It was the second week of our letter of the week activities in the Smith household. Elias is enjoying the letter songs and books. He is able to hear the “A” and “B” sounds in words that we’ve studied I think, but he isn’t necessarily applying it to any word he hears yet. When I ask him if he can think of any words that start with “buh” he says baby and boy and beans and other words we’ve talked about a lot. At least something is sinking in…and we’ve had a lot of fun to go along with it.
B was a hard letter for me to plan for because there was so much we could have done. A lot of words start with B! We could only choose seven of them, but for the rest I tried to point them out throughout the week. We talked about the fact that Elias is a brother, and Simon is a baby, and that they are both boys. We talked about Baba. We played baseball with a bat and a ball. We looked at the blue sky and the black pants and the brown bridge. We crammed a lot in this week!
Letter B Activities for our week:
Saturday: B is for balloons.
On Saturday, we went to a birthday party for one of Elias’ friends. I thought that it would be a good day to do B is for balloons. There were balloons at the party. When we got home, I blew up some of our own balloons and we batted them around in the air. I wanted him to play the game where you see how long you can keep the balloon from touching the floor, but he was more interested in just throwing it up, then grabbing it and rolling on top of it. Those were some tough balloons! I was amazed that they didn’t pop.
Sunday: B is for boat
I planned this one for Sunday so that Daddy could be home to participate. Daddy loves Science, and did some experiments of his own as a kid. For this one, I got some aluminum foil and and tub of water. The boys built boats out of foil to see which ones floated the best. Do large ones float better than small? Do flat ones float better than tall ones? We put some goldfish crackers in there for fun, but by the end they just ended up making a big mess…I wouldn’t recommend that part. The whole thing was a simpler version of something I saw on Sesame Street once. Both Daddy and Elias had fun!
Monday: B is for beans
I purchased a bunch of pinto beans from the store and threw them in a tub. Then I threw in some measuring cups, trucks, and other fun tools. We made a dig pit out of beans. I got the idea from a friend and thought it would be perfect to try out this week. It was a huge hit! When I first got it out for Elias, he played with it for an hour or so straight. Every day since then he has asked to play with the beans. He loves filling and pouring and hiding things underneath the beans. The only thing I didn’t know was how dirty beans are! His hands were pretty much black after playing with them! Simon also had fun watching Elias play. I bet the clinking sound of the beans against the different cups was fun for him to hear.
Tuesday: B is for bird
One of the items on our spring bucket list is to learn about hummingbirds and put something on our balcony that attracts them. I thought this was the perfect opportunity to “kill two birds with one stone.” I checked out some hummingbird books from the library and read them to Elias. The two best ones I could find were, About Hummingbirds: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sill and The Hungry Hummingbird by April Pulley Sayre. We learned about how they eat and what they eat. We learned about how they fly in all sorts of directions. And…we learned that they are attracted to the color red. We almost chose a hummingbird feeder, but those are much more maintenance than I am prepared to commit to at this point. So instead, we bought a red geranium for our balcony. We may add more flowers as spring progresses. But until then, mission accomplished!
Wednesday: B is for butterfly
Elias upset that I was making him wear the headband.
I’ve been wanting to help Elias develop his imagination. I’ve been modeling a lot of imaginative play lately. I thought it would be fun to dress up like butterflies and fly around the house. I got out some headbands and pipe cleaners to make antennae, and some blankets we could use to flap for wings. I have to say that this activity was a total flop. Elias did not enjoy it. He did giggle a lot while he watched me “flap” around the house. But he did not enjoy making the antennae (the pipe cleaners bent too easily and did not curl easily enough so it was frustrating for his toddler hands…you can see from the pictures that they didn’t turn out very realistic). Then, Elias did not want to wear the headband. Oh well. These activities can’t all be winners I guess.
Still trying to take off the headband
Thursday: B is for books
I had originally planned to do “b is for bear” today. I had a paper bag puppet activity all ready to go along with Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But Elias actually napped today so we didn’t have any time together without Simon there. Plus Elias woke up tired and a bit clingy. So I bagged the bear activity and did B is for books instead. All three of us sat in the rocking chair and read some of Elias’ favorite stories for thirty minutes or so. We looked for B words in some of the books as well.
Friday: B is for Babel
Friday is our Bible story day. Actually, when I thought of B words in the Bible, the first thing that came to my mind was Barabbas. But I decided that I could come up with something better than that. I decided on the Tower of Babel. We will read that story tomorrow!