Letter V/ Valentine's Week

Last week we were supposed to talk about the letter V since it was Valentine's Day that week.  I wasn't quite as organized (busy getting ready for potty training at the end of the week) so I didn't even print out the letter V and post it on her board like I normally do with the letter of the week.  So this week the theme was really just Valentine's Day.  Here are a few activities we did throughout the week:

Valentine's Carnival

There was a Valentine's Carnival at Blodel Park last Sunday so the three of us went to that.  She had fun getting her face painted and doing some of the crafts and activities (although a lot of them were geared towards older kids.)  We stayed for about 30 min. and then enjoyed the nice day with a walk down on Taylor Dock.

 

Valentine's Cards

The plan was to make these cards for everyone in our family plus her friends.  I got this idea from Pinterest using red fingerprints to make hearts on the cards.  It was a messy disaster!  We only were able to make 3-4 cards.  She didn't want to just use one finger to make the hearts but instead she wanted to put her whole hand in the red ink and also use stamps.  By the time we made the few cards there was red ink all over the table, chairs, on her face and on the walls to the bathroom.  Luckily it was washable ink!!  So the cards didn't turn out as nice as those on Pinterest but it's the thought that counts.  Unfortunately we weren't able to make all the Valentine's we had planned to send everyone in our family and to all of her friends.  Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes.

 

 

Heart Breakfasts & Lunches

 

For the week I used a bunch of small and large heart shaped cookie cutters on her food.  Wow!  I need to use cookie cutters with food more often!  She's normally not a big eater and picky but she ate anything that was shaped like a heart.  Here are a few of the meals she had (sorry not sure how to some rotate these photos):

 

Heart shaped peanut butter sandwich with red sprinkles in the middle, heart shaped watermelon slices and blueberries.

 

 



Heart shaped peanut butter toast with heart shaped watermelon slices and pineapple (heart shape didn't work well with pineapple). (Notice her placemat of all the US presidents.  Her favorite presidents to pick out are George Washington, Obama and "Teddy" Roosevelt.)

 

 

 

Heart shaped peanut butter sandwich with red sprinkles in the middle and heart shaped cucumber slices.

 

 

Mini heart shaped pancakes with heart shaped watermelon slices.

 

 

 

Heart Collage

 

I found this idea on Pinterest.  We had some red, pink and white tissue paper in our closet (yes I'm weird, I sometimes save tissue paper if it's in good shape and glad I did for this project.)  We tore it up into little pieces and placed it on a laminated pouch (on Pinterest they used contact paper but we have a laminating machine.)  Then I laminated the page, cut out a heart and hung it on our window.  She wasn't really into this activity so we only made one collage.  Instead she thought it was more fun to run around the house with the tissue paper and let her animal figurines play in it.  Some how most of our activities never go as planned but I don't worry about it.  The idea is to have fun so we adapt to how she would like to play.

 



 

 

Heart Sugar Cookies

 

On Valentine's Day I attempted to make heart shaped sugar cookies using a new recipe.  Bad idea!  I made the dough in the morning so it could chill for a couple hours before rolling out.  Not sure what I did wrong but the dough was all crumbly and I couldn't roll it.  So by the time I figured this out it was already 3:30pm and Riley was so excited to decorate the cookies.  So I ran to Haggen where they luckily had non decorated heart shaped sugar cookies (thank you Haggen!!).  Instead of chancing another cooking disaster by making my own icing, I decided to just buy some Betty Crocker vanilla icing.  We quickly came home and decorated the cookies using red sprinkles.  I think Riley had more fun eating the sprinkles than decorating the cookies.  By the time we were done it was a rush to meet Brian at Rudy's Pizza where we had a family Valentine's dinner.  Not romantic but it was a perfect Valentine's dinner to me.

 



 

 

 

On Valentine's Day morning she woke up to a giant heart balloon that played music (which I've been hearing all day long for the last week) and a little stuffed dog. 

 



 

Other Activities This Week

Storytime at the library
Music class which she seemed to like a little better this week
Skagit Children's Museum (for their monthly free day) and then visited Brian at work.  (below Riley at Brian's desk pretending to talk on the phone and work on the computer like Daddy)

Letter D Week

This was a fun and busy week with D activities, storytime, music class, gymnastics, celebrating Grandmama's birthday over lunch, having Jamba Juice with Grandma in Burlington and dinner with our friends and Riley's friends.  Here are some of the things we did this week to support the letter D. (Not shown...I made her dinosaur pancakes one morning using a dinosaur cookie cutter she got for Christmas.)


Dinosaur Dig 

I had an empty plastic tub laying around so I filled it with sand from her sandbox.  Then I ran to the consignment store and used my credit to buy a bag of small dinosaurs.  I buried the dinosaurs in the sand and then I set up some little trees, logs and rocks that I already had.  Riley used our little back scratcher as a mini rake to dig and then she used her mini magnifying glass to closely observe the dinosaurs when she found them.  She LOVED this activity!!  Afterwards she had fun playing with the dinosaurs in the sand.  I'm keeping this box available to her to play with on a regular basis.  (Note:  this was a messy activity, but the plastic table cloth underneath her and the box really helped to keep the area clean from sand.)

Donuts

Not much explanation to this activity.  It was my favorite of the week :)

 

 

Dinosaur Footprint Painting

 

I set up a few different paint colors on plastic plates that I had lying around.  Then she used her dinosaurs to paint, dipping their feet in the paint and having them walk all over the paper.  She loved this activity, but it was a pain to clean up.  I only let her paint for 10 minutes because I didn't want the paint to permanently dry onto the dinosaurs.

 

 

 

 

 

Dinosaur Cookies

 

 

I saw some insect fossil cookies on Martha Stewart's website so I decided to make dinosaur fossil cookies instead but using a peanut butter cookie recipe (Brian's favorite).  The first batch didn't turn out well.  We imprinted the dinosaurs before they baked so they just disappeared after they were cooked.  With the second batch she imprinted the cookies right after they were done baking, which worked better but still not great.  Oh well, it was all about the fun of making the cookies.  (Note:  we used plastic wrap over the cookies when making the imprints since the dinosaurs weren't food grade safe.)

 



 

Books We Read:

 

1. Lots of dinosaur books from the library.

2.  Harry the Dirty Dog

3.  If You Give a Dog a Donut (missed this book...bummer!)

 

 

 

Letter D Activities (we didn't get to):

 

1.  Harry the Dirty Dog activities:  http://squashedtomatoes.wordpress.com/2010/08/30/harry-the-dirty-dog-fun/

 

2.  Dinosaur, Dog and Dog Bone sugar cookies (using the cookie cutters she got for Christmas)

 

3.  Dinosaur Feet:  uploaded from someone on Pinterest but can't seem to find a website link.  Looks like they used foam for the feet, but I was planning to use some of my leftover felt scraps.  Hope to do this activity soon.

 

 



Week 1 Review

We had a fun busy week.  We did our letter A activities on Monday and Tuesday because the rest of the week was busy with storytime on Wednesday, her new music class on Thursday and gymnastics class on Friday.  The weather was nice on Saturday so we had a family outing to Boulevard Park.  Here's a recap of some of our activities:

Rain Painting

The website where I got the idea said it didn't work as well when it was raining hard, so we did it when it was drizzling.  Yeah, that didn't work so well either.  It didn't do a whole lot when it was raining, but Riley had fun stomping in puddles with her rain boots and twirling her umbrella.  When I checked on the art a few hours later it looked a little better since the paper was soaked.  (Note for next time:  do this activity when it's raining harder.)

Before:

After:  (Sorry not sure how to rotate the image yet.)

Letter A Search

Round 1: 
I created a couple sheets with the letters A mixed in on the page and laminated them (to easily wipe off and use in the future.)  We started with the dot paints and after 30 seconds she decided it was more fun to dot all of the letters and not just the A's.  So then I tried washable dry erase markers, where she would color on the A's only.  This lasted a little longer, maybe 1 minute, before she decide to start coloring all of the letters and tracing her hand.  Since the idea was letter recognition and she just likes coloring the letters, I think I'll create a page of just the letter A for her.  This activity lasted all of 5 minutes, so it will be a good activity to keep her busy if I'm doing laundry or something for a few minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

Animal and Bug Shadow Match

This didn't go along with the A theme, but I thought Riley might like this activity since her favorite Kindle game is matching the shadow puzzles.  I found some free printables on Pinterest and laminated the pages to make them more durable.  I was right that she loved this game, BUT it took her less than a minute to finish matching them and then she was done.  So all that work for just a minute of activity.  Ugh!  Oh well, I'll keep it on hand for the future.  The nice thing is I can easily put these in plastic bags and use them on roadtrips or when traveling since they don't take up much space.  I just need to come up with an idea to modify the activity so it keeps her attention a little longer.

Bananagrams Letter Sort

I took our Bananagrams game and tried to adapt it for Riley.  I've seen people doing different activities with this game so I thought I'd make something up.  I put the different letters in an ice tray and had her sort the letters.  This lasted for maybe 5 minutes before she decided to line up all the letters and pretend they were trains.  She has a big imagination and loves pretend play,  so I played along.  We lined up all the letter A's into a train and pushed it along the table.  Then she lined up the other letters to make trains.  She ended up playing with this game for about 45 minutes which was great! 

Apple Smiles

Boulevard Park

We enjoyed the nice weather at Boulevard Park on Saturday, where Brian had coffee and Riley and I had hot chocolate.  The tide was really low so she wanted to play on the beach instead of the playground.  It was a fun day!