Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert

 

 

From Publishers Weekly

"Apple to Zucchini, / come take a look. / Start eating your way / through this alphabet book." So begins this delectable feast of fruits and vegetables, in a diverse and plentiful array. Each turn of the page reveals a mouth-watering arrangement of foods: Indian corn, jalapeno, jicama, kumquat, kiwifruit and kohlrabi. The words are shown in capital and lowercase letters set in bold type for easy reading. At the end of the book, Ehlert provides a detailed glossary that includes pronunciation, botanical information, the origin and history of the particular plant and occasional mythological references, with a small watercolor picture to remind the reader of what the plant looks like. Ehlert's glorious watercolor collages are lively and enticing; as in her Growing Vegetable Soup , she presents the plant world in an appealing and easily accessible manner. Both parents and children will be encouraged to sample exotic new foods at mealtime. Ages 3-5.

The Letter 'A' - Day 3

 

Language Arts: This is The A Game. It's just a basic game board. I colored it then covered it w/ contact paper. Then I printed out pictures of different objects. There are about 12 pictures total. Turn them face down and if you pic one that starts with an A then you get to move 1 space (our game pieces were coins). If it starts with something different, you don't get to move. If you get "Alligator Ann" then you get to move two spaces and if you get "Amy Ape" you have to move back 1 space. Collin loved it! I glued this one to one of the large flaps in the lapbook.

For math we talked about graphs. We discussed different ways to eat apples (whole, applesauce, juice, and pie). Then we made a bar graph on ppl's favorites -- we used our family and then talked about some of Collin's friends. He got it. I was excited at how quickly he caught on.

For the lapbook we used this 

The one on the right was still drying but the one on the left, I will attach with a brad later. I put this inside the right flap of the lapbook.

Lapbook -- the basics

Okay... I recorded this on day 1 but didn't get a chance to put it on youtube until today so it just has the stuff on it from day 1. Here is a basic way of making a lapbook. There are lots of ways and you can get very creative. I hope the video makes sense.

The Letter 'A' - Day 2

 

First we read this book. (Side note: Collin loved it -- I read it twice and he's been quoting it all day.)

Next, Collin and I cut out letters and glued them to paper. This gave him a chance to work with letters AND scissors which he really needs to get better with. He's left handed and I just bought him left handed scissors two days ago so it's all new for him. ;)

Once the glue is dry we'll put these together to make a letter book. The cover of this book (upper right hand by Ronni) says "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! Will there be enough room for...?"

While the glue was drying we went outside -

and did the Alligator Crawl

the Bunny hop

the Crab crawl

the Duck waddle (this is done by bending your knees and "waddling" that way -- it's hard to tell in this pic but Ronni was just so cute trying to do it.)

and the Elephant walk.

After a bit of playing outside we went back in to check out letters.

And made a book. ;)

Lapbook addition came from here.

 

This is the coconut tree for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! He wrote the letters by himself so they could climb the tree. He kinda covered up the coconuts w/ the letters and he made the leaves into stairs for the letters so they wouldn't fall. haha!! I thought it was pretty funny! I glued this to the back of the pocket on the lapbook. ;)

Red - toddler

Day 1: This week we are doing different things for the kids. What I was doing before was too simple for Collin and too difficult for Ronni so I just quit doing that and now they're each doing separate things. Ronni still hasn't learned her colors. She doesn't have the desire to learn like Collin did. That's okay though -- she's more talented other ways, for example, she already knows how to cut well. It took Collin forever to get the hang of that (we're still working on that one). Anyways.... today we all had to wear something red. We ran through the house, searching for anything red and we went for a drive (it would have been a walk but it was a wet and rainy day) and looked for things that were red.

Day 3: (For some reason, it won't let me type under the pictures so pretend that's where this is;) Today, I put a red sticker on Ronni's finger and we walked around touching anything red. 
Afterwards we sang a song: I Love Red (sung to Farmer in the Dell) I love the color red/I love the color red/ red, red, my shoes are red/ I love the color red. 
You can name different things that are red for the third line. Have fun!

Day 2: Continuing our red theme we made a red collage today. I just used any craft supplies I could find that were red. Then I smeared glue all over a piece of paper and Ronni got busy. I kept asking her what color the different items were. She would reply "red". Hopefully, she's catching on. ;)

The Letter 'A' - Day 1

 

First, we made a list of words that start with the letter A. I had Collin go through and underline all the 'a's he could find. 

Then we made an "A" book. We took all of those items that he had just named and turned them into a book. We wrote one of the words he came up with on one side and then he illustrated it on the other side.

Then he colored a picture of Alligator Ann. She is the mascot for this unit of study. ;) Then he was supposed to cover the A's with rice and he sure covered them. haha! You can use pasta or beans or whatever you want. ;)

For this unit of study we are making a lapbook. The left picture is the front and the one on the right is the 

inside of the first flap.  I have a writing section... I covered it with tape so he can write the answers. The next part is identifying upper case and lower case but they're all in different fonts so there is the computer a and the regular written a w/o the cap. He just sticks them in the proper baskets. This template can be found here. We are going to start doing lapbooks. They're pretty fun.

For instructions on making a basic lapbook watch this video. This is very basic. You can get creative and have flaps and pages everywhere if you want. ;) I used scrapbook paper to decorate mine. HAVE FUN and BE CREATIVE!

FHE - Light of the World

Ronni (the 2 year old) had the song and she picked "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes"

When the kids are in charge of the lesson they choose an item from the "30 Fast and Easy Family Home Evening Lessons" Box. haha! Was that a mouth-full? Each item has a number on it that corresponds w/ a lesson. Last night, Collin picked the candle. I gave each child a candle coloring sheet (found at above link) and then my husband and Collin taught the lesson together.

Hubby had the refreshments and he made brownies --- yum yum!

I had the activity so we play the game Operation. =o)