X Marks the Spot: X Day

Apparently, doing a crazy amount of P activities got D all excited about letter days again. He wanted to start X Day right away!

We started with his Confessions of a Homeschooler letter search.

Our first craft of the day was making our own x-ray! (I originally saw this one on Pinterest) I traced his hands with chalk on a black sheet of construction paper. Then, I drew lines of glue and then he placed q-tips on the hands for bones. He liked this one. It was super easy and looked kind of cool when we were done.

After we made our own X-Ray, we read our library book, Jessica's X-Ray by Pat Zonta. It was a great book. It had real x-ray pics in it and it was a great way to explain to D that he has bones inside of him too! He was totally into it. We felt the bones in his hands when looking at the hand x-ray, we felt his ribs when looking at the chest x-ray, and we knocked on his skull when looking at the head x-ray. Fun stuff!

After his nap we moved onto a different X theme. I wanted to incorporate a 'X Marks the Spot' part of our day. He loved our pirate time yesterday, so I wanted to build off of that.

I ended up drawing a Pirate Snack Map where X Marks the Spot! I found the inspiration for D's snack map here. Obviously, I did a very different map, but that's where I got the idea.

He had goldfish by the water, grapes by the palm tree, carrots by the volcano, Coco Puffs by the ship, and yogurt covered pretzel sticks marking the X. Dylan loved his map. We ended up taping it on the bottom of the fridge because "Dats where snacks are!"

We read one more X book before bed. I got the Harry and the Bucket Full of Dinosaurs, X Marks the Spot by Bright & Early Books from the library. 

P Day - The Biggest Letter Day EVER!

We had so much stuff for P Day, we weren't able to smash it all into one day. We tried, but there was just no way! So cancel all your appointments, this is going to take a while!

P Day 1

D and I spent our not-so-lazy Sunday at Mom & Bob's house and brought all of our P Day stuff with us. Boy, we were busy! I think my parents were really excited to be a part of our huge letter day.

As soon as we got there, Pa had Phineas & Ferb tattoos to apply. Dylan got a Perry tattoo for P Day. He and Pa have been doing tattoos quite a bit lately and they are getting to be pros. And I'm sure Bob likes showing off his Phineas & Ferb tattoos to all the guys at work!

Whlie his tattoo was drying he decided it was time to eat. It was a day of P food! He snacked on some peanuts while Nonny made him a giant pancake!

He ate the entire pancake. And he definitely didn't want to share any of it with Lili the cat. I know it looks like D is showing Lili how to count to 4, but he was actually saying, "No, Lili! Stop! Go away!"

Ahoy! Next up was pirate time! We both put bandannas on and got out the pirate stuff. We forgot to grab his big sword from Matt & Jenn, but we brought his inflatable one from his first birthday party, and his Jake from my dad and Connie.

It didn't take long before our pirate time turned into a full, blown-out pirate sword fight. I know that it looks like a very unfair fight, but D made me take the big sword and he used Jake's little one.

 

 

We needed a breather after all the running around and laughing, so D and Nonny had some quite time and looked at his Jake & the Never Land Pirates look & find book. They looked  and looked and looked! He loves look & find books. 

After that, D wanted to do stickers with my mom. I don't think he is capable of going to their house and not "doing stickers." So, the two of them searched through all the stickers and found ones with P stuff on them.

There was just enough time before naptime (Yes, that's right - I'm not even to naptime of Day 1 yet!!) for one more P craft. 

Last week, at his Arts & Play Class at the Y, Dylan made a shamrock craft that we made into a pumpkin craft for today. I cut out a yellow pumpkin from construction paper and then cut up an orange sheet. I covered the pumpkin with glue and let him place all the orange pieces. It turned out pretty cute. We gave it to Nonny & Pa once it dried and they displayed it proudly on their fridge!

I had gotten three pumpkin books from the library. So, we snuggled up on D's bed and got reading pre-naptime. My favorite out of the three was How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin by Margaret McNamara.

When D woke up from his nap hungry, we filled his tray with P food! We adults had already indulged in a P lunch of Clints Pizza (So, we were happy!). Dylan had peanuts, pickles, pizza, peaches, and pudding!

P Day was definitely the easiest one for food. And it was a bunch of stuff that Dylan really likes!

On to another P Craft! It was time to make a pig!

I saw a similar craft online, but it was a plain plastic bottle with pink paper wrapped around the middle. I thought it would be much cuter if we painted it!

I squirted some pink paint inside of a clean and dry plastic bottle, put the cap on tight, and let D shake it until the entire inside was coated with pink paint (I used Martha Stewart high gloss paint).

D helped hold the pig still while my mom and I used her hot glue gun to glue a white pipe cleaner for the tail, pink paper ears, and squishy ear plugs for feet (the feet were my mom's brilliant idea - awesome!). I drew eyes, snout, and mouth with a Sharpie.

I think the pig ended up being the hit of the day. Although, I'm not sure that Dylan was as excited as the adults were. In my modest opinion, the pig is awesome!

After some pig play time, we got back to work! I had an actual worksheet for today along with all these crazy crafts. I printed off the Confessions of a Homeschooler letter search for P. 

Then, we made a pizza for Daddy. I had cut out some red circles and black mushroom shapes. Pepperoni and mushroom just happens to be Josh's favorite. So I asked D to make a really yummy pizza for Daddy. We glued all the pieces on and then took a pretend taste test. Hope you don't mind that we already had a bite, Babe!

While searching through his massive amount of books, Nonny and D found a picture of a beautiful peacock and a book about penguins!

By the time dinner rolled around D asked my mom if she would make some Mac & Cheese for him. Apparently  P Day was a little too much to handle because he started to fall asleep while chowing down.

I manged to get a second wind into him by pushing up bath time. By the time we got home, D was in his PJs and starting to get sleepy again. I put on Happy Feet (about penguins) and we snuggled up on the couch. Needless to say, he didn't make it to the end of the movie.

P Day 2
We didn't need a second day of P, but I had so many fun things to do, that I just couldn't stop myself. Day 2 wasn't nearly as full of letter stuff as Day 1.

We read Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear by Eric Carle (I know I've mentioned it before, but Dylan absolutely loves Eric Carle books) and then we made our own Polar Bear.

Okay, so I know that this is a pathetic attempt at a Polar Bear, but it was an easy craft that D could do all by himself. I drew a (poor version of a) Polar Bear, covered the paper plate in glue and let him stick cotton balls to it. Voila, craft accomplished.

For dinner, Dylan had Phineas & Ferb chicken noodle soup with Perry shapes. Perry, obviously, had to join us at the dinner table and check out D's food.

[Side note: for those of you who don't have kids or who haven't yet discovered Phineas & Ferb...you are missing out. It's pretty awesome. Just ask, well, almost anyone who has seen it!]

After dinner we were in a Perry mood. So we pulled out D's Phineas & Ferb look & find book and got a little assistance from Perry. We also watched the newest episode stored on the DVR while we were at it.

Before finishing our day with popcorn and the original Disney animated Peter Pan, we did one last P activity. I had some tri-colored pasta and had him separate it by color. He also spent some time pretending to chow down on the uncooked pasta.

I can't believe we are finally done with P stuff. I also can't believe that you made it through this entire entry! Whew! I think we may pick a less busy letter for tomorrow.

Under Umbrellas (U Day)

We had a lot of print-off activities to do for U Day (Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler). Dylan started his U stuff with wanting to trace the upper and lower case letters. Whenever I give him these sheets I expect him to want to go nuts coloring. But after simply tracing them, he puts his crayon down and says, "I awe done!"

We did the Do-A-Dot letter search sheet:

A size sorter:

And umbrella "puzzles"

For his pre-nap cartoon, I had a unicorn episode of Little Einsteins saved for U Day on the DVR. Personally, I really don't like Little Einsteins. But my son is obsessed. So he was thrilled to watch an episode of "Rocket."

I saw some Umbrella crafts on Pinterest and combined some of the ideas for a craft of our own. I cut a paper plate and let him color it. Next, we glued it to construction paper. I let him pick out a pipe cleaner for the handle. Then things got tricky. FYI, glue is not very successful in holding a pipe cleaner to paper. We eventually just gave up and got a real umbrella out of the closet. And don't tell me that it's bad luck to open an umbrella indoors. My kid was happy and it was worth it!

That night, we attempted to watch Mary Poppins (I figured the whole umbrella thing was my way to incorporate a movie into U Day). Unfortunately, it didn't really go over that well. He was moderately interested, but we only made it about 40 minutes into the movie before he was completely over it. Oh well.

We've got some big letters coming up this week. I have to get busy with the prep work!

Robots, Roosters, & Rain (R Day)

We took a breather from Letter Days. We were both starting to get a bit burnt out, so we took it easy for a few days. R Day ended up spanning across a few days. But we finally got through everything.

We did the Do-A-Dot sheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler and talked about R words. His favorite was "Roar!" He spent some time practicing his roaring. He is all boy!

"Roar!"

R as in Rainbow!

I got the Rainbow Fish from the library and we talked about rainbows. We did a color sorting activity with a rainbow and Fruit Loops.

R as in Robot!

Dylan has been obsessed with Wall-E since we watched it on W day. He asked to watch it again, so we watched it and talked about robots.

That lead to us building our own robot. I wrapped a pudding box and toilet paper rolls in foil, and a Kleenex box in black construction paper. Dylan picked out the pipe cleaner arms and told me where to draw the eyes and mouth. After that he said, "Where da buttons?" So I let him pick out one of his Do-A-Dot markers and put some buttons on the robot.

R as in Rooster!

I got another book from the library called "The Mixed-Up Rooster." We read that book and then made our own rooster with a red cutout of Dylan's hand print and a couple other cutouts glued to a paper plate. Then, Dylan gave his rooster eyes with his Do-A-Dot marker. He decided his rooster should have brown eyes so he picked his brown marker.

When we finished the rooster he said, "Dat was cool! What other animals can we make?" Oh geez!

R as in Rain!

We put on Dylan's rain boots and raincoat and I gave him an umbrella. And I sang Singing in the Rain while D danced and played with the umbrella.

A couple days ago, we also watched the Sesame Street Letter R Mystery episode and ate rolls and rice. We finished our R stuff today by reading the Velveteen Rabbit and watching Robots the movie. I am just about R-ed out.

Maybe we can get back into the swing of things and knock the rest of the alphabet out!

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On a side note: my dad and step-mom were here for a few days and Poppy decided that he wanted to play in the snow and build a snowman with D. They both had a blast!

An Icy, Igloo I Day

 I Day was officially the most difficult day to fill with activities. I know it has been a while since I wrote about one of our Letter Days. We have slowed down a bit recently. Between Dylan being sick over the weekend, me having to work a bunch, and Dylan's next session of classes starting up at the Y, it's hard to fit all our letters in!

We did "I Day" last week, but I realized that I hadn't written about it yet. We did the Do-A-Dot sheet first. He was being so careful. And he chose to use "Nonny's favowit color."

Dylan asked to color next. I had an ice cream coloring sheet (After I took this photo he went a little crazy on the ice cream cone. It kind of ended up being a yellow blob).

He wanted to keep coloring, but I was out of coloring sheets. I did have a print-out of a lowercase i so I pulled that out. He traced it and then said, "I make a yitto i!"

After we ate lunch I had an igloo craft. I saw something similar online only it used glue. I cut the top off of a Solo cup, turned it upside down  smeared white frosting all over it and let D cover it in mini-marshmallows. That way, I wouldn't worry if he sneaked a frosting-covered mallow as a snack.

We didn't find much I stuff in his room, but we did pull out his ice pack. When D gets hurt he always wants to put "ice" on it. So I took a pic of him showing how he uses his ice.

That night Dylan had veggie straws for a snack and we made I's with them.

It wasn't quite as fun-filled as some of our other days, but we still had fun.