Tuesday Teachings - The Letter J

Another week, another letter. This week we are moving on to the letter J. Please feel free to download our letter J to use.

Letter J
Words that start with the letter J:
Jungle, Jump, Jolly, Jewish, Jab, Job, Joke, Jug, Jar, Junk, Jackal and Jamboree.

For our first craft, we decided to make Jellyfish. This was a great project and my son even talked my husband into getting in on the action, hence there are three Jellyfish. We used markers to color on coffee filters and once we finished we sprayed the filters lightly with water to allow the colors to bleed a little. We waited for that to dry and then we took a pony bead and thread it on a piece of yarn, this ends of the yard were then put through a disposable cup bottom that had a hole poked in it. The bead kept the yarn in place. Next we cut a hole in the center of each of the jellyfish and put them on the yarn and tied the yarn in a knot at the top to hang it up. We then used ribbons and crepe paper to make the tentacles, we just taped the tentacles to the bottom of the coffee filters.

The next project was Jewels. We glued jewels to a letter J. My son really enjoyed getting to use the glue. We usually use a glue stick but with all of the back to schools sales, we stocked up on some white glue too and this was his first chance to squeeze glue.

For our final craft, he colored a letter J with markers (his new preferred medium). I then cut it out and we glued it to another piece of paper with a little extension of construction paper to represent the cockpit.

Some foods that start with the letter J:
Java, Jelly, Jellybeans, Jalapeno, Java, Jawbreakers and Jambalaya

As a snack, I had big ideas about making some homemade Jam. I found an easy recipe that called for just thawed berries, honey and lemon juice. Sounded easy enough but my son "misplaced" the honey since he loves the bear jar and when I blended up the berries, they just turned into juice. I had been working all day, my son was cranky and the whole process was making me Jittery (another J word)!

I quickly changed gears and pulled out the frozen package of Jamba Juice Smoothies Mix, added some apple Juice and blended it all up for a refreshing snack. I hope you can forgive me considering all of the J words I included in the excuse.

Have fun working on the letter J with your kids.

Monday Meanderings - Sensory Tubs

I am sure that if you have spent much time around learning/Mom blogs you have probably seen some great Sensory Tubs out there. I thought we would feature some great ones this week.

First up is this great tub from Counting Coconuts. This is a yellow tub that she came up with and it is very creative. She has a strawberry huller in there for her son to pick out the items and work on his fine motor skills. I have to be honest though, my favorite thing about this tub (other than the color) is the bingo card that she created to bump up the learning. She also has a great section on her blog of past tubs she has created.

The Mom Blog has some great ideas also. I love the cotton balls and turkey baster idea. What a great way to work on fine motor skills. If you have a child that has not mastered finger control yet, let them work a turkey baster for awhile.

With Fall upon us, I also love this Apple and Acorn Tub at No Time for Flashcards. Not only is the tub lots of fun, but she also includes some great books to read as a follow up on the theme.

And last but not least, Child Fun has a great list of items that can be used as the "filler" in a sensory tub.

I would feel awful advising you to have a sensory tub without some pointers on how to contain the mess.

• If you are going homemade, I suggest the plastic containers that are wider than they are deep. It is easier for the kids to get their hands in there.
• As our house we have several vinyl tablecloths that I picked up for cheap. They are flannel backed which means if you have carpet, they stick right to your carpet and will not slide around. We set down a tablecloth and then put the messy activity on top of it.
• You could also get a container that is bigger than your sensory tub and put the tub inside the larger container with hopes that most of the mess falls into the bigger container, just to be poured back into the sensory tub.

Have fun!

Family Game Night - The Game of "If..."

It is time for another Family Game Night and we have a new game for you.

There is this great book called If.. Questions for the game of life by Evelyn McFarlane. This is an extraordinary book in that it asks very thought provoking questions. I thought for your family game night it would be fun to have a game of If that is geared towards kids and parents.

Here are some questions:

If you could have any animal as a pet, what would you choose and why?
If you were responsible for planning the family vacation, where would we go?
If you could have any friend become your brother or sister, who would you choose?
If you were able to plan a fun day with one parent, what would we do all day?
If you could buy any one toy in the toy store, which would you choose?
If you could do anything you wanted that you are currently "too young" for, what would you do?
If you could play any musical instrument, what would you play?
If you had a money tree, what would you buy first?
If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?
If you could only wear one color for the rest of your life, which color would you choose?
If you could be any TV character, who would you be?
If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, which food would you choose?
If you never had to eat a food again, which food would you choose?

This should be a great start for your family. Enjoy Family Game Night.

Hawaii Craft

On August 21st, 1959 Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States. This will be a great time to make a lei with the family and even share in a tropical dinner. If you can't go to Hawaii, bring Hawaii to you!

For recipes, a good place to start will be Kids Cooking Activities.
They have a variety of recipes for theme dinners with kids and the Hawaiian Luau is no different. I love the recipe for the Creamy Tropical Drinks that are served with little umbrellas.

If your family is not very adventurous, you could always prepare a "Hawaiian Pizza", which is a pizza with tomato sauce, cheese, ham and pineapples. It is always tasty.

For a Hawaiian craft we decided to make a Lei. There are many wats to make leis but since my son is only three we went with an easy craft.

Supplies:
Yarn
Paper flowers or artificial flowers (with a hole punched in them)
Straws that are cut into 2"-3" pieces

Thread 4 pieces of straws onto your yarn then alternate between one flower and one straw piece until the lei is large enough for you. At teh end, thread on 4 more pieces of straw and then tie the yarn into a knot.

Wordless Wednesday - What a girl needs!

Sometimes a girl just needs a fancy hat!!

Tuesday Teachings - The Letter I

Getting back on track with the alphabet and this week is the letter I.

Normally I woudl have a link here for you to go to Scribd.com to print out a copy of the letter I to use with your kids but it has come to our attention that Scribd is planning to charge people to download from their site. This does not follow the goal of our blog or our Kids Matter campaign so we are looking for a new service. Until we locate that new service we have them on our secondary server for your download. It is not as convenient because there is no picture to go along with it on the blog but you can still download from us for FREE!

The Letter I

Words that start with the letter I: Island, Icebox, Iceberg, Iceland, Icon, Identify, In, Ignite, Iguana, Ill, Ink, Illinois, Indiana, Illustrate and Imagination

We started our crafts with Ice Cream. We decorated the letter I with markers and then cut out our letter and glued it to a piece of construction paper. While he decorated the letter I, I was busy cutting out some "Ice Cream" scoops from different colors of construction paper. We then glued the ice cream scoops on top of the I, using the I as our sundae cup.

For our next craft we decided to make an Insect. I let my son color the page with markers and then we cut out the I and glued it to a piece of construction paper and drew on six legs and two eyes. As an extension of this project we went outside on an insect hunt but it was too hot for even the insect to be out.

Our last I craft was an Indian headdress. This time my son glued feathers to the letter I. While he was gluing I cut two strips from brown construction paper and wrapped them around his head to get the size right. I taped the pieces of paper together to make the head band. Once he was finished with the feathers, we glued the page to a page of construction paper for strength as I had printed the letter I on regular printer paper. I then cut out the I and glued it to the front of the head band.

As for a snack, there are not many foods that begin with the letter I, so that makes it a bit of a challenge but these are the ones I came up with: Ice Cream, Iceberg Lettuce, Icicles,

For our snack, we made Icees! They were pretty tasty.

Supplies:
Frozen juice concentrate (we used orange but think limeade would also be good)
Frozen Sherbert (again we used orange but get the flavor to go with your drinks)
Soda (orange or lemon-lime)

Put half of the container in the blender with 3-4 scoops of sherbert. Pour in enough soda to come about 2" above the sherbert. Blend well. If you do not have a blender, you can also make this in a bowl with the back of the spoon. I know this since we have a new blender and I did not read the directions and ended up with the first icee all over the counter!

I hope you have a great time working on your letter I crafts!