ABC Scoops

Thanks to Ronald Reagon, July is National Ice Cream Month and we're celebrating all week long with ice cream crafts and activities. Today I whipped up this simple matching game for A as we continue to work on her ABC's.

I google-imaged "cone" and "ice cream cone scoop" and found this great cone graphic as well as a template for a scoop. I printed off a bunch of the cones and cut them out, writing a lower case letter on each one. For the scoops, I used Photoshop to fill in each one with a fun pattern. (Squidfingers.com has some fabulous patterns for free.) You could always just use the template to trace and cut out of scrapbook paper, though.

Eventually I'm hoping A will be able to match the upper and lowercase letters, but until then this is working great for letter recognition. She might just know all her letters by the time preschool starts!

Tot School Turkeys!

Our preschool experiment ended in failure on Friday. A (2) is simply not ready for a school environment. I pulled her out and have decided to enjoy homeschooling and maybe try traditional preschool again next year. Wednesdays will be our dedicated Tot School days, starting today with turkeys.

Pluck a Turkey

I printed out a turkey coloring sheet and spread craft feathers across it. Then I handed A some tweezers and asked her to use them to remove the feathers.

The tweezers turned out to be too hard so we tried tongs, but they were also too difficult. I need to find a good pair of toddler-sized tongs. Any suggestions?


Color a Turkey

She's a pro at crayons, so we gave up on the feathers and let her color her turkey page. Here's where I downloaded this pilgrim turkey coloring page.


Tickle a Turkey

I found this great little rhyme from LittleGiraffes.com based on the book If You Meet a Dragon. A wouldn't do it with me, but she enjoyed watching me tickle each part of her colored turkey (and then herself!).

If you meet a turkey,
Tickle his feathers.
Tickle his nose.
Tickle his wattle.
Tickle his toes.
Tickle his tummy.
Tickle his chin.
And that will be
The end of him!








Baste a Turkey

To finish up, we painted coffee filters with an eyedropper and watered-down paint. For the first one, A dribbled paint onto the filter.

The second time, she added paint to the pan and then we placed the coffee filter on top and watched it soak up all the paint.

When the filters were dry, we added footprint bodies, googly eyes, a beak and a waddle. It's such a joy to see her discover her creation on the back door and exclaim, "Mommy! Look what I made!"

Thanksgiving Is for Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland

This sweet little Thanksgiving book is perfect for toddlers and young preschoolers. The illustrations are colorful and full of scenes your child will identify with. The narration on each page is short and simple, perfect for holding the attention of little ones. As the title implies, this story celebrates family, friends, and everything for which we are thankful.





I'm linking up to:
- My Delicious Ambiguity's Tot Tuesdays