I

Today's Letter is...

I! After making this Ice Cream I, we had a bowl of Ice Cream and Jasey got to decorate it with all of the sprinkles that he wanted. Which was a lot. We didn't have a chance to get to the library lately, so "Isaac the Ice Cream Truck" is still waiting for us there - too bad we won't get a chance to read it for I Day, because they've shortened their hours and they just don't work as well with us.

H

The continuation of the letter...

H! I already had posted our Muffin Tin Monday to show what H foods we ate for H day.

We also worked on decorating the House, so below you can see the two paintings that Jase did, to add to our wall in the dining room. My aunt had given me the center picture(s) as part of a graduation present, as well as an entire matching bed set that she made herself. I've always wanted to decorate an entire guest room around these, so hopefully when we move, these can hang in a bedroom instead of our dining room.

Here's the books that we read today - "Hector's Hiccups" was waaayyy longer than I expected it to be - I had a sore throat by the end of the book by making the hiccup noises. I didn't realize that it wasn't a preschool-ish book until we started it. "Ho for a Hat!" was another H book that we read today, it was..different, but we probably read it 4 times, so it must have been pretty decent. Jase especially liked the "guest appearances" of the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Toto.

Muffin Tin Monday - Dippin' H's

This Monday's theme for Muffin Tin Monday was Dips/Sauces, so I made our lunch an H-themed Dipping Muffin Tin - It's even shaped like Hearts! We got Ham Rolls and Honey Mustard to dip them in, Pita Chips with Hummus for Dipping, and Honey and Yogurt for dipping the Honeydew Melon.

I was sure this was going to be a hit, since my son loves anything that he can dip. I was wrong - he hated all of the dips. I probably shouldn't have gone with Plain Yogurt, I am sure he would have liked it if it was actually sweetened somewhat. I was surprised that he didn't like the Honey Mustard, though. He ate all of the foods - just left out the dips. =]

Be sure to go check out other Muffin Tins that were made today by clicking the button below!

G

Yesterday's letter was..

G! A little late in posting, though, sorry! I originally wanted to make a Garden out of the G, but Jase llooveesss Giraffes and demanded that we make it into a Giraffe. It actually turned out better than I expected! For snacktime, we ate Grapes, plus we did all of our other every day activities for each letter - I'll have to take some pictures to show what our worksheets look like.

For our "non-G" activity, we went to a local park and learned about Butterflies and then got to catch some with nets. Jasey caught the first butterfly - a cabbage white - but it's really common so we let it go as soon as it got identified. We got to see a bunch of other species that the other's caught while we were there, though.

There weren't any special G books - Just "My G Sound Box" and we reviewed our other alphabet books. Now I am off to make our lunch for Muffin Tin Monday!

F

Today's letter is..

F! And my digital camera is still out in my car, so once again, this was taken on my cell phone - sorry! I had no idea how tiring this letter-a-day idea was going to be - I am worn out, and we are already behind schedule! I can definitely already see an improvement, though - Just yesterday Jasey was talking to his Grandpa and said, "We're going to the museum - like, M for Museum!" We haven't even gotten to the letter M and I didn't say anything about museum starting with the letter M, so either it was a lucky guess or he really does understand this stuff! He's also able to recite a large part of our alphabet books by himself and will pick out letters while we are out and about during the day. I'm so proud of him!

Jasey had loads of fun making our F for Flag letter. We cut up squares out of tissue paper to make the stars, and he formed them around his fingers, dipped the ends in glue, and then pressed them onto the paper. He had loads of fun and would have covered the entire blue area with white "stars" if I would have let him! I will definitely have to incorporate this type of decorating into another project soon.

We got the book "Fritzi Fox Flew in From Florida", but honestly, I wasn't impressed at all. It's like the author wanted to rhyme, but then gives up and doesn't have it rhyme for awhile, and then the rhyming starts back up again. Every time I get into a "rhythm" with reading, there is a different amount of syllables, etc.. It's hard to explain, but Jase wasn't that interested in it, either, so two times was enough for today!

AWESOME Kelloggs Cereal Deal!

So I just came across this awesome deal that you can use for Kellogg's Cereal + other Kellogg's items.

To start off, Kellogg's has a great Fuel for School rebate deal going on - buy any 10 Kellogg's items (includes Eggos, MorningStar Farms Veggie Foods, 100 Calorie Right Bites, and more) and get a $10 Rebate Check back from them - as well as a $70 off coupon from Dell. Sign up for an "All K Pass" here: http://www2.kelloggs.com/FamilyFocus/contentcta.aspx?id=1320

Next, Kellogg's has another promotion going on - They've partnered with Feeding America, which is a non-profit organization that is striving to feed the hungry in America. Right now if you go to their webpage and donate at least $5 to Feeding America, you will instantly earn at least $5 worth of Kellogg's coupons. (When donating, you go to the "Other" amount field, and fill in $5) Here's where you find that: http://www2.kelloggs.com/General.aspx?ID=1978 - It appears as if you always receive $1.50 off one package of Frosted Mini Wheats Little Bites, Jumbo Multi-Grain Krispies, or Corn Flakes, $1.50 off two packages of Special K, and $2.00 off any three Kellogg's Cereals.

RedPlum.com currently has printable coupons on their site for $1.50 off any two packages of Frosted Mini-Wheats, All-Brain, or Raisin Bran Cereal. You can print this coupon twice.

Now, as far as the best time to use these - wait til they go on sale. I know Target just had Raisin Bran on sale for $1.88 a box, which ended up with people actually earning a profit after rebate. Meijer has a great deal going on with getting $10 off of a backpack (or a free backpack if priced less than $10) when purchasing Kelloggs, CVS has a BOGO sale going on with Kelloggs - Sales on cereal are really popular, so it shouldn't be hard to find. In the end, you'll end up paying less than $1 each for the boxes of cereal. (Plus, obviously, the $5 donation) You'll not only be supporting a great cause but saving tons of money!

As a bonus, Kellogg's also is offering free DVDs with tokens taken from the boxes - http://www.kelloggs.com/promotions/foxdvd/ so you could earn 1 free DVD and be really close to a second! Feel free to leave a comment and let me know about the great deals that you get!

E

Today's letter is...

E! - and I have to apologize, but Blogger is extremely confusing when it comes to uploading pictures. It's randomly rotating some of my pictures, even though they are not rotated on my computer and I can't figure out why. My camera also ran out of batteries today, so all of these pictures are taken on my cell phone, which isn't as good of quality!

Anyways, for breakfast we had Eggs (Cheese and Turkey Omelette) - and then I was going to make Egg Salad Sandwiches, but I didn't want to overdo the eggs, so we stopped there. We definitely need to go grocery shopping. Here are some of the books we enjoyed today - (Again, we really didn't read "My H Sound Box", we read "My E Sound Box", Amazon just doesn't give me that as an option.)

For our "non-E" activity, we went to A Hands-on Adventure (aHa!) and had a bunch of fun - I just had to take a bunch of pictures =]

Water Play Area

Fishing

Vet Office and Gardening

Pizza Shop

Face Painting (Jasey made himself into a giraffe.)

It was quite a lot of fun! I'm not sure if I will ever go back though - it's quite a far drive from here, but we had to try it at least once!

D

Our letter today is...

D! Plus, I actually remembered my camera today, so there will be pictures! To celebrate the letter, we fed the ducks (more like fed the geese, but there were ducks nearby!)

In non-related "D" activities, we went to a Preschool Workshop and learned about Simple Machines - Gears, Levers, Pulleys, etc... We had fun using a pulley and lever combination to life an entire car! (The two boys together were a lot stronger than 1 boy + Mommy)

We also went around and interacted with some non-machinery exhibits.

Before I finish up this post, I wanted to mention one other alphabet technique that has really been working better than I expected with Jase - I went through old coloring books / activity books and found the Find-a-Word puzzles. Even though Jasey can't find actual words yet, he has tons of fun looking for letters. You can see below one of the puzzles that we worked on today - as well as his attempts of writing the letters himself. He doesn't need any help at all in finding the letters, so I really think it has helped him with letter recognition!

C

Our letter for the past two days has been...

C! Jasey didn't grasp onto this letter quite as easily as he did with A and B, so we took and extra day to do even more C activities. While making the Caterpillar above, we read Eric Carle's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". Although I didn't originally plan on it, he wanted to give the caterpillar "fur", like it has on the front cover - and he made it so much cuter by doing so!

Our first ever Muffin Tin Monday that we posted below was such a big hit - he begged to have his dinner served in a muffin tin, as well. Thankfully, it worked out well with what I had planned, and for dinner we had Chicken Salad in Cones (this definitely upset him when he saw me making it - Chicken Salad goes on bread, not in Ice Cream Cones. He threw a fit until he tasted it, then he decided it was definitely OK to put Chicken Salad into a Cone!), Cottage Cheese, and (Dried) Cranberries. The next day, we didn't really focus on C foods - for breakfast we had Alpha-Bits cereal, and he's really good at picking out all of the A's and B's - C's are a little harder, because they tend to be deformed in the cereal, but he was trying! For a special snack, we got some Cotton Candy.

Here are the books that we've enjoyed reading the past two days -

I was skeptical about the "My __ Sound Box"s at first - I didn't know if they would really be much help in learning the alphabet, but Jase really enjoys these - and so do I! They are written in a format that he is able to read along with me, and at the end of the book, it includes even more words that begin with that letter that he loves pointing out. These books get read over and over every day!

Muffin Tin Monday - Little C's

This week's theme for Muffin Tin Monday was Big/Little, but I chose just to do the "Little" part, and all of it goes along with our Letter of the Day - C! Here's whats in them:

A Little Glass of Chocolate Milk (doesn't look too little once it's in the muffin tin!)

Little Circle Cheese Sandwiches

Little Crackers

Little Curd Cottage Cheese

Little Cheesy Corn on the Cob and Carrots

Little Chocolate Chip Cookies (Cookie Crisp)

and Little Chocolate Candy Bars

Want to see what other families did for a Big/Little theme? Click the button below!

B

Our letter of the day was...

B! So we made this Bumble Bee - I originally wasn't going to put eyes on it, but Jase thought it needed some and added them himself. Our Bumble Bee is hanging right next to our Alligator, now!

For our B foods today, we had Blueberries and for dinner I made Black Bean (and Sweet Potato) Burritos. These were sooo yummy, I just have to share the recipe! They are also vegan, so that's an added bonus! I omitted some ingredients, and it still turned out good, so feel free to make it however you feel it would be the best.

Black Bean and Sweet Potato Burritos

Serves 4

2 medium sweet potatoes (approx. 4 cups), diced

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 tablespoons olive oil

One 19-oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 cup vegetable stock

2 garlic cloves, minced

1-1/2 tablespoons chili powder

2 teaspoons ground mustard

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 large flour tortillas

1/4 cup salsa

1 cup vegan "cheese," grated (optional)

In a large pot of salted water, boil the sweet potatoes.

While the sweet potatoes are cooking, in a medium saucepan on medium heat, sauté the onions in oil until translucent. Add the black beans, stock, garlic, chili powder, mustard, cumin and salt. Simmer, uncovered, over medium-high heat for 15 minutes.

Drain the water from the sweet potatoes; return the sweet potatoes to the pot and mash with a potato masher. Set aside. Once the bean mixture is done, mash with potato masher and set aside.

Lay 4 tortilla shells on the counter. Spread out onto each tortilla: 1 tablespoon salsa, 1/4 of the sweet potato, 1/4 of the beans, and 1/4 of the "cheese." Roll up each burrito and serve as is, or bake in the oven until hot. Enjoy!!!

For our "non-B" activity, we went to a local park and went "creeking" - and of course I didn't bring my camera again. It was sitting right inside of the front door, though, when we got home! Jase didn't want to go into the water, but we still had loads of fun watching all of the other kids. They would make a half circle in the water, around a net, and then splash their way up to the net. At the last second, the two people holding the next would lift it up out of the water and see what got caught. There were tonnss of crawfish, a few little fishes, a tadpole, some larvae from dragonflies and other insects, as well as quite a few other things.

Right now, along with our letters every day, Jase is also working on "lines" worksheets to improve his fine motor skills and get better acquainted with writing letters. You can find some of these worksheets for free at - http://www.kidzone.ws/prek_wrksht/dynamic.htm#Worksheets

(By the way - We didn't have any super special B books to show pictures of, just "My B Sound Box" and "The Berenstain Bear's B Book".)

A

Our letter of the day was...

A! So we made this Alligator - Jase did an excellent job at drawing on all of the scales and getting the eyes in the perfect spot. He needed a little help with aligning the teeth, but now it's hanging up over his bed to start a loonnggg line of letters!

We both tried two new foods today - Apricots and Avocado. We both chose to throw the avocado away after trying a tiny nibble - definitely not our idea of yummy, but the apricots were sooo good! I had bought 3 of them and Jase ate them all! I only got to eat 2 little slices. We also packed Applesauce and Animal Crackers in our lunch.

For our "non-A" activities, we went to two programs going on at two local parks - At the first we learned about trees and leaves and got to make leaf rubbings. Then, we went on a Scavenger Hunt at the second and found all sorts of things from the checklist - A pine tree, a leaf, a goose, a yellow flower, a bird, a dead tree, and more. It POURED rain while we were walking and we got completely soaked, but definitely had a good time. While heading back to hand in our checklist, we still were looking for ones that we couldn't find (a fish, a frog, a snake, and a furry animal) and there was a kitty by the side of the path! So we got to mark off one last find right before we handed it in. We definitely had a bunch of fun at the parks today! In the future, I hope I don't forget to bring along my camera.

Here are the books that we read today:

Note: We didn't read My "S" Sound Box, we read My "A" Sound Box, but Amazon wouldn't let me add that to my carousel, so I had to go ahead and add the S book, instead.

Starting our ABC's

Just wanted to explain the purpose of this blog a little before we start -

For the next two months, we will be working on the letters of the alphabet to help with letter recognition. Each day will be given a letter, starting with A, ending in Z. On days that don't give us as much to do with the letters (Q, X, etc..) we will also use it as an alphabet review day.

At the end of each day, I will go ahead and post what we did to hopefully inspire some more creative ideas! For those who wonder about the age level of our projects, Jase is 3 years old.

Each posting will begin with the letter of the day, created to look like some type of animal or object. I have to give a huge amount of credit to the "No Time for Flashcards" blog for these letters. Some ideas I've came up with myself, the rest all have came from there. It's an amazing blog to check out!

We will also take advantage of Mondays to participate in Muffin Tin Mondays, which is inspired by the "Her Cup Overfloweth" blog. Go ahead and follow the link above to learn more about this.

Starfall.com has a great section on the ABC's that we will incorporate into our lesson plans each day. Each interactive letter page has accompanying worksheets to print off. Check it out at - http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/index/load.htm.

To start off our alphabet unit, we read some of our favorite alphabet books.

All of these books have been read and tested by the both of us and we love them! Animalia is a higher reading level, but Jase still enjoys looking at the pictures. We tried reading "The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z" by Steve Martin, but this is definitely meant for a higher age group - neither of us enjoyed this book much at all.

Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions regarding our letter days! There are sooo many possibilities out there, we couldn't begin to fit them all in each day, but hopefully we can hit on some good ones!