Fun Dog, Sun Dog by Deborah Heiligman

This book, from the library, was another perfect D book. The subject matter (dogs) is a favorite, and the illustrations are bright and fun. The text on each page is short and sweet, consisting of 3 lines with 10-15 words total. The word "dog" is on each page at least 3 times, along with a smattering of other D words, so there are plenty of Ds to find.

Dance Party USA

Emma loves music, and when she hears a good beat, she often commands me to "Dance, Mama." So what better activity for D than a dance party? In fact, we've had several this week, with music ranging from children's CDs to the Jeopardy theme song to 90s rap ("Jump Around" is practically Emma's theme song for life). Our best dance party was on Thursday night when my husband came home after 3 long days of taking the TX bar exam. He found Emma and I dancing around the kitchen as we prepared dinner and joined us for a massive celebration--I think we burned off more calories than we ate for dinner! Emma was a dancing queen, and now she also knows that dance starts with D.

Sorry, no pictures this time--we have to protect the guilty. :)

How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? by Jane Yolen

This book has been a favorite in our house for quite a while. Long before Emma could talk, she could point out the doggie or ball or teddy bear on each page. In addition to being a favorite bedtime book, it may just be the perfect book for the letter D. The story is engaging with fun pictures. The large (30-ish point?) serif font is easy for little eyes to read and look for letters. The text is simple, with an average of 10-15 words per page. We love it, and Emma has read it at least 10 times by herself this week (in addition to the several times we read it together). This one is definitely a must-have for a home library, alphabet project or not.

Dimity Duck by Jane Yolen and Sebastien Braun

Who doesn't love Jane Yolen? We're big fans of her Dinosaur books, and were happy to be introduced to this one. The text is fun and the pictures are whimsical, telling the story of a little duck who spends the day playing with a frog. (What toddlers don't love ducks and frogs?) The text is printed in a large type and sprinkled with Ds, perfect for new little semi-readers to search for the letter of the week.

C Week in Review

Another good letter week has come and gone. I've discovered the best thing about this project is the awareness of text that it gives Emma. Almost anywhere we go--driving in the car, at the grocery store, at church--she says, "Look, look! Letters!" or she points out the individual letters and says the sounds. I'm no expert, but I'm betting that's a pretty important prereading skill. It also makes for excellent impromptu entertainment ("What letter is that? What sound does it make?").

PS. Sorry for the sporadic posting lately. My husband has been home off work the last couple of weeks studying for the bar exam and monopolozing my (I mean our??) computer. That and a stomach bug that set us back for a few days and delayed D week. Plus, I've got 8 weeks to go and am already itching to evict this baby. Is that enough excuses for you? I'll try my best to update regularly.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is, of course, a classic, and we've had it at our house for a while, though it's been a long time since we've read it. Emma enjoyed it a lot more than she has in the past--perhaps because now she knows what cupcakes and lollipops are??? It definitely works as a C book, though we have the board book version and the text was kind of small, which made it hard for Emma to spot Cs.

The Cat Next Door by Betty Ren Wright

This was a random library book find that didn't work too well for us. For starters, it's one of those whimsical picture books with a lot of text--not necessarily a bad thing, just not ideal for a two-year-old. It made it hard for her to look for Cs within the text. It also didn't have too many C words. However, if you're looking for a nice picture book to deal with the death of a grandparent, especially for an older preschooler, this one would work well.

Cards

With Valentine's day this week, what better craft than to make cards? I simplified things by using premade cards, which Emma colored with crayons and decorated with stickers.

The front of a masterpiece:

I helped by writing a message inside:

This was a fun, quick project, and even though we didn't get them done in time for Valentine's day delivery, I'm sure they'll be appreciated!

Cowpokes by Caroline Stutson

This was another random library book that I loved so much I'm thinking of adding to our home collection. Perhaps it's because we're in Texas now? Cowpokes is the story of (what else?) a day in the life of cowpokes. The illustrations are fantastic--the artist created 10 different cowpoke personalities that show up in every picture. The gently rhyming text is fun without being overbearing. And there were lots of Cs!

Just Call Out My Name...

Once again, I felt like I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for our "Do" activity this week. I need to do more brainstorming and research, because all I could come up with was "call," which is what we ended up doing. Emma is a regular chatty Cathy and talks to both sets of grandparents quite regularly, so instead we called MY grandparents (Emma's great-grandparents). She loved telling them about her day, informing them of the sound that the letter C makes, and singing the alphabet song. And I'm pretty sure my snow-bound grandparents enjoyed the call too.

Daisy the Dancing Cow by Viki Woodworth

This was a random library book pick, about a cow who aspires to be a dancer. The story was kind of cute--I didn't think it was all that special, but Emma has read it several times since we read it together. Should I be at all concerned that her favorite part is when one of the dancers "hurt the ankle"??? Plenty of Cs to find and a dancing cow to boot.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

What's a better cooking project for the letter C than a triple threat? :) Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures this time, but Emma enjoyed dumping in the dry ingredients, and I introduced her to the pleasure of eating raw cookie dough. Yum. And I don't think she'll soon forget that cookie starts with C!

We just used the Tollhouse recipe, which I love the taste of, but don't particularly like how they flatten out.
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12 oz. package) chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
3. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Counting Crocodiles by Judy Sierra

This is a fun book with a lot of C words (although at first Emma called the crocodiles "alligators"). It is the story of a monkey stuck on an island who outwits some crocodiles to get a bunch of bananas. The illustrations are zany and the text rhymes, which provides a lot of opportunities to look for little Cs.

B Week in Review

Yesterday at church, my husband entertained Emma by writing letters on the Magnadoodle and having her name them. We discoved that she knew the entire alphabet. Once again I'm feeling both extremely proud of her and a little bit useless myself. :) But I take comfort in knowing that she only knows lowercase a and b, and she only knows the sounds for a handful of letters. So we will continue on. Also, we're having fun!

Seeing and saying the names and sounds of the letter are easy for Emma--she is a quick memorizer. And the repetition works well. Reading is also a big hit, but that is no surprise either, considering we are total bookworms at this house. The letter books are adding more variety than our current collection. Writing continues to be a bust for Emma's little hands. But she is beginning to draw some actual shapes--a circle here, a triangle there--so we will keep trying.

Cooking is probably our favorite. Not only does it yield some delicious snacks, but we're having a marvelous time mixing. Art project are hit-or-miss, probably because I haven't really done too many of them with Emma before. She really enjoyed the butterfly this week, though, perhaps because she has a pair of butterfly pajamas that are her favorite. :) Our "Do" activities seem to be a bit hit-or-miss as well, depending on what I think up. I will have to be a little bit better about brainstorming.

Goldie and the Three Bears by Diane Stanley

This book is, obviously, a retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, which I've decided is a story I just don't like. Goldie is kind of a brat, and kind of demanding (to quote: "Goldie knew exactly what she liked--and exactly what she didn't.") Seriously, do I want to make my toddler even MORE picky? But I suppose at 2 she's too young to pick up the subtleties. As for being a B book, it was okay. It has less B words than one would think, especially because the bears don't show up until the final third of the book. But it was okay, and Emma seemed to enjoy reading it.

Banana Bread

Cooking continues to be a favorite activity. Emma loves to "dump it" into the bowl, after which crying with delight, "we dooed it!" (We're still working on pronouns and irregular past tense verbs. :) My husband helped out this week and even tried to get her to crack an egg, though I don't think she liked it all that much. But we all enjoyed the yummy results.

This recipe is your basic Betty Crocker version.
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter or stick margarine, softened
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 medium)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chopped nuts, if desired

1. Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350. Grease bottoms of 2 eight-inch loaf pans, or 1 nine-inch loaf pan.
2. Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Stir in bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla; beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt until just moistened. Stir in nuts. Divide batter evenly between pans.
3. Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour, or 9-inch loaf about 1 hour 15 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pans on wire rack.
4. Loose sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely before slicing.

The Big Bug Ball by Dee Lillegard

Another random library book that turned out to be a great study of the letter B. This book tells the story of all the bugs getting together to have a ball (surprising title, eh?). The rhyming text is fun, as are the illustrations of differet types of bugs dressed in different kinds of dance garb. (Though I must admit that after several years of living in New York City, the picture of the cockroach at the buffet freaked me out some).

Butterfly

Our art project this week was to make a butterfly. I had orignially thought to stick two hearts together as wings, but to emphasize the letter, I took a 12x12 piece of cardstock, folded it in half, and drew a big letter B, with the straight edge on the fold, like so:

Then I cut out along the B with scissors, careful not to cut through the fold. Then we whippped out the crayons, and Emma colored the wings:

To finish it, I punched a hole in the top, and put in a plastic twistie-tie (like from a loaf of bread) to make the antennae. I really would have preferred pipe cleaners, but I didn't have any. I guess I will have to stock up on toddler art supplies. The finished product:

Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies

This book was a randomly chosen library book, but it proved to be a fun read and a perfect B book. Besides "bats" and "beach," which are repeated several times throughout the book, there are a lot of other B words, containing both big and little Bs. The story is fun--a nighttime beach outing for a bunch of bats--and the pictures yield a lot to talk about with your toddler. I'm thinking of adding this one to our home collection.

B is for Bath

I suppose I need to start with a disclaimer here: we take baths every couple of days at our house. It is a regular occurance, though it usually takes place without fanfare. We skip the bath toys, dump some water on her head, soap her up, dump some more water, and try to be done in ten minutes or less.

Thus for our "Do" B activity, we took an extra-special bath. We broke out the bath toys, including some new bath crayons, which were especially convenient for writing the letter B on the side of the tub.

For some reason, the Do activities seem the hardest to come up with at the time. Only after our special bath did I think of other possibilities: blowing bubbles, building with blocks, bowling.

The Wheels on the Bus

This song has been a favorite in our house for quite a while, and a few weeks ago I found a pop-up book version in the clearance setion at Borders just waiting for us to buy it. Of course it made a perfect B book. We had to read it twice--once to go through the motions while we sang the song, and a second time to actually focus on the letter B. Our particular version had several B words besides bus--babies, bell, beep, etc. A perennial favorite.

Belly Button Book! by Sandra Boynton

We are huge Sandra Boynton fans at our house, and we've had this book for quite a while. And this book is chock full of Bs. Since Emma was already familiar with the story and can recite quite a bit of it herself, we focused on finding big Bs and little Bs in the text, as well as pronunciation. ("Buh buh buh button!") This book has a lot of repetition, which makes it perfect for the alphabet project. Not to mention that it's super fun to read!

And....we're back!

Sorry for the delay, everyone! Between two sets of visitors in two weeks and a bout of colds in between, we've gotten off track and a bit behind schedule. But we are "back" and ready to begin B week!

Make and Takes

I can't remember how I first stumbled upon the Make and Takes blog, but when I did, a little more than a year ago, it quickly became a favorite. Make and Takes is written by a mother of three who enjoys crafting and cooking with her children. She is a graduate in early childhood and elementary education, with several years' experience teaching kindergarten before choosing to be a stay-at-home mom. Though Emma is still a bit young for some of the activities, I am constantly printing things out to keep in my files. I have found it to be a great resource for Make and Do activities, as well as a source of yummy recipes! Even if you aren't doing the alphabet project in your own home, check out Make and Takes if you have young children. I guarantee you'll find a fun activity for your family.