Alphabet Art: Letter A

A fun art project that CJ and I do often is create alphabet art.  I found these great cardboard uppercase letters at Lakeshore Learning.  Lakeshore Learning sells lowercase letters as well.  When we first started, I had the idea to do all the letters in alphabetical order.  I quickly scrapped that plan and now we'll do whatever letter we have materials for.  When we're done with the entire alphabet, I'll used the scanned artwork to create a book.

A is for Apple Tree

Materials Used:

• green paint
• apple stickers

The idea was to get CJ to paint the "tree" green and place the stickers.  She wasn't too thrilled with the painting so I had to finish it for her.  She loved doing the stickers though.

Labor Day at the Inner Harbor

I hope all of you had a wonderful Labor Day!  Charles and I decided to take CJ to the Inner Harbor and the weather was perfect!!  (DC hung out with my parents so we could have some quality time with CJ.)

We took at trip to the top of the World Trade Center (27 stories up) to see the gorgeous panoramic views of the city. Much to my surprise, CJ was not afraid of the heights and loved looking out the windows.

As soon as CJ saw the dragon paddle boats, we knew that we had to go for a ride.  I reminded her that Dora always wants us to be safe so we made sure we wore our "lifejackets.....so we can be safe!"

After the paddle boats, we stopped for a little lunch and CJ couldn't resist the mechanical rides.

Giant crabs were on the loose!!

Inside the Visitor's Center was Fifi the a giant pink poodle. It has a bike underneath it so I assume it was designed to be a moving art piece.  CJ thought it was hysterical and wanted to ride it.

We had originally planned on going to the Science Center but decided that we would rather tour the harbor on the Water Taxi.  CJ had a BLAST!  She loved feeling the breeze on her face, looking at the water and seeing all the boats. 

ONE OF MY FAVORITE PICTURES OF CJ:

I plan on turning some of the pictures that I took into an educational photo book for CJ.  Here are a few examples of what I plan on doing:

2 Gray Ships

7 Large Cylinders

What shapes do you see?

I love the architecture of the city.  It's a mix of historic and modern built next to each other.  Here are some of my favorite shots:

My mom will only make her Sweet Tea with Domino Sugar.

 World Trade Center & National Aquarium

If you're a fan of Homicide: Life on the Street, you might recognize this building as police headquarters.

The building has beautiful architecture and the patina is gorgeous!  I love taking close-up shots of architectural details such as this:

Details of the street light:

The USS Constellation. Notice the flag on the back of the ship and the smaller flag in the distance.

We spent several hours having fun at the Inner Harbor and CJ loved having alone time with her Mommy and Daddy.  By the end, she was so tired she passed out as soon as she got in her car seat.

Worldless Wednesday: Rub-a-dub-dub, CJ's in the tub!!

CJ decided she wanted a bath instead of a nap. She took matters into her own hands and this was the result:

Teaching the Alphabet

I've been asked how I taught CJ the alphabet.  Honestly, it wasn't something that I intentionally set out to do.  It was more of a pleasant surprise when she started showing us that she understood what those crazy symbols we call letters mean.  Here are just a few of the things I used:

V-Tech Touch & Discover Alphabet Town

CJ has loved playing with this ever since we got it for her.  (She even takes it to bed sometimes.) We first noticed that she understood letters when the game would ask "Press the letter W...Press the Letter H..." and she got most of them correct!

Alphabet Magnets

I bought both the uppercase and lowercase letters at Lakeshore Learning but you can find them at Wal-mart or Target.  When playing with our magnet board, CJ would put the letters up as I told her what letter it was and what sound it made.  This was pretty informal and I didn't think she was really paying attention.  I guess I was wrong.

Meet the Letters

Although adults may find the "Meet the..." series to be dull and repetitive, CJ is always glued to the TV when it's on.  The DVD shows both upper and lowercase letters but doesn't include the phonetic sound they make.  We first borrowed the DVD from the library and bought it once we realized how much she liked it.  We also bought the complete collection (Meet the Shapes, Meet the Colors, Meet the Numbers, Meet the Sight Words 1, 2 and 3).

Starfall

A great website for teaching the alphabet and early reading skills is starfall.com. Click on a letter to hear its name, the sound it makes and different words that start with that letter.

Tot School

~CJ is currently 33 months old.~

Our week started with a trip to the airport and a follow-up art project.  You can read about our Airplane Adventure here.

I admit that I'm slightly obsessed with the painted wood decorations that can be found at most craft stores.  I have over 100 and can't get enough!  I glue a magnet to the back and turn it into a fun, educational prop for CJ to play with.  

While I normally try to incorporate a lesson with the play, this week I just let her have fun and free play with them. She likes trying to match things up and you can see a little bit of it here.  She put the dog next to the doghouse, all the frogs are together at the bottom, and the boat and anchor are together.

She'll even try to find matches around the room for her magnets and loves showing me.

She was excited that the bee on her shirt matched her wood bee.

She told the dogs to sit in the rocking chair and watch her play.

Check out the Angelina Jolie lips!

CJ has been crazy about puzzles lately and I brought out some new ones for her to play with. Please note that I took all the pictures on the same day (you can tell by her shirt) but we played with them every day.

A simple foam number puzzle found in the dollar bin at the grocery store. She'll say the number as she puts them in and I've been teaching her how many fingers to hold up for each number.

I bought this Alphabet Train puzzle a year ago but I finally felt that CJ was old enough to attempt putting it together.  She would find the letter in the pile in front of her, say the letter and the sound it makes and we worked on identifying the object in the train car that began with that letter. I didn't know how long her toddler attention span would last but she surprised me!  We probably spent a good 30-45 minutes on this.  

CJ is a little backseat driver and will yell at me to stop whenever she sees a STOP sign.  I decided to make a Road Sign Game* to teach her more about the signs we see while driving.  This week we focused on matching the signs to their shadows.  Later we will talk about what the sign means. I tried to include the basic shapes (octagon stop sign, triangle yield sign, circle railroad crossing, etc)

She's been working on 4-piece puzzles.  This is an wood alphabet puzzle that consists of 13 double-sided boards.  She did really well and only asked for help a couple of times.

*If you would like a copy of the Road Signs file-folder game, click the following links: