Letter: H

Theme: The Letter H

Honey Pot is 2 years and 1 month old

Play-Dough H

Honey Pot brought me her playdough (a homemade Kool-Aid version we made) today, so I thought it would be a good day to resume learning the alphabet. I brought her my cookie cutter and asked her what letter it is. “H” she replied. (Huh? When did you learn that??) I helped her roll out the dough and she pushed the cookie cutter down.

“I made a H!” she exclaimed.

H is for House: Do-A-Dot Art

I printed this from Making Learning Fun, and brought out Honey Pot’s dot markers. I unscrewed all of them and let her have at it. She identified the letter and we talked about the image.

Then it became a color-matching activity, as well as fine motor skill practice, as she twisted the caps back on where they belonged.

I stretched the theme a wee bit to allow some scissor practice too. I drew an H on a piece of scrap paper, and asked her to cut along the lines. She did okay, but mostly just tore it up into tiny pieces by hand.

But she brought every last one to her garbage can without me asking her to do so. That’s my girl!

Leap Frog Fridge Phonics

I collected a few letters in one place, and asked Honey Pot which was the H. Instead of pointing, as she used to, she started removing one at a time until just the H remained. Then we listened to the little ditty that good ol’ Scout sings, about what H sounds like.

Words That Begin With H

During lunch I just talked to Honey Pot about various words that begin with H, emphasizing the H sound. “H-h-honey. H-h-heart. H-h-hair.” Then as I was running out of things that begin with H, I excitedly called out, “Hey! One of your bath toys begins with H! Can you think of which one?” I didn’t know what to expect. But after a short pause, she proudly said, “Hippo starts with a H!” Mommy’s jaw dropped here.

Daddy continued the game when he returned home from work, to see if it was a fluke. He gathered a few of her barn animal toys. “Which animal begins with H?” he asked. She picks up the horse. He then gathers up some puzzle pieces depicting images of different vehicles. “Which of these begins with H?” She picks up the helicopter and says, “Helicopper!”

I think our Tot School has just been raised to a whole new level. And now that I see how smart she is, I feel these activities are more important than ever.

H is for Hunt

I had other plans for this hunt, where I would hide various images around the yard that begin with H. But it rained today, and really, I hadn’t yet printed any pictures by the time we were ready to start this. So when Honey Pot picked up my rechargeable candles, I improvised. I hid a few bath toys around the bathroom and turned the lights off. She turned on her little light and used it to hunt for objects. Sorry for the poor picture quality!

H is for House: Popsicle Stick Craft

This is another great printable and idea from Making Learning Fun. First we counted the Popsicle sticks.

Then Honey Pot put some glue down. I told her where to put it, but she also decided some other places required glue too.

Yes, we’re learning about the letter H today, but we’re building a house, not the letter!

And with just a little guidance, it started to resemble a house.

Leap Frog Fridge Phonics, revisited!

We happened to be having ham for dinner, so I thought I would show her what the word looks like. Honey Pot identified each of the letters, and we reviewed what each sounds like. Then I put the different sounds together to create the word “ham.” Levels beyond where we’re at, but I thought it’d be fun to pop some spelling into today’s theme.

All in all, a successful day indeed.

Summer Bucket List 2012

Anyone who has been on Pinterest recently has seen one version of this or another. I think it is a great idea! I wanted to keep mine simple, since Honey Pot and Little M&M are too young to participate in the list making and design. So I went to a site called Wordle, where you can create the most wonderful word clouds! After refreshing the design and tweaking the color scheme to my liking, I placed the word cloud into Photoshop Elements to add a title and bucket clip art. This is what I came up with.

 

I am so excited to get started!

Memorial Day

Theme: Memorial Day

Honey Pot is 2 years old

Star Cookie Cutter Prints

Memorial Day is coming up! We kicked off the return to our Tot School adventures with a fun craft that I discovered on No Time For Flash Cards. It had been so long since we put on her smock and had some messy fun. She was so excited to go to her craft table! First I squirt out a little bit of red and blue paint onto a paper plate – she told me what the colors were. I then asked which cookie cutter she wanted to start with, as we have multiple sizes. I was so pleased when she said “the big one,” and then later, “the small one.” She has grown so much even over the course of two months! I showed her how to press the cookie cutter into the paint, and then press it onto the paper. She quickly caught on, and she really enjoyed this project.

Patterns

We used her magnetic pom poms on our homemade chalkboard for the first time. I created a simple pattern, and asked her if she could create the same pattern on the line below.

 She started off well!

For the second pattern, I just asked her to sort the pom poms by color.

Shaving Cream Sensory Bin

For our new and improved Tot School, I want to include more sensory experiences. (The water beads were such a HUGE hit during our purple theme!) But Honey Pot doesn’t like a mess…so I wasn’t sure how she would handle this activity. She asked me to go first, so I did. Then she hesitantly dipped one hand in.

I encouraged her to dig in with both hands, to squish it around. We discussed its properties, and swirled it around with a rubber spatula. I added a few drops of red and blue paint as well, to tie it in (however minimally) with our Memorial Day theme. Then we kicked it up a notch and squirted water into it (…this was her favorite part).

 After she had had enough, I began to clean up our station. (I also threw in an impromptu load of laundry!) Then I patted some of the shaving cream mixture onto paper, folded the paper in half, and opened it up for her. I didn’t expect it to look like anything in particular. But it did, and she helped point it out. “Butterfly!”

Red, White and Blue Jello Stars

Honey Pot and I made Jello for the holiday as well. (I found the recipe and idea here.) She helped me mix ingredients together. We discussed the hot water and the cold water as we used them. And she even helped me to cut the stars out. They came out very pretty…and were tasty too!

American Flag Craft

We also made a simple American Flag. I provided Honey Pot with strips of paper from my scrap stash, as well as her star stickers and some glue. She placed a couple of the stripes on herself, but lost interest after that. So I finished them and then directed her to the stickers!

Alphabet Review

I know we have only covered letters ‘A’ through ‘G’ individually, but I thought it would be nice to incorporate some alphabet review into this week’s theme. I wrote down some words related to the holiday and asked her to point out particular letters. She did great – even with letters we haven’t covered yet. I read the words to her, but didn’t go into much discussion about what they mean or how they relate to the holiday. She is only two after all!

Then she decided to draw freely on the chalkboard. Apparently this is a picture of a girl. Sure…I can see that.

Magnetic Pom Poms

We concluded our theme this week by placing magnetic pom poms on a picture of the American Flag. It is always such a simple and fun way to extend our activities, and practice fine motor skills. The free printable came from Making Learning Fun.