Let's Go Fly a Kite

What better activity for K than to fly a kite? I thought it was a brilliant idea, but Emma thought otherwise. Apparently wind freaks her out. (Though we have a picture of her as an eight-month-old basking in the wind while on a boat to visit Alcatraz). Thus the stock picture from the internet instead of one of Emma blissfully flying her kite. We will have to try again someday.
PS. If you don't have a kite, now is an excellent time to buy one! I found mine at the end of the summer last year for about 2 dollars at Target.

Jump Rope

For our J activity, I taught Emma how to jump rope. Or tried, anyway. Emma was great at the jumping but her timing was off--though she didn't care much anyway. No pictures because it's kind of difficult to turn the rope and take pictures at the same time.

I have been neglecting this blog for a long time, but I have been keeping track of what we've been doing with our letters and will try to get back to regular updates. If you're still out there, thanks for reading!

Ice Cube Painting

For our I project, we "painted" with ice cubes. All you need is a box or pan, paper, ice cubes, and a colored powder. The original directions we found called for powdered tempera paint (which I didn't have and didn't want to buy), but you can also subsitute Kool-Aid or Jell-O. We used red Kool-Aid. Simply put the paper in a cardbord box or pan (we used a 13x9" cake pan), sprinkle some powder on the paper, and place an ice cube in the pan. While the ice melts, rotate or swirl the box to create a pattern on the paper.

This was easy and fun. We will probably do it again for a fun, low-mess summer activity.

Hula Hoop

What better activity for H than to hula hoop? It also made for a nice excuse to get a fun (and cheap) summer toy. Emma wasn't quite coordinated enough to spin it around her waist, but we made up our own games with it, such as placing the hoop on the ground and jumping in and out of it.

Games

Emma is just at the cusp of understanding rules to games, so for our G activity we played "Candyland." She knows all of her colors, so actually playing the game isn't a problem; however, her obession with playing "people" was, sort of. When my mom came to take care of Emma when Madeline was born, they spent a lot of time playing with Fisher-Price Little People. In particular, their Little People would go on pretend trips to the zoo. Hence, any time Emma sees any sort of figurine (such as the playing pieces in Candyland), she uses them to go to the zoo. So we played about half of a game of Candyland following the specified rules, and then it fell into a game of going to the zoo. Either way, Emma now knows that game starts wtih G. Oh, and she had fun too.
PS. Originally I had planned to play "Go Fish"--double points for a game that starts with G! But I didn't have time this week to search out a card game with actual fish on it, and I thought she might get confused if we played with face cards. Maybe I'll find one by the time Madeline is ready to learn the alphabet...

Finger Painting

For our F activity, we did fingerpainting. Just like when we make the apple prints, Emma was a little freaked out by the activity at first. But she quickly warmed up to it and has asked to fingerpaint again several times since.


PS. I highly recommend Crayola's Color Wonder fingerpainting set, as pictured below. True, traditional finger paints are probably cheaper, but the lack of mess, especially when you have a new baby around? Priceless.

Eggs

I don't think I ever posted our E cook and do activities, and unfortunately I don't even have pictures! I blame it on pregnancy slacking, though I'm over that condition now and hope to move on with the rest of the alphabet.

For E cooking, we made eggs. Nothing fancy, just scrambled. (I thought of other ideas--enchiladas, eclairs, but they all seemed a bit much for a two-year-old). Emma practiced cracking eggs, though she was a bit vigorous and I had to fish some shells out of the bowl.

For our E activity, we had a practice Easter egg hunt to prepare for the real thing. But unfortunately we never got to do the real thing, because it was raining buckets on Easter and I was too busy cooking the ham to hide the eggs inside.

Alas, I hope to make up for my slackerdom during F week.

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. :)

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.

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.

Aerobics

For our A activity, I racked my brain but all I could come up with was aerobics. But Emma takes gymnastics and loves to jump, so it was a hit! We did some basic moves--jumping jacks, step touch, sit up. I didn't get any pictures and we didn't do it very long, because hey, I'm starting my third trimester and I don't really care to do aerobics at all. But it was fun, and another way to remember the letter A!