Theme of the Day: The Letter A
Age: 20 months
Magnetic Pom Poms
I kept seeing this activity on Pinterest, and it looked like so much fun. After gluing some magnets ($.99 at Wal-Mart) to pom poms ($1 at the Dollar Tree) I did a Google search for Do-A-Dot alphabet pages. The best that I found came from this site. (See "A is for..." pages below.) I opened them up in Photoshop Elements and enlarged them so that the circles were 3/4". I also found an upper and lowercase "A" online, and added some color to the circles.
I set the activity out for Honey Pot, and walked away for just a moment. Upon returning, I found her standing in front of the "Aa" sheet, correctly placing pom poms in the circles. I was so pleased that she grasped the concept all by herself, and that she was enjoying them so much! This is definitely a keeper, and it is so versatile too!
Velcro Apple Tree
I had seen this idea somewhere, and had to made my own version. I used free coloring pages for the tree and apples, and assembled them in Photoshop Elements. Honey Pot quickly understood where to place the apples on the tree, and went through the activity just once. Very cute, but I'm not sure how helpful it was?
Leap Frog Fridge Phonics
As a Christmas present from Santa, Honey Pot received this fun fridge toy. When you put in a letter, the puppy sings a little ditty about what sound that letter makes. I took it off the fridge with just the letter "A" today, and kept it by her other activities. After the puppy sang the song, I had her make the long and short "A" sounds too. I'm sure the extra reinforcement is helpful!
Play-Dough
Honey Pot has always enjoyed sculpting with her play-dough, which I had made myself for her using Kool-Aid mix. So for today's theme I included an "A" cookie cutter for her to play with. After allowing my help to roll the dough out, she was happy to push the cutter into the dough and play with her "A" shape. I will definitely do this again!
Coloring Page
I provided Honey Pot with some crayons and this coloring page that I found on the Internet. Although she colors here and there on her own, she didn't seem too interested in it today.
Apple Chips
As a special snack today we made some baked apple chips, following a recipe that I found here. We didn't realize that they would become crispy after sitting a minute, and so left them in the oven for much too long! A fun variation on apples, and we may do it again sometime.
