Theme: The Letter K

Honey Pot is 2 years and 8 months old

Leap Frog Fridge Phonics

As usual, we began our theme by listening to Scout’s little ditty about how the letter K sounds. I would have continued with a “Which is K?” game, as I've done with other letters; however, before I could do so, the K had become our first ever LOST TOY!

AlphaBuddy King

This cute craft comes from a site I frequent called DLTK Kids. I printed the template, cut it out and then we got started. First, I let Honey Pot color in the letter and pieces using any medium she wished – dot markers, crayons and markers. She used each of them! I helped a little bit, as the joint effort helps to keep her interested for longer.

Then she glued down the K and all of its pieces!

Ta da! I made dotted letters along the bottom for her to trace the word “KING.” I guided her hand, but I think it is wonderful writing practice for her.

What Begins with K?

During dinner one night this week, Honey Pot’s Daddy quizzed her on the letter K. He gave her multiple choice questions such as this: “Which word begins with K: punch, kick or run?” And: “…dog, bear or koala?” She would answer correctly most of the time! I was thoroughly impressed!

K Lunch

I found this idea at an awesome blog called Meet the Dubiens. Super cute kid food ideas there under the “Fun Food Friday” tab. Check it out! So here is our letter K version:

K is for Kite!

I am so excited about this craft as it involves painting, lacing, letter recognition and counting all in one! First I cut out a kite shape from a piece of chipboard. Then I let Honey Pot choose three or four paint colors for her kite. She chose pink, purple and blue. I asked her to paint the whole thing.

After her nap it had dried completely. I used a hole-punch to poke holes all the way around it, and gave her a long piece of string. In the past I had used a shoelace, which I feel is easier for her little hands to thread, but it wouldn't have been long enough. So I just rolled some tape around the edge of the string. And it worked great!

Next, to enforce the idea that the word KITE begins with K, I wrote down a series of letters on some circle stickers that I happen to have in surplus. Seven of these were K’s.

I asked her if she could find a letter K. She did without any help! The X threw her off once though.

As she pointed to each one, I peeled them up and had her place them onto the kite.

Finally, I asked her to count up all the K’s. Seven. Perfect!

I love how this came out, and we have it hanging up in the kitchen!

Play-Doh Fun

No letter theme would be complete without some cookie cutter + play-doh fun! Honey Pot always loves this activity, and chooses multiple play-doh colors to make the cutouts again and again.

This time, we also made some “K monsters” with googly eyes and chenille stems that are in her play-doh supplies…

And some “K soup” as well! Yum!

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Theme: Snow/Snowman

Honey Pot is 2 years and 8 months

Little M&M is 10 months

Books

There are so many fun wintry books available, even at our little library. Our very favorite from this week was Hello, Snow! by Hope Vestergaard—great flowing rhymes, and super cute, childlike text. We also really enjoyed Snow by Uri Shulevitz for its beautiful illustrations and simplistic wording—the characters had names such as “boy with dog” and “man with beard.” And an unexpected favorite this week was called Stranger in the Woods by Carl R. Sams II and Jean Stoick. All pictures are actual photographs, and we are shown various woodland creatures as they pluck up the courage to meet this stranger in their territory: a snowman. So, so very cute.

Coffee Filter Snowflakes

I had seen a few versions of this craft on Pinterest, but I knew I wanted to do the one with a spray bottle. Honey Pot loves to squirt hers, and hasn’t been able to play much with it since the weather turned cold. Here is what we did:

First Honey Pot and I used markers to decorate a few folded coffee filters. (The markers must be washable!)

Then I placed them in a bucket and let her drench them with her spray bottle. The colors began to bleed through.

I unfolded them and let them dry on a towel. This actually didn’t take as long as I expected – just a couple hours!

And I cut out some snowflake shapes.

We hung these on our back door, and they look just beautiful when the sun shines through. Hard to photograph though!

Chubby Little Snowman Poem

Honey Pot really enjoys songs with finger-plays, so I decided to introduce her to a classic poem that had motions as well. This one is a classic!

A chubby little snowman
Had a carrot nose
Along came a rabbit
And what do you suppose?
That hungry little bunny,
Looking for his lunch,
Ate the snowman's carrot nose...
Nibble, nibble, CRUNCH!

She is too young to recite it on her own, but as I recited it she spoke with me and did the motions. She had a lot of fun with this!

Tape Resist Snowflake Finger-painting

Hooray for Little M&M’s very first official craft! I prepared a special homemade paint for him, in the very likely case that he’d want to taste it. The recipe I used came from a blog called Stay At Home Educator. It served its purpose well, but the colors are certainly not as vibrant as Honey Pot’s paints!

To begin, I stuck masking tape on two pieces of paper, one for each of the kids. Then I set each of them up with their respective paints and let them have at it. I supplied a paintbrush for each, but they decided it was meant to be a finger-painting instead. Fine by me!

Here are the final results!

Later I outlined them in black marker to help them stand out, and we put them on display in our dining room. Beautiful!

Snowflake Number Recognition and Counting

I found these adorable printables from Making Learning Fun. I only printed through number six for now. They are meant to be used with a wagon wheel pasta; however, I happen to have a superfluous amount of snowflake confetti that worked perfectly for this. Honey Pot did very well with the counting – she was flawless actually! But we could definitely use the practice in number recognition. Great activity!

Snowman Snack

I found via Pinterest a cute banana snack from a blog called All Free Kids Crafts. I threw mine together in a hurry, so it isn't nearly as cute. But Honey Pot got a kick out of her breakfast, and ate it all up!

Snow Sensory – Ice Cream Shoppe

It’s super cold outside. And honestly, we would spend more time bundling up to go outside than we would actually spend out there. So we brought the snow inside instead! First I let Little M&M explore the texture of snow for his very first time. I sat him in his high chair and scooped some snow up for him to play with. He loved it. And he tasted it of course.

I set Honey Pot up with a whole bin full of snow, some ice cream bowls, an ice cream scoop and some play spoons. First we ordered some ice cream from one another and pretended to eat it.

Then I decided to add some food coloring to some of the snow. Suddenly we had strawberry ice cream and blueberry ice cream and much more! She loved the colors!