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.

A Week in Review

Disclaimer: Yes, I know we ended A week over a week ago, and I'm a little late in posting. We had company in town last week. We are starting B today, but we have more company coming in on Wednesday, so the B posts may be a little late too. Sorry--but not too much. There's nothing like fun visitors to enliven a boring January.

The Alphabet Project is off to a fabulous start. Emma and I had a lot of fun together doing the various activities and reading new books. And best of all, she has totally internalized the letter A and the sounds it makes. She frequently points out A on a magazine that's lying around, a sign we see as we're driving, a poster in the doctor's office--all without prompting, I might add. I call this a rousing success. The one thing that didn't go as well was the writing portion, because her little fingers just can't make very deliberate strokes with a crayon just yet. But we'll keep trying and keep the writing portion as part of the alphabet project.

Anyone out there reading this, or is this blog just for my own documentation? If anyone is out there, and joining us with your own alphabet project, I'd love to hear how it's going for you, successful (and not-so-successful) activities, and great books.