried to teach Scientist the regular version earlier in the week, but he didn't seem to have the coordination for it yet. So, instead the boys took turns seeing how many monkeys they could chain together. They both did really well. Then they each got to color their own monkey.

After that, I got out Scientist's Mag-Neato set, which is basically just a bunch of big toddler sized magnets. I explained how magnets stick to some things that are metal. Then I gave each boy a magnet and brought out a pile of different kitchen utensils. They boys took turns picking a utensil and deciding if the magnet would stick to it or not. We made one pile of magnetic things, and one pile of non-magnetic things.

Next we went into the kitchen and made marble mazes. I got the idea for those here. I decided that the boys would be less competitive if they each had their own maze, so we made two small ones instead of one really big one. And, due to time constraints, we did not decorate ours like they did in the example. But the boys had a great time with the mazes. I think it was their favorite part of the day. If I do it again though, I'll try and find something better to catch the marbles in, since I think I still have about 30 marbles back behind the washing machine. :)

For our snack we "mixed milk", meaning I poured normal white milk for the boys, and then showed them how to make it chocolate milk by letting them mix in some Ovaltine. I think they enjoyed their snack, but once they were finished they went right back to the marble maze. I think we're going to have to do that one again one of these days.

L Day: Letters, Licking, and Lambs

L Day today at Suzy's. Suzy started the kids off writing letters to their grandmas. It was more like drawing pictures for their grandmas, but the concept was the same. Scientist did really well, I was very impressed with his drawings. For the first time ever all on his own, he drew a head with hair, gave it eyes, a nose, and a mouth, and then drew some legs on it as well. (Don't mind that the mouth went in between the eyes and the nose, and that the legs were coming out the top of the head. He's got all the parts down, just not their exact locations yet.) That was his first picture. On the second picture he did even better. He got all the face items in the right place. This one didn't have legs though, but it had lots and lots of hair. When the kids were done drawing their letters, they got to fold them up and put them in envelopes to mail.

Next we did a really cool licking activity. Suzy had taken popcicle sticks and on the end of each one put different kinds of things to taste, like grape jelly, syrup, sugar, and a few others. The boys got to pick up each stick and lick it and try to guess what was on it. Scientist loved the licking, but did not do so well at the guessing part. :)

Once the sticks had all been licked to the boys satisfaction, we started on the next activity. Suzy gave each boy a paper with a lamb on it. They got to take Q-tips and dip them in blue glue and then paint part of the lamb with the glue and then stick a cotton ball to it to give the lamb some wool. I think they turned out super cute. And the boys seemed to really like working with the glue and cotton balls. Later, I wrote L is for Lamb on the bottom of his sheet and hung it up in our window with the rest of the Spring decorations we've been working on. Maybe if our windows say it's Spring, the weather will start cooperating. :)

For the last activity we all got in a circle and sang "Here We Go Looby Loo". Here are the lyrics:

Here we go looby loo

Here we go looby light
Here we go looby loo
All on a Saturday night

You put your right hand in
You take your right hand out
You give your hand a shake, shake, shake
And turn yourself about

Here we go looby loo
Here we go looby light
Here we go looby loo
All on a Saturday night

You put your left hand in
You take your left hand out
You give your left hand a shake, shake, shake
And turn yourself about

Here we go looby loo
Here we go looby light
Here we go looby loo
All on a Saturday night

You put your right foot in
You take your right foot out
You give your right foot a shake, shake, shake
And turn yourself about

Here we go looby loo
Here we go looby light
Here we go looby loo
All on a Saturday night

You put your left foot in
You take your left foot out
You give your left foot a shake, shake, shake
And turn yourself about

Here we go looby loo
Here we go looby light
Here we go looby loo
All on a Saturday night

You put your whole self in
You take your whole self out
You give your whole self a shake, shake, shake
And turn yourself about

The kids really like turning themselves about and by the end were asking to do variations of their own, like sheep. Suzy did a good job of improvising, and came with "put your sheep self in..."

K Day: Kings, Kool-Aide, Kazoos, and Kabobs

At first, I thought coming up with something for K Day was going to be a challenge. But for some reason, I ended up having lots of time to look around for ideas and came across so many cool things other people had done, that the real challenge was trying to narrow it down.

When I was little, I always loved to play pretend. So, if I can, I try to incorporate some sort of something that the kids can use their imaginations to play with later. For K, I came up with King. I did my best to explain what a king was and what one did, and then I gave each boy their own crown so they could be kings. (I got the crowns for free at Burger King.) At one point in the planning process, I had considered decorating the crowns as an activity, but since the focus was on king and not on crown, and since those are really similar sounds and could be confusing to a toddler, I decided to leave the crowns as is, since they say King on them.

I found the idea for our next activity here. She used it as a letter I activity, but I chose to focus on the Kool-Aide part and use it for K :) but you could do either. For Kool-Aide painting all you need is a 9x13 pan, a sheet of white paper, a package of your favorite color Kool-Aide, and an ice cube.

Put the paper in the pan, dump out the powder from the packet, and put in ice cube in on top. Move the ice cube around while it melts and it will paint a cool picture with the Kool-Aide. In the directions on the other page, she has her kids hold onto the pan and move it back and forth to slide the ice cube around that way. I had the kids use their fingers because #1 My 9x13 pan is glass, and I don't trust Scientist with it, and #2 Ideally you would do this activity outside where the sun is shining and that would help to melt the ice, but since it SNOWED (uggghhhhh) today, we stayed inside and the ice wasn't melting as quickly as we would have liked, so by using our hands we added a little body heat to help it melt faster.

From doing this project we learned that Kool-Aide has a tendency to stain your hands. Oops. I guess Scientist and I will be sporting little green monster fingers for the next couple of days. He's ok with that idea, me not so much.That's probably why in the directions it has you move the pan around instead of the ice cube. I also decided that you don't want to let the ice cube melt too much, or it just makes a big colorful puddle. Next time we do it, we'll probably just go until we get a cool design and then take the ice cube out. Another thing, don't let the paper sit in the pan to dry, or it will stick to the bottom of it.

After our art project, the kids needed a little wiggle break, so our next activity was well timed. I found some little plastic party kazoos at the dollar store. I showed them how to hum into one end. They loved it and marched around making kazoo music. Even Sponge got into it. After watching the boys for awhile, he started making a kazoo noise with his lips. I was pretty impressed with how observant he was. I gave him my kazoo, and even though he couldn't make the kazoo make the noise, he could still make the noise with his lips while holding the kazoo up to his mouth. It cracked me up.

Next it was snack time...bring on the kabobs! Fruit kabobs, complete with the fruit of the day, Kiwi! I cubed apples, bananas, strawberries, grapes, and kiwi and put them into separate bowls. Each of the boys got a kabob skewer and got to put whatever fruit they wanted on their kabob. They did really well putting the fruit on too, I was proud. A good work out for the fine motor skills. And very tasty, and healthy. A plus all around. Scientist was kind of a banana hog, but other than that, things went really smoothly. When they were done kabobing, I showed them how to eat the fruit right off the stick with their mouths. I told them that's how kings did it ;) They thought that was great.

(And no, I did not have Scientist wear his Knight in Shining Armor shirt on purpose today, just a coincidence)

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J Day: JellO Jigglers and Jumping

We had J Day today at Suzy's house. Suzy and family have been in the process of moving into our apartment complex (hooray!) so we haven't had a letter day in awhile. But it was a very short trip today to just walk a few doors down to do some fun J activities with them.

Suzy had the boys start by giving them a paper with a big J and a little j on it and also a lot of words that start with J. The boys counted 12 J's on their page. Then they got to decorate it with stickers. Scientist was thrilled that the stickers were from the movie Cars, one of his favorites.

Next Suzy brought out a cookie sheet of Jello and some small cookie cutters. The boys cut out Jello Jigglers. They had a good time doing that, and an even better time eating them afterwords. :) The picture isn't of our actual jigglers. I forgot my camera so most of these were taken after the fact. Since the boys ate all the Jello, I got this one online.

After that we played a fun game. Suzy had pre-made Origami jumping frogs. Each boy got several frogs and the game was to make the frogs jump into a tupper ware container.

Another ABC Blog

Today I stumbled across another ABC blog while I was looking for ideas for our upcoming K day. It's called The Alphabet Project. It's basically the same as the ABC Stuff blog I posted about a little while ago, except that the woman who posts on there has a daughter that's 2 (as opposed to the woman who does ABC Stuff who has a 4 year old son) so her projects are a little bit simpler. I also really like the method she uses. Here's how she explains it:

Each week we will focus on one letter. I've divided the Alphabet Project into daily and weekly activities. Daily activities will be shorter, while the weekly activities will be more involved.

Daily:
1. SEE the letter.
2. SAY the letter's sound.
3. READ a book based on the letter. (For example, for the letter A, we'll read a book about apples.)
4. WRITE the letter.

Weekly:
1. COOK something that begins with the letter.
2. MAKE something that begins with the letter. (Yes, "make" could be the same as cook, but for "make" I'm envisioning an art project or something.)
3. DO an activity that begins with the letter.

Scientist and I aren't doing anything daily yet. We are still just going through the alphabet one letter at a time once a week. It's been more or less a play time with our friends so far, that just happens to have an educational twist. But I have been thinking that maybe in the fall after he turns three, we will boost it up to where he and I at least are doing something on a daily basis, and though I may not copy these exact goals, I like that she has them layed out and goes from there. It seems like it would give a little more structure but still give you lots of freedom to move within it.

Anyways, check out her blog, it has some cool ideas.

I Day: Ice, Indians, Instraments, and Insects

After a two week break for sickness, we are back on track with letter day. Today's letter was "I" and it was my turn.

To start off we made ice. I gave each boy an ice cube tray and had them fill it with water. I explained to them that when water gets really cold it freezes and turns into ice. We put their ice trays in the freezer while we did all the other activities.

Next, we talked about Indians. Yes, I realize it's politically incorrect to call them Indians, but Native American doesn't start with "I". The boys made Indian headbands out of construction paper. I let them color the bands first (which I had already pre-cut, about two inches think and 22 inches long, 22 inches was just right for a two-year-old sized head, for older kids you might want to go longer) then we sized them to fit their heads and taped it together to make a headband. I had already pre-cut some feathers out of construction paper too. Each boy got 4 feathers in different colors. The boys got to choose where on their headbands they wanted the feather to go and in what order. Then we moms helped tape them in place.


They thought it was hilarious to watch themselves dance around in the mirror and see their feathers flapping around.

Once they had their headbands on we sang and Indian song. The lyrics are below. We only did the first verse today.

One little, two little, three little Indians,

Four little, five little, six, little Indians,
Seven little, eight little, nine little Indians.
Ten little Indian boys.

They jumped in a boat and the boat tipped over x 3
Ten little Indian boys.
They swum and the swum till they reached the shore x 3
Ten little Indian boys.

They all fell asleep in a little tepee x 3
Ten little Indian boys.

After that, I asked the boys if they knew what an instrument was. I explained that an instrument was something you used to make music. I told them that some Indians had a special instument called a rain stick, and whenever they wanted it to rain they would make music with the rain stick and do a rain dance to try and get the rain to come. Then we went back into the kitchen and made our own rain sticks using instructions that I found online here.

This activity required a little bit more mommy help than what I usually like to do, but it was well worth it. The boys loved their rain sticks. We also talked a little bit about insects and how insect was a different word for bug. I gave each boy a sheet of instect stickers to decorate their rain sticks with.

It's always interesting to me which parts of our Letter Days stick the best with Scientist. Today after they were done making their rain sticks they brought them out in the living room and shook them and danced for awhile, and afterwords Scientist looked at me and said, "I make it rain." And he kept talking about how it was going to rain and how he wanted to shake his stick to make it rain. He must have done something right, because I'm looking out my window right now and it's pouring sleet out there. Maybe I should have had them make sunshine and warm weather sticks :)

Just before it was time for our friends to leave, we pulled out the ice trays. The ice had only frozen about half way, but I think the boys liked being able to see both the water and the ice at the same time. They played in their ice trays until they and my kitchen counter were thoroughly soaked, then they seemed to be satisfied. :) I love to watch curious little boys at work. It's worth the effort of cleaning up when they're all done.

H Day: Houses, Hands, Hearts, and Hugs

Today we went to Suzy's house for H day. She made these cute little H books for the boys to color and give to their daddy's. It had the lyrics to the song I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home, printed out with cute pictures to go with that the boys got to color. The song has lots of good H words in it that she pointed out along the way. Home, hands, hug....to name a few. And the boys were able to look at the words and pick out big and little H's.

After that, Suzy brought out a really cool set up of the song The Wise Man and the Fool Man. She had a paper house set up in a bucket of sand, and a paper house taped to a rock (which she put in the bucket after we were done with the sand part). She had filled an empty soy sauce bottle with water, and she let the boys take turns pouring "rain" onto the houses while we sang the song. Both boys thought that was a blast. Anything to do with water usually catches Scientist's attention, especially if he gets to splash it around. :)

The last activity was an instant hit because it had to do with building and with marshmallows. :) We helped the boys construct houses out of toothpicks and marchmallows. They loved it, and were even willing to have the help. Their favorite part of course was eating the marshmallows, which we made them wait to do until after we'd taken a picture. :)

Scientist's marshmallow house

Scientist was being kind of a stinker the whole day (except when he got excited about what we were doing) and wouldn't smile (or even look) for the picture.

All in all it was a fun day for letters. I have really enjoyed doing this every week with Suzy. It's always fun to see what she comes up with, and I think the variety makes it that much more fun for the kids too. I have "I" next week, cross your fingers for me to come up with something...