Not cooperating!

When I quit my job to stay home, I had BIG ideas of what my son and I would do each day. I imagined myself as the new Martha Stewart meets super mom. Well, I can honestly say I am as far from that as possible! Life just hasn't cooperated with my plans. My son, also has his own idea of how to live each day (which is great) and his ideas and mine are rarely the same. Needless to say, I have had to regroup on teaching him at home. This weeks, blocks have been the tops toy of choice. Something so simple can be the best learning activity. Tristan gets so excited when he sees the letter "T" because he thinks that means it is his name or part of it. I will take what I can get and enjoy those moments of learning, even when he does not realize he is learning!

WOW

WOW......

I am going through all of my blogs and realizing how terrible I am at keeping them up! Most of you know, but we recently made a big move. I guess I am just now starting to get completely settled. This now feels like home!

I have been finding some pretty awesome summer activities and recipes and I am going to try to get those to you. I am sure you see lots of things too, so please feel free to share!

Today's favorite was our fresh fruit smoothies. I changed the recipe a bit to make it even healthier, and it was yummy, down to the last drop!

Ingredients:

1 c.  frozen strawberries
1 c.  frozen peaches
1 c.  yogurt
1 c.  Bolthouse fruit juice (has a TON of fruit in one cup of juice)
2 bananas

blueberries add a nice touch, also, I just didn't have any. :)
BLEND AND ENJOY!!!!!

J words

J words

jungle (this could be REALLY fun!!!)
Jesus
junk
jingle
jiggle
jigglers (yummy)
jellyfish
Jack
jet
jump
jig
jax
Jack and Jill
jester
Jack-O-Lantern
Jack and the Beanstalk
jello
jam/jelly

Alphabet Train

One of the presents that Tristan got for Christmas was an alphabet floor puzzle. He really likes it! It is a great way to work with your child on finding the next letter and then putting them in order. I encourage you to look into them if you do not have one. Make sure you have a lot of space! They are really long!

Click Here to see an example!

It is FINALLY a new year!

I have really enjoyed posting our crafts and activities, I have just been really terrible at it!!! We seemed to have taken a much too long vacation from posting! I will try to do better this year!

Around November is when things got crazy at our house, as I am sure they did with yours as well. All of the holidays hit and we just did a lot of crafts and activities about those holidays. I will try to get some of those pictures up as well.

We are now back on track and working on the letter J. After this week, I think we are going to go back and revisit the rest of the alphabet to make sure everything hasn't been forgotten!

Although we do talk about letters and numbers daily, I still like to stop and evaluate from time to time.

I hope you stick around with us! Please feel free to share anytime you have something to offer! The more ideas, the better!

I week ..... extended ;)

It has taken us forever to do I week. We have literally been out and about everyday for almost 3 weeks now. It is crazy! The good part is that most of the things we have been doing are educational in one way or another. I will try to get everything caught up on here. In there mean time, here is our I week. I was trying to get Tristan to do something different for his letter I, but he LOVES the beans. So, once again, we glued beans on the letter. Whatever works, right?!?

Chicka Chicka boom boom

I just have to throw this out there. If you are looking for a great book on the alphabet that is not too boring, because lets face it, they can be, then you should check out Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Tristan and I love to read this book together. He likes to "read" it with me and try to name all of the letters on the page. If you are not familiar with it, check it out! Amazon has a geat deal on it.

I week

This week is I week. Hmm..... this should be an interesting one!

Here are some I words you may be able to use...

igloo
iguana
inch
inchworm
ice
Indian
infant
ink
insect
instrument
invitation

ice cream

H is for House

I say this ALL THE TIME, but this did not turn out as planned :)

This week we have been working on the letter H. One of the activities that we did was a house. The plan was for each window and door to have a member of our family peeking out. I had Tristan draw each family member on a piece of precut (and measured) paper. We are really really struggling in the people drawing area... Then we glued them behind the house. It is cute, but I probaby should have given him a photo of each family member and had his glue it in each window and door.

The other thing was I made sure that each part of the house was a certain shape. We talked about the colors, and shapes as well as the letter H. We had fun!!

I should have let him glue on bushes etc, but after this much, he was done. ;)

The letter H

This week has been H week. I am late posting this, again... sorry! I am trying to do better!

Here are some H words to get your creative juices flowing :)

helicopter
horse
house
hat
hair
hammer
hummingbird
heart
horn
hamburger
helmet
hippo
hands
Humpty Dumpty
Harry
happy
helper
hot
heavy
hard
heard
hear
hairdresser
hospital
hobby
hardware store
hop

just for fun

This is not a G post persay, but it was certainly a learning field trip! Tristan and I try to spend one day a week with my mom in Richmond. My dad tries to join up for the fun, too, when he can get off work. This week, we went to Maymont Park, in Richmond, Va. I LOVE Maymont. For those of you who have never been there, this is a beautiful park that is very hilly (so you get a GREAT workout) and it has animals spread out throughout the park. There is also a petting zoo. The park is free, however they do ask for donations. It is well worth the visit. It is also a perfect place for a picinic lunch!

Enjoy the pics :)

 The bears were fighting! The one in the back by the tree was on his hind legs. Ive never seen anything like it. So cool to watch!

 This goat was Tristan's BEST friend. He followed Tristan everywhere he went.

Tristan and his Grammee went over the steep bridge in the Japanese Gardens.

We had a GREAT day!!!

G is for simple grapes

G is for Green Grapes! This is also super simple, but that is the point of this blog! Super simple crafts for learning the ABC's!

We are constantly drilling (in a fun way of course) colors, letters and shapes. I try to use standard shapes for most projects.

For the green grapes, I only used a rectangle for the stem and circles obviously for the grapes. This did not turn out as cute as I had hoped, however, the lesson itself and the discussion made it worth it. Not to mention the fact that anytime Tristan completes a project, he is proud of himself. Isn't that what it is all about??

The letter G

This is super simple and you can use anything to glue on to your letters. It is all about your child seeing and hearing the letter. There can never be too many repetitions!

A Green letter G

Tristan has his favorite things he likes to glue, but get creative! I don't trust him with glitter yet. Otherwise, it may have been sparkly :)

G is for...

G week was last week. I unfortunately haven't been able to post lately. I will try to get everything up and current this weekend.

One of the things that I had wanted to make with Tristan was a guitar. He has a guitar, that is just his size, and he loves to play with his Daddy. But, I thought it would be fun to have him make a guitar. They are super easy so I wanted to pass it on to you.

materials
box
rubberbands
scissors
paint (optional)


All you need to do for this is get a shoe box. Cut a hole in the center of the shoe box lid. Put the rubberbands (at least 3) lengthwise around the box. PLAY!

If you would like to get more involved, you could have your child paint the shoe box before you put the rubberbands on it. You could also make a neck out of a papertowel roll and glue it on the small end of the shoebox. There are lots of possibilities!

Additional lesson:
Guitars make music. The "string" vibrate. Vibrate means to move back and forth quickly. Have your child strum the guitar to see the strings vibrate. Then have your child put his/her hand on his/her neck over the voicebox. Have your child whisper. Feel anything? Now have your child talk normally. Feel anything? Vibrations!

We used to do this when I taught first grade. We would pull out all kinds of instruments for vibrations. See what you can find! Or save it for the letter V ;)

G is for Giraffe

G is for GREAT GIRAFFE!
This is too cute! Bag puppets are so much fun! If you are like me, you probably wont print out the template, but I wanted to pass this great site on incase you wanted to! They provide the materials needed and the step by step directions to complete this giraffe bag puppet with your child. Have fun!

DLTK has some great ideas for toddlers-K kids!