This week was interesting in the alphabet department. G was so on A is for…Abby, angel, apple, etc. That apparently Bb is for…Abby, angel, apple, etc. Oh, and Bb is for Elmo and Zoe, too. After the first day of this week, I could not get her to make the connection between B and the words of the day. We will just keep trying, but I have some new ideas for future weeks.
Here is what we did for this week:
Monday: Bb is for bear. Boy do we have a bountiful collection of bears around here. G has one for every two months she has been alive, at least. We know because as part of today’s exploration we did a bear hunt. We spent a lot of time with G’s bears and read Brown Bear, Brown Bear as well as Polar Bear, Polar Bear and Are you My Mommy? (featuring a polar bear looking for his mommy).
Tuesday: Bb is for butterfly. We have a small butterfly toy that G loves, so this was next to her alphabet exploration flannel board in the morning and we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar during the day. I planned on doing a craft, but life intervened.
Wednesday: Bb is for baby. We used one of G’s baby dolls as well as her own little sister as our object of the day. We talked a lot of babies and said B is for baby many times. She just kept saying B is for Elmo and Zoe. What shall we do?
Thursday: Bb is for brownie. To be honest, I was a little late on getting around to our alphabet exploration today, so we threw in a kitchen activity late in the day, making Brownies in a Snowstorm.
Friday: Bb is for basketball. G has a toy basketball and we are major basketball fans (go Mavs!) around here, so this was a no brainer. G was born the day before the Mavs won the championship in 2011 and we told her while she was still in my tummy that she could not come on a game day – she complied then and, as a result, is a Mavs fan today. When basketball games are on, she says, “Go Mavs!” right along with us. We talked about bouncing a ball and passing a ball (throwing) with D and watched the Mavs game the next day.
New idea for teaching the letters to G: Manipulating the letters. While I was making breakfast, I gave G the felt letters to play with and talk about. She enjoyed looking at them and moving them around her high chair tray. While she played with them, I told her which one was big B and which one was little b.
