Letter B

This past week led up to Valentine's Day on Sunday, so we did lots of activities involving hearts, as well as things that begin with the letter B.

Crafts: We made a caterpillar out of hearts, a pom pom heart, and did the sprinkle letter B (he remembered this from the previous week and knew what to do right away. He likes craft time and really enjoys making glue dots!

Activities: I bought 6 plastic tumbler cups at the Dollar Store (6 for $1.00) and four packs of conversation hearts (four for $1.00). T really enjoyed dumping the hearts in and out of the cups and also putting the hearts (and the cups) into muffin tins. I tried to get him to sort the hearts by color in the muffin tin, but he had his own sorting method in mind:) I printed a counting sheet and attempted to play a counting game where we placed the correct number of hearts onto the corresponding number, but T was having none of this either!! We also used the tumbler cups for pouring practice in the bathtub. He is good at pouring and can usually dump one cup of water into an empty cup without spilling too much!! Finally, we played a find the heart game where I dumped little foam hearts all over the carpet and T collected them and put them into a container. He loved this one and kept making sure daddy was watching and clapping for him every time he "found" a heart.

Favorite books of the week:

Good Night Gorilla-he got really into this book this week and especially liked the part where all the animals say goodnight to each other.

My Big Animal Book: He loves this book and just likes to sit and watch as I point to the animals and identify them. For a while he would point out specific animals when I asked, but lately he seems annoyed with this and just wants to hear me say them.

Dog Food: This ended up being his favorite book for a while, but I think he is getting tired of it. I can tell he is memorizing the order of his books though, because he anticipates certain parts of them. At the end of this book, we always say "SHHH" because the dogs are sleeping, and now he starts to say "SHHH" about 2 pages prior to the end.

God Made You Special: This is a Veggietales book that we have had ever since he was an infant, but he has gotten really into it lately. It's actually a long book for a little one, but he happily sits through it every time.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar: This is the first book I ever bought him, I was six months pregnant when I bought it. He loves this book and always gets excited when it gets to the food part.

I am so glad that T loves reading. It makes me so happy that he brings me book after book and sits there totally focused on it as I read to him. I pray he will always love to read!!

The letter A-again!!

I decided to do the letter A again with Tristan. I had much more time to prep, and I used multiple themes for the letter A instead of just one. I found a bulletin board that Tim had and never used, and I am using it to hang Tristan's artwork on. The first thing I hung up was a capital letter A that I drew, and I placed this at the top.

Projects were all made on different days.

For our first project, we made an alligator A. Tristan colored the A, and even helped glue on the triangle teeth. I just put the glue dots down, and he stuck the teeth on top of the dots. This project was really easy and I think it turned out cute!!

We also made a sprinkle letter A. I poured glue in a capital A, and we put sprinkles on top of the A. Tristan didn't always put the sprinkles on the glue, but he did like sprinkling them onto the paper.

We also made a pom pom apple tree. Tristan colored the tree trunk and painted the top of the tree, but he had no interest in gluing the pom poms onto the tree.

Finally, we made apple prints. This was super easy. Just cut an apple in half and dip it into some paint and press it onto your paper. Tristan understood the concept and would dip his apple into paint and then press it onto the paper. Tim informed me that the apple prints looked more like rear end prints, and I would have to agree, but it was fun nonetheless.

Books:
Each week we go to the library to get books, and I am so glad that Tristan likes to read. He loves it, in fact. He very frequently wants to have books read to him, and I am happy to do so every time. This week, we did get books to go with our theme of letter A, but I also got a variety of others.

Hello Baby-This is a book about baby animals, and Tristan LOVED . You can ask Tim, I have probably read this book to Tristan at least 150 times in the past week, no kidding!! He wants to hear it over and over.

Dog Food-this is a cute book where all the dogs are made out of food. This has been his second favorite book this week, although it doesn't come close to Hello Baby.

Baby Animals: this is mostly a picture book with pics of real animals, and he likes to sit and look at this book on his own. Sometimes he'll look at this book while I am getting ready in the morning, and I hear him practicing naming all the animals. He has taken a major interest in eagles. He likes birds in general, but he specifically points out eagles in books we have that contain pictures of eagles along with other birds.

Dinosaur Roar: We own this book, and Tristan never gets tired of this one!!