Bath Time Alphabet Hunt

Lately Boog has been bugging me to teach him the alphabet. He already knows most of the letters and can recongize them but he still needs lots of practice. So I got an idea. I recently had surgery and was unable to talk for a few days so this activity was perfect for the both of us cause it required no talking from me.

First I set up the bath tub by adding bubbles and dyeing the water blue with a few drops of food coloring. The colored water is by far Boog's favorite part about bath time and he asks for it on a regular basis. Next I added his foam letters I had purchased at K-mart a while back (you can also purchase them here on Amazon).

I would then hold up a letter for him to find. I made these letters for him a while back using large index cards and watercolor to give them a nice look. He loves them and enjoys looking at them on a daily basis. These cards have multiple uses and I will be posting about them later on when we start school soon.

Boog would then find the letter and if he knew what it was he would tell me the name. If he didn't I tried my hardest to say it. Luckly grandma was hanging out with us so when I couldn't say the letter she would.

Happy bath time.

Pipe cleaner fireworks

For the past week Boog and I have been focusing on Fourth of July related crafts. I've been trying to explain to him what our flag looks like but I don't think it has clicked yet. Either way he has been having a lot of fun with our flag themed projects.

Our first craft he got to paint fire works in the night sky. What you will need is paint, and a pipe cleaner stamp. For the stamp take three or four pipe cleaners, bend them in half then twist the top half to hold them together. Next spread out the half that isn't twisted to make a nice firework shape.

Next lay out some black paper, really you can use any color of paper but the black really lets the colors pop. Pour each color of paint onto a plate and let your littles get to stamping.

When they are all done hang them up, stand back, and enjoy the beautiful night sky. Another way you can do these is instead of using paint have them stamp in glue and once they are done have them use different colored glitter to sprinkle on. This will give the fireworks a little shine and sparkle.  Happy crafting. 

Number Ladybugs

As some of you know I have decided to homeschool Boog and since I am short on funds I have been making a lot of his school supplies myself. Boog has started to show an interest in numbers so I decided to help him out by making some number ladybugs for him. These are really easy to make and you can honestly make them from anything you have around the house. I decided to go with rocks because I've been clearing them out of our flower beds and also because Boog just loves collecting rocks.

The lady bugs are very easy to make. You just paint the body red, add the black head, then add the correct number of dots to each ladybug body. I'm sure you can even do this with bees where you count the stripes on the bees body.



I used acrylic paint do paint the bodies, then added a few coats of clear nail polish so the paint wouldn't chip off and to give the ladybugs a nice smooth finish.

After they had fully dried I turned them over and added correctors on the back. This way if Boog has trouble figuring one out he can easily turn it over and match the numbers. I also made him so counting cards so he can match the ladybugs with them.

I didn't have any black stickers to put on the cards so I used some neon ones I had and colored them in with a black sharpie. I then added them to an index card and wrote the number on the bottom left corner of each card. This way he can easily match the ladybug to the card either counting the dots or turning the ladybug over and matching the numbers together.

We haven't worked with these yet but next week I will be introducing him to them and hopefully he really enjoys them.

Washing Dishes

A few months ago I use to let Boog help me wash dishes. I would put his apron on him, pull up a chair and showed him how to rinse. It wasn't until he decided to throw a glass on the floor that him helping me out came to an end.

Ever since then he would bug and bug to help me wash dishes but I didn't want a repeat of what happened last time. So then it dawned on me. Why not take dish washing outside? And that is exactly what we did.

So the other day I set him up with his own dish washing station. I pulled out a bunch of plastic dishes, set up two tubs; one with soapy water and the other with rinse water, got him his own sponge and dish rack. I walked him through it once showing him that after he was done washing he can rinse them then put them in the rack to dry.

We spent over an hour outside rewashing the dishes over and over again. He really did love this activity and the family jokes that when we go camping we know who will be washing dishes out there.

And with the days getting hotter this was a perfect activity to do outside. Especially when he realized that the rinse water could also be used to splash water on mama.

Since this activity was a huge hit I am sure he will be washing more dishes this summer. And who knows maybe he will earn my trust back to start washing dishes at the sink again.

DIY Moveable Alphabet

Last week I took some time to make Ryan a moveable alphabet set. I've been looking online and came across a picture of someone who had used lima beans to make their's and I loved the idea. With the lima beans you can write the letters to were the kiddos can use the curve of the bean to make sure they put the right letter, which helps with the confusion of d, p, b, and q.

As soon as I was done making them Ryan was super excited to get started on using them. Before I can even come up with an activity for them he had declared he would start using them to spell my name. He may not have spelled it right, but I was sure proud of him for trying.

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A few days after I had made the moveable alphabet I had decided to start Ryan with a simple activity. I started with the letters he already knows, A, K, T, and X. Where ever we go he loves to point these four letters out. For this activity I grabbed all five beans with each letter on them and an alphabet puzzle board I had bought Ryan when he was a little over a year old. The open spaces held all five beans perfectly.

I started out by having him show me a letter that he wanted to find.

I would then ask him what the letter was he was holding. After he would tell me I would then have him search the puzzle board to find the letter. If he couldn't find the letter by himself we would then say the alphabet, while I pointed at each letter, until we got to the letter that was on the bean.

When we got to the letter he was holding I wouldn't say the letter, I let him look at the letter and then at the bean. Once he realized we were at the letter on the bean he would shout the letter out with excitement.

"Letter K, right there!"

In all honesty I'm not entireally sure who enjoyed this activity more, him or me. After he finished the four letters I had set out for him he went on to water color and I decided to put the rest of the letters onto the board so I could put it away. I'll admit I had fun randomly grabbing letters and putting them were they belonged on the puzzle.