Tot School Week #2

The Letter B

Lydia Joy- 2 years 3 months

We started out the letter B on Monday evening just before bed.  We were visiting with Mimi on Skype for part of our first lesson (hence the highchair).

The first thing we learned that B stands for was Bible. First Lydia colored a worksheet with the letter B and a Bible.   

The craft for B for Bible was making a wordless book (you can see what a wordless book is HERE).  Lydia's didn't come out looking like a book but she had a very good time cutting pieces of paper and gluing them to another bigger paper.  She LOVED this activity!

On day two, Tuesday, we learned B for bumblebee. We did a really fun and cute craft for bumblebee.  We started out with two paper plates.

 I painted mine yellow then did brown stripes on it along with eyes and a mouth.  Lydia put dots on hers. 

We stapled them together after I cut a hole in hers for her hand to fit though.  Then we cut out and glued wax paper 'wings' on the top.

I have to say it made a very cute little bumblebee!  Lydia enjoys flying him around:

An unplanned activity we did was sorting and counting coins.  I had quite a bit of change that needed to be put into rolls so Lydia 'helped'.

She was having a bit of a grumpy day though so she didn't do a lot of learning...or so I thought. Even though she seemed to be resisting all efforts to engage her in thought she demonstrated the next day that she was actually listening.  It was a good lesson for me to realize that even when things don't seem to be clicking it isn't all in vain.  It also helped me to realize that if (or rather, when) we are having an 'off day' I don't need to worry about it or try to push it because the next day will probably make up for it.  :) 

Our third day, Wednesday, was B for bear.  I found an idea for a craft online to make a textured bear.  I thought it looked cute so we gave it a try. 

I cut out a bear.  Lydia painted glue all over him: 

Then she sprinkled (un-used) coffee grounds all over him:

Which turned into quite a mess...but it was fun.  She actually played with the grounds and a spoon and a bowl for a long time.  But, as you can see, the glue didn't hold the coffee on very well so he ended up being a streaked bear and what did stick wasn't stuck very well so he was also 'shedding'.  :)  Needless to say he only lived on the refrigerator for a few days before ending up in the trash. 

On Thursday we went to story time at the library again. The story reader from last week was not there so the actual story time wasn't as good but it was good to be around the other kids and craft time was fun too.  Lydia is making small strides in being more comfortable around the other people. She actually talked a little! ;)  

We typically only do school three days a week but I had found a lot of neat crafts for the letter B so we did a little on Friday also. 

One activity we've been doing on pretty much every day of school is a 'letter search'.  I write a bunch of uppercase and lowercase letters on a page, including a many of the one we are talking about that day. Then Lydia finds them, in this case the B and the b, and colors them.  She seems to enjoy this and does a good job.

We learned B for butterfly and made butterflies out of coffee filters. The idea was to color on the filter with washable markers then spray water on it to make the colors run together.  Lydia was more interested in writing on the pictures in the newspaper that we use to protect the table, but that was ok too.

I made a really neat butterfly design on mine but the spraying water on it part did not go so well.  The instructions called for using a spray bottle....I used the sink sprayer....not a good idea, lol.  By the time it dried there was no marker left.  oops. 

So, we didn't make Lydia's wet (because I don't have a spray bottle).  We put a pipe cleaner around the middle making the butterflies two wings and the antenna on top.  It was cute.

And because school isn't just about sitting and learning we also had some fun this week.  Well, actually, we have fun pretty much all day every day...but here's a picture of something special we did for fun.  Gym class. Basketball to be specific.  :)  

The best part is that the hoop was only $10 from craigslist.  I LOVE craigslist.  :)  And, just a side note, the basketball hoop isn't staying in the living room permanently.  ;-) 

At lunch one day Lydia wanted to feed Anna her green beans.  I was kinda surprised that Anna opened her mouth and ate better for Lydia than she had been for me.  I may have to enlist Lydia's help more often.  We'll call this the home-ec part of school for the week. ;-) 

Once again I tried to get a video of Lydia talking about her letter B but she did not cooperate.  She said that the B was an A....so I gave up. ;)   Maybe by the time we get to letter W we'll get a video worth sharing.