The Letter Aa

Reese is 40 months (37 corrected)

I've been lurking around the blogosphere for ages now scouring ideas from other super creative moms. Reese and I have finally started our alphabet project. We started with the Letter A.

The first thing we did was read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Then Reese added the letter A magnet to the dishwasher on his Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree. I downloaded the tree here, colored it (i downloaded the b/w version, but now I found color) and laminated it.

I drew a big A on regular white paper for him to color and then I cut it out. Here he is applying glue to the back to glue it onto the orange construction paper he chose.

Showing off his handiwork:

I cut out the pieces and then he built an apple tree.

I guess photoshop got confused since he was holding the apples up to his eyes it automatically fixed the "red eye" making those dark splotches. Ha ha!
Of course he ate an apple for a snack. He's very into eating it whole now. "No cut!!" he shrieks while waving his hand back and forth in a no no fashion.

We used foam sheets to make this awesome alligator A from the Totally Tots website. There is so much on this site. I haven't had time to really peruse it. I've just kind of jumped around to specific things I wanted, but I plan to go back and check everything out.
We also made an Alien. This idea came from No Time For Flashcards, who also originated the alligator idea. Reese really liked this one.
Here he is demonstrating the growling sound the alien makes. Not sure why he thinks they make this sound since his exposure to aliens is Monsters Vs. Aliens and Planet 51.
Another day we worked on identifying the A or a when they are next to other letters. He used a clothes pin to pin point the A on these cute cards I downloaded from Me and Marie Learning. (yes I bought this...stupid since so much is available free, but her stuff is just so darn cute!!--go here for some cute free stuff)
He really struggled with the clothes pins. I think we'll use them for more activities so he can master that pinching move and strengthen those hand muscles. We also did uppercase/lowercase sorts using different fonts. Some of the fonts were quite difficult for him, but all the ones that were simple he got right away.
He ate lots of snacks and in this photo, potato soup in his apple shaped ramekin.
We made Lazier, Healthier Apple Muffins and Gus was really happy to share in the results.


We actually started using the library...I don't know why I just have an aversion to previously read books. But these are the books we checked out for the letter A:

Every morning we do our calendar. I got this from Me and Marie too. All the months are super cute. I had a hard time finding a calendar base and actually tried to make one on poster board I ended up not liking. Everyone says they get all this great stuff at the dollar store...well, our dollar stores are pathetic compared to everyone else's I guess. I found nothing there. I put the fuzzy side of velcro dots on the calendar and the rough side on the actual squares. Everyday we count the numbers of the date as well as determine the pattern. He really didn't get it in June, but now he is very excited to tell me if the next number will be fireworks or a rocket.
We posted all his A art on his door.
We used do-a-dot markers (I used my 40% coupon at Michael's) to make the blue uppercase A and yellow lowercase a. He loves these markers. We numbered the apples on the apple tree 1-5 so he could practice counting. He generally skips 5, going straight to 6, so we made 5 apples to practice 1-5. We used the A he made the first day to go back a glue A words. I told him to glue the a words "on the A." I thought it was interesting that he didn't mind if the picture strayed off the page as long as it didn't cover any of the A itself.

Overall we had a good time working on the letter A. We were very relaxed--in fact due to play dates and speech and my dad visiting we actually stretched this over 3 weeks! Reese can definitely identify the letter A now so we were successful!!