ABC

This idea came from a good friend of mine: Jody Findlay. Every day is assigned a letter and she teaches her kids certain things that have to do with that letter for that day. My thought: brilliant! I've since started doing my own "letter-a-day" thing. Parker has had a blast. At least, I think he has. I have. :)

~"A" Day~

YouTube is a wonderful thing. We watched a documentary on alligators, and then about ants. Boring for a 2 1/2 year old? Quite the contrary! He loved it SO much and was even talking to me about ants living off of honey dew and how the "meewee bugs"--mealybugs--are cared for by the ants. He learned a lot, and even I felt intellectually stimulated.
Afterward, we went on a walk and found an ant hill. We watched those ants FOREVER. And because we knew a little more about them, it was actually fascinating! Call me weird. Go 'head. Do it. :) I thought it was really cool.
Other activities included: coloring pictures that start with "A", reading an ABC book, and having apples with lunch. We also made airplanes out of toilet paper tubes and cardboard. He loved flying that thing around.

While we were on the topic of airplanes, I flew him around, too, pretending he was an airplane, which he thought was awesome. Unfortunately, my arms can only fly 26 lbs. around the room for a limited amount of time. Not long enough for him. :)

~"B" Day~

We watched clips about bees, and then about bears. Afterward, we made a bear puppet out of a paper bag. We put a tongue inside the "mouth" and he had fun opening it, making the puppet yell. :)

We also made burritos for lunch, made/blew bubbles, and played with some balloons.

~"C" Day~

Today has been "C" Day. I'm thinking this is going to be Parker's favorite letter. Why? Because "C" stands for CARS. That's how the day started. We played cars. He asks to do this every day, but today I made it a point to really play with him. And for as long as he wanted. It's funny to hear the things he has his cars say.

"C" also stands for... CAMPING! We set up a tent (well, of sorts) in the living room, made a fire pit out of socks, and had an orange balloon be our fire (no judging). Parker has much to learn about camping, I think. This isn't the real deal, honey! ;)
For lunch, we ate our chicken nuggets and carrots over our "fire" and made some no-bake cookies afterward. "C" is a yummy letter.

We also made our own clay (simply flour, salt, water, and food coloring) and had fun making snakes and the letter "C", and cutting it into little pieces.

 

The "letter-a-day" thing has really helped me actually play with Parker. It has also given me ideas for things to do with him and has helped me keep a bit more intellectually stimulated. He learns (a lot more than I give him credit for!) and I learn, too.

A goal I want to make for this is to not regurgitate ideas from the Internet. I want to do my own thing. Ha. We'll see how this goes!