B for Butterfly

Yesterday Sawyer worked on an alphabet puzzle in the morning. I was surprised that he knew almost all of his letter sounds and most of the letter names. He has been watching The Leap Frog Letter Factory since last week and has picked up all of his sounds. I am so proud of him. He sings the song all the time.
Yesterday Sawyer glued beans to a picture of a butterfly to make a mosaic. He also colored B word pictures and I glue them to index cards.
Today was Friday and we didn't do too much. I was out of ideas and tired from the week. He loves that alphabet puzzle though and played with it all day. I took the boys to target today and before I got them out of the car Sawyer pointed and said "look mommy, T says t and A says a." Then he asked if the G was a Q. Not bad considering a week ago all he knew was s and o.

B is for bugs

This week I introduced letter B. We talked about the b sound and words that start with b. Monday we sang Baby Bumblebee and Here is a beehive. Sawyer painted a picture of a beehive and I helped him make Bees with his fingerprints. He painted 5 and I wrote the words to the rhyme on the picture. It is one of his favorites because I always tickle him at the end.


Here is a beehive
Where are the bees?
Hiding inside where nobody sees.
Watch them come out of the hive.
1 2 3 4 5
I read him a book about bees and talked about how they make honey. For snack I let him squirt honey on his crackers. Jax isn't one yet, so he just had crackers.
When I was at the dollar tree on Monday, I found a sticker book with bug crafts and stickers, so I got it. Can't beat $1. Anyway on Tuesday I helped Sawyer make a bumblebee. We sang a song and looked at a book about ants called The ants go marching on. I know ants starts with A, but it is a bug. He made a butterfly out of stickers that he got at a party this weekend. We had good luck with the whole B for bug theme. When the boys were napping I cut out B's and put them all around the house on things that start with B like baskets, bookshelf, bread, etc. When Sawyer woke up he went around the house looking for B's. I had to keep Jax from getting them and ripping them up, but it was fun.
He also got butterfly clappers at the party, so I let the boys clap them during music this morning. They liked that a lot.
Today I read a book called "The Best Bug Parade" It teaches big, bigger, biggest. We practiced putting things in order like balls, blocks, and animals from big, bigger, to biggest. Then I would show Sawyer 3 objects and ask him which is the biggest or smallest? He did alright with this. He could usually tell me the biggest, but had trouble putting them in order so we will work on this again sometime. Today I had him cover a letter B with blue paper and bug stickers. He was more interested in wearing the stickers than putting them on his paper.

A is for Apple

We started with the letter A last week. We talked about capital A and lower case a and it's sound. Even Jax had fun saying a, a, a.
He participates is circle time by dancing and trying to grab everything out of my hand. Circle Time is 10 minutes max. I am finding that I spend more time planning than we actually spend on each activity, but that's ok. The boys are so young and I can't expect to keep their attention for very long. Jaxon is 11 months today and Sawyer is 2 years and 5 months.
Monday I cut open an apple and we looked at all the parts. We counted the seeds and then we painted red apple prints and glued the seeds on it. Sawyer also colored picture of an ape eating an apple.

Tuesday we sorted green, yellow, and red paper apples. I then had Sawyer glue seeds on the apples. I numbered the apples 1-5 and he glued that number of seeds on each apple. At snack time he sorted real apples and tasted apples of each color. He said red was his favorite. In the morning we read a story about creation and talked about how God made everything including fruit. Before nap I read him a story about Adam and Eve.

On Wednesday we read a book called "The Apple Pie Tree" and then we painted hand apple trees. Sawyer really likes painting. He likes wearing his paint shirt.

Thursday we read a book about the seasons of an apple tree and did a craft about the life cycle of an apple tree.

Friday was a little bit chaotic around here. I planned to let Sawyer help me make sugar cookies and cut them into shapes of apples, but it just didn't happen, so I made the cookies when the boys were napping and he helped me ice them. We took some to our favorite teachers, Daddy, LuLu, Happy, and Aunt Jessica, to tell them to have a great year. Happy can't have sugar so we took him an apple and the apple tree picture Sawyer made. He was really proud of himself and the things he created this week.

Can you tell which cookie Sawyer painted?

Weekly Lessons

I decided to start doing mini lessons each day with the boys. We are focusing on a letter and a theme for each week. I have been taking lots of pictures and I wanted somewhere to organize these pics, so I decide to start a blog. This blog is for me, so that I can remember the activities we do together. So far it is going well. We have "circle time" every morning where we sing, talk about stuff, and do little activities. Then, usually during Jaxon's morning nap, Sawyer and I do a craft together. I guess we will see how well I do at keeping this blog up.