Alphabet Adventures: Letter A

We just finished our first week of “Alphabet Adventures” and it turned out to be a lot of fun! The hardest part was limiting it to only a couple of activities…. I wanted to touch on so many things that started with the letter “a”. It also took a little bit of thought to ensure these activities were developmentally appropriate for Logan’s age/abilities. He always surprises me though!

For this week we focused on: apples, alphabet, and America!

Fun fact- Logan’s first word that he could say correctly (other than mama and dada) was apple! 🍎

During Alphabet Adventures, every week needs to include these things:

1. Art project

2. Food

3. Outing

4. Books

5. Sensory activity

I also decided that every week we are going to do a handprint craft that we will eventually turn into an “ABC” book!

Here is our first page of the book

Art Project

For our art projects this week, we did apple stamping, made a homemade birdfeeder out of an apple, painted an American flag and did some apple and letter A coloring sheets. We don’t have a printer at the moment so I drew them up during nap time.

**tip: cut little notches out of the top of the apple stamp to make them easier to hold on to!**

**He loved this apple book we checked out from the library, and especially this page! So, I decided to draw him his own page he could color in.**

Masking tape down on cardstock. Placed paper in clear bag with a couple drops of paint. Logan was supposed to rub the bag around to spread the paint. He had a hard time grasping this concept because he couldn’t feel the paint. He kept looking at his hands and was confused when he didn’t see paint. I gave him his play doh rolling pin and that helped him push the paint around a bit.

Food

2. For food this week Logan tried a new fruit- Apricot. He loves fruit, but I was worried that the fuzziness on the outside would deter him, and I was right.

He gave it a good shot and kept trying to take bites, but every time he took a bite, he would shiver and look at it confused!

Eventually, he told me he was all done.

Logan’s rating- 2/10 “why is it fuzzy!?”

Outing

3. The outing was my favorite part of this week (which I’m sure will be a common theme of many weeks)!

For our outing, we spent the day celebrating America!

As I mentioned, the 4th July is my second favorite holiday it’s even more special now with Logan. We spent the whole day with family and also in a pool because it was 112. Logan loved it! Not old enough to stay up and watch fireworks, though.

That’s for another year

Books

4. I utilized the library’s hold system and got a few new “apple” books. Logan already had a ton of books about the alphabet so I put those in a basket surrounded by a couple of ABC activities

Melissa and Doug ABC puzzle
ABC blocks-tjmaxx find
ABC magnets- Target dollar spot

We also had some 4th of July and America books that I put up next to his sensory table.

Sensory Activity

5. I love a good sensory activity. I think it stems from all those years teaching preschool. Sensory activities are SO great for toddlers for so many reasons. (But that’s a post for another day)

For this sensory bin activity, I dyed some rice red, white, and blue. Added some loose materials. (Stars and card board cutouts), and the most important aspect- the scooping and pouring materials!

This age is so big on scooping and pouring things in sensory bins. Rice is the perfect sensory bin filler for that!

Logan has loved this and has been playing with this all week. He also decided to take the stars out and use them in various different ways around the house. Rice stays in the bin, but I encourage him to use the other pieces of the sensory bin in other ways! He came up with this idea all on his own.

Decided to line all the stars up on the windowsill

As a bonus- Dad sent Logan some pictures and videos from his trip back east of airplanes up close! Logan loves airplanes, his first birthday was airplane theme and he will always point them out in the sky.

playdates & popsicles, two of my son’s favorite things….