W Stuff

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak is, perhaps, the ultimate W book. When the Elephant Walks by Keido Kasza was a new find that worked well, too.

Activities

Water Print



This was fun. We had some styrofoam packing leftover from unpacking Talmage's bunkbed. We carved waves in the styrofoam with a knife, then inked the styrofoam using blue paint that we blotted on with a paper towel. We then made prints by placing a piece of paper on the inked carved styrofoam and pulled them off. It was a good introduction to printmaking.

Water Music

We took five tall glasses, filled them with varying levels of water and hit them with spoons. We could almost play Mary Had a Little Lamb.



I totally stole this picture off the internet. But until Tyler takes pictures for me again, this will have to do.

White Whale

We printed off this coloring page on blue paper and then used white chalk to color the picture. We set the chalk with hairspray.



A white crayon would have worked well, too.

Window Painting



I bought these window painters from the grocery store.

Treasure hunt. wall, wallet, watch, water bottle, window. The treasure was Whoppers.

V Stuff

Activities

Vote. We let the people make their voices heard. We called various family members and Talmage asked them "What do you like the most, apples or oranges?" We then kept track of their responses on this chart:



After we collected our data, we made a bar graph to compare the two:



Talmage pointed out that my orange line was much closer to the five than the four. I was about to be defensive when I realized that meant he understood the graph. Good work Talmage.

Vulture. We printed out this template.

Painting the picture with watercolors mixed up the activity a bit.



Vegetable soup.

This soup was delicious. I ate it for a full week.

Here is the recipe.

Violet painting.





I thought our violet paintings had a kind of Morris Louis feel to them. If Morris Louis only painted in purple.

Treasure hunt. vacuum, van, vase, vulture. The treat was a Dove chocolate bar. Red Vines would have been even better.

U Stuff

This has been the hardest sound of all to stick with. It's been hard for Tal to shake the idea that even though U starts with the "yuh" sound, it doesn't make that sound. Neither does it make the sound "wuh." We did the best when he could remember that U is for umbrella (as every alphabet book has taught him, and then to listen for the beginning sound.

You know, the fact that he can listen for the sound that starts a word is a huge testament to his progress. In fact, this week he started sounding out words in his books. As long as the letters in the words make the sound I've taught him, he can do it. Last night he sounded out cat, pig, dog, duck, jump, just, spit, and stuck. I was pretty proud of him.

For U week, we looked up books in the library catalog that had umbrella and under in the title.

Activities.

Umbrella. This is where I found this craft. We took a paper plate, cut it in half, colored each half on both sides, cut slits in the middle (from bottom to half way on one and from top down half way on the other) and joined them to make an X. We used four wooden dowels for the handle.



After we hung raindrops from the umbrella.

The Worm is Under the Apple. This idea was born from my learning that a preposition is anything that a worm can do to an apple (the worm is over the apple, the worm goes through the apple, the worm is beside the apple, etc).



Game for two players. Each person starts by rolling a single die. Move the number of spaces as proscribed by the die. If you land on an apple, you place the worm pictured below near the apple pictured below. The other player (in order to take the next turn) says where the worm is in relation to the apple. If they do so correctly, it's then their turn. If they do so incorrectly, the original player gets another turn. First one to the end wins.




Treasure hunt. umbrella, underwear, upstairs. The treat was Hubba Bubba Bubblegum. I know. It's a bit of a stretch.

T Stuff

No memorable books.

Activities.

Turkey. We traced Talmage's hands on red, orange, and yellow paper. Then we outlined his shoes on brown paper. We assembled the turkey like so and then added eyes, beak, legs, and the wobbly red thing.



Turtle. I stole the idea for this craft from here. We tore up orange and green paper and glued the pieces to a paper plate. We added feet, a head, and a tail. Oh, and googly eyes.



Tie. Tyler started being a principal and so Tal and I made him ties. I cut them out. We added bling.



Talmage was disappointed when Tyler didn't wear them to school.

Tambourine.



We took two paper plates (the stiff kind) and decorated the outside. We then put lentils in the middle. I'm pretty sure I've been hanging on to those lentils since the WIC days. Glued around the rim.

Tic-tac-toe. The game. We played it.

T treasure hunt. table, tail (the dog's), tape, tire, towel. The treasure was tootsie rolls.

S Stuff

Now that I'm a year into this project and I'm doing phoenetic sounds like SN, SP, and SW, I realized that I did S all wrong. All of this projects belong under a different phoenetic sound. Ah well, I'll correct it with Asher.

We discovered the Scaredy Squirrel books by Melanie Watt. Besides being great S books, along with Mo Willems, they are our favorite picture book finds of the year.

Activities

Snakes.



We made playdough. This is our favorite recipe:

• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon cream of tartar
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 cup water

Mix the above ingredients over low heat. When the ingredients get doughy, remove from heat. As it cools, mix in food coloring. The cream of tartar in this recipe makes the playdough last as long as you keep it in an airproof bag.

After mixing the dough, we rolled snakes.

Splatter painting.

We went outside to the driveway and laid down an old sheet (forever designated as our painting sheet). I mixed tempera paint with some water (so it was a bit runny). We then took brushes and splattered. Pretty cool, huh?



Jackson Pollock's got nothin on Laura and Talmage.



Potato Stamps.



Simple enough. Take a potato. Cut in half. Draw or trace the design you want as your stamp onto the potato. Cut around the shape you just drew or traced. These cuts only need to be about a quarter-inch deep. Slice from the side of the potato about a quarter of an inch deep towards your shape. Be careful to stop when the extra piece of potato is loose. Do not cut through your shape. You shape should protrude out from the rest of the potato. Use either paint or an stamp pad to ink your potato. We used a stamp pad.

Thank you ehow for explaining it more clearly than I did.

Swirly circles. Okay, I cheated. I really wanted to do this and ABC Stuff doesn't allow for the soft C. Hence the swirlyness of the circles.

We folded the paper in sixths, drew circles in crayon, and then watercolored solid colors over the crayon. I thought they looked awesome.



S treasure hunt. salt, sandals, scissors, sea star, sink. The treat was Skittles.