Letter of the Week: A Toddler’s Alphabet Study (Ll)

Elias enjoyed our letter of the week activities a lot this week. He kept asking for our “art project” of the day. He also wanted painting…which was not included this week so I’ll have to include painting in some of our letter activities next week. Elias does not pronounce his L’s correctly yet. It’s one of those things that I’ll be sad about when he outgrows it. He kept saying “L says yuh yuh yuh!” Here is what we did:

L is for Legos

We did a fun math activity with his “legos” (they are really duplos). I made a small tower of duplos, and we counted how many there were. Then we used it to measure things in the house. Then, I asked him to estimate how many duplos tall certain objects were. After he made a guess, he got to build a tower to see how tall it really was. He did not really get what he was supposed to do at first, but after a few he got the hang of it, and enjoyed it a lot. We measured a few things that were not on my sheet. After about 10 minutes he lost interest in measuring, and decided he wanted to just play car wash. That was fine with me!

L is for Ladybug

We started out by reading 5 Little Ladybugs, then we made a lady bug craft out of craft foam. I pre-cut the pieces:

Elias’ favorite part was the gluing. This was the first time he has been so successful at gluing without my help. He had a ton of fun!

For the second ladybug, Elias decided that he wanted all googly eyes and no spots. That was fine with me. Here he is showing off his creations:

L is for Lazarus

We read the story of Lazarus. Later in the day when we were in the car, I brought the story up again to see what he remembered. I reminded him how Lazarus was sick and Jesus was very sad when he died. Elias said, “Yeah, Marfa and Mary were sad too.” It made me smile.

L is for Leaves

I collected some leaves on one of our trips to the park earlier in the week. Then, I gave them to Elias and he arranged them on the paper, and we did some leaf rubbings. I think this was a bit advanced for him…he wasn’t really able to grasp the crayon between two fingers, but instead just rolled it like he rolls play-doh. It just didn’t get pressed hard enough to the paper. I had to hold Elias’ fingers around the crayon, and apply some of my own pressure to help him. We won’t be trying crayon rubbings again for awhile! But Elias was proud of his work nonetheless!

Elias took this picture of his work himself! I thought I would include it:

L is for Laces

I had bought Elias a lacing activity to help his fine motor skills a few months ago, but was waiting for the perfect opportunity to get it out. Lacing was a big hit! It really helped that the boards were made of wood and were really sturdy. He got the hang of putting the string through the holes really quickly, but did not go in order. That’s ok for now!

L is for Love

I printed out pictures of people Elias loves (basically our family). I had intended to get pictures printed in color at costco, but never got around to it, so I just printed them in low quality black and white on our home printer. Elias was still able to recognize everyone in the pictures so it served its purpose. Maybe someday we’ll make a nicer one!

Then I had Elias choose a picture, put glue on the back and place it on the “L for Love.” He enjoyed naming all the people he saw as he went. He even said, “I love Simon,” when he saw his baby brother.

After he had placed all the pictures, I trimmed the edges. Elias showed his “L” to Daddy and said, “L is for Love.”

L is for Little Red Riding Hood

Tomorrow I am going to tell Elias the story of Little Red Riding Hood. I don’t think he has ever heard it before.