Letter of the Week - T

The last week of June we looked at the Letter T

As always our first activity was to make an actual Letter of the week, I chose to do a Tree T with Aidan. Using thick green paper I cut out individual leaves (dedicated or what!) and also a few little red apples made on sticky paper.

A few weeks ago I was looking on a fab craft website called Baker Ross they have some really great craft items including Curriculum topics and the prices are just wonderful, I purchased some Animal visor kits, just £2.99 for 5 different animals. Luckily enough one of the animals was a Tiger so with a little bit of direction Aidan managed to create this little fellow! We then pretended to be tigers by crawling round and of course roaring!

ROAAAAAAAAAR!

Things beginning with T picture

I had to have a couple of appointments and when I leave Aidan with someone I like to leave him a little activity to keep him amused that relates to our letter. Whilst he was with Nanny they created a "things beginning with T" picture, sticking and discussing the objects easily passes a good deal of time. 

Another little project for whilst in Nanny's house was to create Ties for Daddy to wear for interviews! I just used some thick paper and cut out a tie shape before adding some loose elastic, Aidan then decorated them any way he wanted.

 

Future Fashion designer maybe?

I used the same idea again a few days later using T-Shirts cut outs.

Aidan had fun playing with the pop up Tent, set up inside due to the absolutely awful Summer we are having! He had snacks in there, played with his stuffed animals and read books.

Trains are a BIG hit in our house at the moment, so I used the opportunity to combine the 2 as much as possible by playing with Train sets and also watching / reading Thomas the Tank engine.

Luckily we had planned to visit a local forest with Friends for a day out, forests = lots of Trees!! We looked at the different tree shapes and colours also looking at their different leaves. There was a nice play area amongst the trees and Aidan enjoyed being taller than us on a little walkway.

A final picture we created was of all kinds of Transport, possibly a bit of an advanced concept for a 3 year old but he got to do some sticking so he was happy!

An unexpected T that we got to experience was TRIAGE! Yep we ended up having an unscheduled trip to the A&E department on Saturday night after our little human money box decided to swallow a coin! They X-Rayed him to make sure it wasn't obstructing his breathing and once established all was well we were sent on our way to await nature!

As well as these activities we also:

Spotted Triangles and other things beginning with T whilst out and about

Built Tall Towers from megablocks

Ate tomatoes and also (jam) tarts

Played with Tools

We read:

Countless Thomas the Tank Engine books!

"Goat and Donkey and the great outdoors" By Simon Puttock

We watched:

Again Countless Thomas the Tank Engine episodes!

Toy Story

Activities I had planned but didn't get round to:

Make a Train using different shapes

Make a treasure chest

Make a paper cup Telephone

Make a Texture collage

No income but lifes still good!

Well I haven't posted for a while but we have still been all go!

Unfortunately Chris has been made redundant from his role so we are currently both not working, he has been for lots of interviews and applying for about 8-10 jobs a day so hopefully it wont be long before something comes up. 

Chris not working means money is quite tight here, I am managing to get our weekly shop for about £30 - £40 a week yet still managing to eat well and nutritiously.  Hunting out bargains has become a bit of a hobby!

I am continuing with my Christmas shopping, as the money has already been earned and set aside specifically for the purpose, meaning I am able to get some great savings for example I purchased several items in a Summer Sale including folding shopper bags reduced to £1 and also handbag size umbrellas reduced £12.95 to £1.29! All of Aidan's nursery key workers and also staff at the Surestart centre we attend will be getting lovely (and expensive looking!!) gifts that cost me £2.29!

Also doing well on the few items we needed to purchase for the New Baby, the majority of things are being reused from when Aidan was small but a few bits like the bottle steriliser and cot were well past their useful working life.

Well that's a little update on life, I am going to do a couple of  posts now on our Letters of the Week.

Letter of the Week - F

This week we have been looking at the Letter F

 

On Monday we made a Feather F to display on the wall and refer back to, we also spent some time on the laptop playing "Elmos Fire Safety Game" here at Sesame Streets website. They have tonnes of really cute games on there with lots of educational themes,

 

Tuesday was spent making a picture of things beginning with F, including some Fur donated by my Mums doggy! We did some writing practice and he managed to write something more than resembling an F.

Next project we did was on Wednesday when we made a Paper Plate Frog mask, we used an ordinary paper plate and covered it in Green paint and added a little glitter for good measure! Once dry we stuck on some eyes, drew a nose and mouth and Nanny knitted a long tongue.

 

 

 A really simple craft for Thursday was to take lids from tissue boxes and turn them into fish. A little bit of drawing from me and some colouring from Aidan and we had our own school of Rainbow fish.

 

 

Fireman Sam is a huge hit in our house at the moment and fits nicely with the F theme, we sat together and did some Fireman Sam sticker activities and also watched a couple of episodes.

 Friday we got some use out of the Early Learning Centre Farm set, I also had a wipe clean Farm book with differnet counting and writing activitys.

  

Friday was also spent at the Fruit shop where I let Aidan choose 5 fruits, he went for Grapes, Strawberrys, a Pear, cherries and a red apple once we got home we washed and chopped up the fruit and tasted them all, after we made a cute Fruit picture using stickers.

 

Saturday was full of Fireworks! Using some black card and some glitter glue pens we managed to make our own Firework display, ideally I guess I should have done F later in the year when I could have took Aidan to an actual Firework display but these were the next best thing.

 

Flapjacks were also baked today, I didnt take a photo of them as they fell apart but as often is the case with these things they tasted delicious!

 Sunday we had a release party! We were lucky enough that my Uncle and Auntie have a pond in their garden and a few months ago they noticed frog spawn, frog spawn turns to Tadpoles and Tadpoles turn into FROGS! They had to keep some of the tadpoles and frog spawn in a seperate bucket as the fish were eating them all so now they are bigger we let them all loose.

 

 

Aidan is braver than me!

 

Aidan also had a kickabout with a Football with my Uncle, being 24 weeks pregnant I skipped this one! In the evening we watched England in the Euro 2012 Football competition.

Whilst out and about each day we looked for Letter Fs and Flowers all around, also Flags which at the moment with the Football and Jubilee just passed was fairly easy!

  As well as all these Activities we also read:

"Barry The fish with Fingers" Sue Hendra

"Fireman Sam and the great fre of Pontypandy"

And we watched:

Finding Nemo

Tinkerbell and the great Fairy rescue

Fox and Hounds

Other Activities I had planned but did not get round to:

Go for a walk in the Forest 

Visit an Aquarium or Fish in a Pet shop

Visit a Farm, we went to one on Holiday last week so didnt want to repeat

Look at Family photos

Fishing in the bath

Visit a Florists to choose flowers

Make a Fairy

Make a Fire picture

As before most of the ideas were my own but some great ideas can be found here

Letter of the Week - C

This week Aidan and I have been looking at the letter C, why the letter C I hear you cry! Why not start at A? Well I decided against the correct order as it gave me better flexibility with other events already planned, eg I knew the Carnival was scheduled for this week so it fitted with C, Police Open day is being rescheduled for September time so when better to do the letter P.  Aidan can sing the ABC song so he knows the correct order anyway so I didn't feel doing them out of order was a massive issue. When planning the activity's I have tried to include things to taste, things to hear (where possible), things to touch, things to read, things to make, things to watch and things to do and visits.

 On Monday I got a wicker basket and filled it with lots of objects from around the home beginning with C, I covered the basket and Aidan had to pull out an object with his eyes shut and guess what he thought it was by feeling it. Once all the items were out of the basket I asked him what Letter he thought they all began with and we laid them out around a card letter C that he later decorated.

How many things beginning with C can you see at the minute?

At snack time we ate Carrots and some Cherry's

 

And later at dinner we ate Chicken Kiev's, Crunchies and Corn

Meals are normally a little healthier!

I forgot to take some Photos but on Tuesday we baked Cakes and decorated them as well as playing with Cars and the road mat.

On Wednesday I needed an activity to amuse him whilst we visited my Grandmother, so the night before I cut out pictures of things beginning with C from Newspapers and Magazines that he could look at and stick onto a poster to be displayed at home. We then further decorated the Poster by using Glitter pens to practice writing Cs.

Sticking pictures of words of things beginning with C onto his Poster

Showing off his handy work!

On Thursday at the Surestart Centre I was lucky enough for them to have set out Castles for the Children to play with so Aidan and I played with the Knights.

What a Lucky coincidence!

 

Peekaboo!

On Friday we made Caterpillar Cs using pom poms, pipe cleaners and glitter, they actually look really great and I have put them up on the wall in the Living room.

Whilst out and about each day we looked for the Letter C on signs and parked cars.
Each day Aidan coloured in a picture of 

 As well as all these Activities we also read:

"The Hungry Caterpillar" By Eric Carl

"Dave" By Sue Hendra (About a big fat Cat named Dave!)

"Spots Camping Trip" By Eric Hill

"Casper the Caterpillar" By Katie Hewat (A wiggly eyes book which you pop fingers into!)

And we watched:

Cars

Alvin and the Chipmunks

Other Activities I had planned but did not get round to:

Making a Paper plate Cat
Making a rock crab
Visit the Carnival, it got cancelled due to bad weather :-(
Drawing with Chalks in the garden, again rain stopped play
Make a crown, we had done this the week before for the Jubilee so no point repeating
Visit a Car wash
Buy and look after a Cactus
Indoor Camping Trip (tent up in Living room!)

It really has worked as Aidan is much more confident with the letter C now and shouts when he sees one, he was thrilled (so was I!) when he spotted one on Countdown on TV!

A lot of the Ideas are my own and some I found on a Great website here:

Next Weeks Letter is going to be N, it will be a little more challenging as we are on holiday for the week but have lots of ideas ready to take with us.

Home Schooling

 Aidan will be almost 5 by the time he is able to go to school and the more and more I thought about it the more it seemed that this was potentially a lot of time wasted when he would be ready for learning, and boy is he ready to start learning! He already knows and recognises his numbers up to 20 so I am now keen to start learning the Alphabet with him and then start basic reading. 

Any kind of homeschooling is still quite unusual here in the UK so initially I really struggled finding good websites with ideas and materials I could use for him that were age suitable. A couple of my American friends were able to recommend some useful sites and after flicking through my new addiction "Pinterest" I have found tonnes and tonnes of fab ideas that will help me to making learning really fun :-)

I am going to start to share some of them here on my blog for 2 reasons 1) it might help someone else and 2) it will help me keep all the ideas together for when number 2 arrives!

Jubilee Weekend

Friday I put up my Bunting and Union Jacks, went to the shops and got meat, salad, strawberry's, drinks and lots of other yummy things all in preparation for our Jubilee Party BBQ on Sunday. 

Sunday arrived and I opened the curtains to discover a scene that would have made Noah run to his tool shed and start building! It was torrential rain and it quickly became established that our outdoor BBQ would have to be an indoor cook in the oven instead. 

 

 Still it all went well and as we were inside it meant we could watch the Queens Flotilla of Boats down the Thames. Kate as always looked lovely, I am very pleased she has joined the Royal Family as she seems to liven the rest of them up a bit. I did feel the Queen looked quite grumpy at times but then I suppose I would too if I was stood up on a cold, rainy boat for hours!

I did like this picture I found of her and Phillip though, quite sweet really.

I hope your weekend plans have gone as planned and if they didn't that you coped as well as we did!

Police Storytime

Our local Police Force have started emailing me with information about the Community, normally its things like an attempted break in at such and such street but this week mentioned a Police Story time at the Main Library in Town. Aidan LOVES Policemen so we decided to pop down and see what it was about, walking down we didn't tell him where we were going or who might be in the Library. Obviously as we approach the library he twigs this is where we are going so we go along with it telling him we are just choosing some books and going home again then his face lit up when he saw a Policeman standing there!

PCSO (Police Community Support Officer) Craig was great and sat on the floor with all the Children, he let them choose what books he would read, about 5 in total, and Aidan sat as close as possible any closer and he would have been on his lap! He was even more delighted when the Police hat was put on his head and I swear I have never seen him sit so still. When he wanted to speak he was saying "Excuse me Mr Policeman" :-)

We were in the Library for over an hour and I know Aidan enjoyed every minute of it, I think its fantastic that the Police take the time to do these sorts of things as it really boosts the profile they have with both Kids and Parents.