How to Be Awesome at Quarantine with Kids Part 3

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Previously, we talked about eight ingredients that we can use to help fill our days while we are social distancing at home.  Here are some specific activities for most of those categories to help get you started.  I tried to find easy, no or low prep options that you can do with whatever supplies you have at home.

Academics

• Flash Cards
• Sudoku
• Crossword Puzzles
• Workbooks
• Rhyming/Matching/Opposites Games
• Board Games like Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Solitare, Scrabble, etc.  My kids especially love the Richard Scary Busytown Game.

• Pick an animal, sport, historical figure, country, etc. that they are interested in and research it together
• Spelling Games
• Keep a Journal or Video Diary
• If you have a chalkboard, write spelling words or letters on there and let your child "paint" them off with a paintbrush and water.

Reading

As I mentioned before, reading with your child or setting aside time for them to read independently is probably the most important thing you could do during these next few weeks.  You can find free audiobooks on podcast apps or rent them from your library through Libby or Hoopla if available.  There are also some on Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube.  See my last post for some recommendations.

Gross Motor

• Masking/Painter's tape works well on hard floors.  Make shapes or lines and have them try to walk along the tape without "falling" off.
• Tape crepe paper streamers at angles through a hallway and have kids bob and weave their way through the "laser field."
• Simple songs like the Hokey Pokey or Father Abraham can get kids moving.  Or put on some music and have a dance party!
• Obstacle courses can be made indoor or outside.  Masking tape, pillows, and pool noodles can be used in surprising ways to create obstacles inside!
• "Heavy Work" chores can be a surprising source of gross motor activities.  Have small children pull all the cushions off the couch and help you vacuum it, then replace the cushions.  Help (and supervise) them climb on a step stool to dust the top of a shelf or table.  For older kids, vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing, etc. double as housework and gross motor!

Fine Motor for Young Children

• Have children paint some sticks from your yard and then when they dry, tie some ribbons on them.  Put them in a vase for a colorful centerpiece.
• Put different kinds of paper, TP tubes, ribbon, etc. in a box with a pair of scissors and let them practice cutting!  (Stay close and make sure to supervise this one!)
• Put sticker dots (or just draw them) on a page and have your child connect the dots with a pencil, crayon, or marker.  
• Lacing cards are available to print online, or you might have some from Target.
• Give them strips of fabric or ribbon to thread through the holes of a laundry basket, chain link fence, chicken wire, or anything else with holes big enough.  
• Playdough!  Have them roll snakes and then cut them with scissors, roll different size balls, make shapes or letters, etc.
• I have a whole Pinterest board full of more great ideas for fine motor activities here.
• Coloring books and mazes like this one are a hit with my four year old

• Both of my kids have really enjoyed these foam mosaic craft kits

Fine Motor for Older Children

• Rainbow looms and weaving looms are great for more advanced fine motor practice.

• Paracord bracelets, macrame, and friendship bracelets

• Simple cross stitch or sewing projects

• Adult coloring books or printable pages

• Spirographs

• Finger knitting

Art

• The more open ended the art, the better.  Put a bunch of supplies on the table and see where they go with it.
• Mirror painting or bathtub painting are fun alternatives to the usual.
• Magazine collages
• Stamps, foam stickers, or stencils
• Directed drawing activities give step by step instructions.  Do one with your child and hang them up together when you finish!
• Watercolor pencils are a fun and less messy way to paint.  You draw with them like regular colored pencils and then paint over them with water.  Or dip them in water and see how different they write!

• Kwik Stix are tempera paint sticks that make painting less messy and easier for young children to control.

Music

This one is easy to incorporate into other activities simultaneously.  

• Play classical music during art time or while coloring and knitting.  There are plenty of playlists on Pandora, Spotify, or YouTube.
• Play upbeat music for a dance party or while doing an obstacle course.
• Play name that tune with Disney songs or whatever your family listens to.
• Let your kids do their own cover of their favorite song and make a video.  
• Pull out some pots and pans, your old recorder, or whatever else you can turn into instruments and have a jam session.

Sensory

This wasn't one of my eight categories but it's worth listing because a lot of food items typically used for sensory boxes aren't available right now.  So here is a list of common sensory box fillers that aren't food.  I'm not saying go buy any of this specifically, but maybe it will give you new ideas. (Use caution and supervise young children to prevent eating or choking, of course.)

• Shredded paper (even better if you have a shredder and they can watch you make it)
• Marbles
• Bingo Dots
• Pompoms
• Buttons
• Flower petals or other nature items from your yard
• Cotton Balls
• Cut Up Straws (let them cut up the straws first!)
• Easter Grass
• Cut Up Foam
• Bird Seed
• Fake Snow
• Glass Gems (used as vase fillers in hobby stores and Dollar Tree)
• Aquarium Rocks
• Water Beads
• Soapy Water
• Poker Chips
• Rainbow Loom Bands
• Yarn, Ribbon, and Fabric Strips
• Feathers
• Beads

Housework

I know, I know.  Sometimes it's more work to get them to "help" than to just do the work itself.  Think of it more as an activity than actually helping. I'm pretty sure if you have older kids, you know what they can do, but here are some ideas for young children.

• Wash doorknobs and baseboards with baby wipes.
• Sweep with a small broom
• Dust with a feather duster or a dry washcloth
• Wipe down bathroom counters with a baby wipe
• Put toys on shelves
• Fold washcloths and match socks
• Set the table with help
• Wipe the table before or after a meal
• Put bib/pj's/clothes in hamper

I hope this gives you some ideas to get you started!  Please don't see this is as a list to work through from beginning to end.  I am just throwing out a whole bunch of ideas so that hopefully a few of them click with someone.

Next post, I will describe my themes for our "Spring Break Quarantine Camp."

How to Be Awesome at Quarantine with Kids Part 1

Schools are closing.  Everything is crazy.  Families who never wanted to homeschool are now honorary homeschoolers for the next several weeks.

It can feel like a long road ahead.

Welcome to the family!

If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of doing anything but screen time and Lunchables for the next couple of weeks, no judgement here.  We all deal with stress and crises differently.  Some people panic at the thought of implementing any kind of structure or they simply feel it isn't necessary.  That's a valid response, and you probably don't want to continue reading. 

But some people need some kind of structure in order to thrive.  (It's me.  I'm some people.)  It doesn't have to be a rigid schedule, nor does it have to be the same as anyone else's, but for me, chaos makes me panic.  I need a plan.  And I've seen lots of posts asking for help and ideas, so I thought I could share what works for me.  This isn't my attempt to force anything on anyone else or make quarantine "Pinterest-worthy."  I'm just offering what I have to anyone who might be interested.  Take it as it is.

So you want to set up some kind of routine or schedule or at least plan some activities to pull out when the kids get restless?  Let's start with a couple of mindset adjustments that will help for the long haul.

• Expect more mess.  It's gonna happen.  Whatever your tolerance level for mess is, having kids home all day, every day is gonna push those limits.  Take a minute before you do any planning to try to address this so it doesn't drive you crazy and inhibit the rest of your plans.  What are the definite boundaries (like, no art on the couches, or no food on the carpet, etc.)?  What are the areas where you can give a little (like letting some sensory filler spill on the kitchen floor), and how can you incorporate cleaning breaks into your day so that you don't feel overwhelmed by 6:00?
• Try to stretch the times.  For little ones, try to stretch activities to 20 or 30 minutes.  For older ones, try for 45 minutes to an hour.  That means you probably won't be able to just set play dough on the table and expect them to occupy themselves for an hour.  You'll have to be more involved.  Help them make up games, like a play dough pie store, or print off some play dough mats.  If you are constantly jumping from activity to activity every five minutes, they will be restless and you will go crazy.  Pinterest is your friend here.  Search "easy play dough activities" to get some good ideas.  
• Use themes.  Everyone who knows me knows I love a good theme.  Don't try to invent twenty random activities each day.  Pick a theme for the day and make the activities fit with the theme.  It encourages them to combine and expand, and it makes your life easier because you will naturally start to come up with more ideas that go with the theme.  
• Get outside.  If at all possible, go outside every day.  If it's raining but not storming, let them splash in puddles and then come in and take warm baths (fills extra time!).  If it's cold, bundle them up and give them five or ten minutes to do a nature scavenger hunt.  Or even just have them run out the door and do ten jumping jacks and then run back in.  Fresh air is great for everyone!
• Don't expect to get a lot "done."  You will not be as productive as usual.  It's important to make peace with that.  Constant interruptions, heightened vigilance, more mess, and constantly finding things for them to do means that you are going to look back at the end of some days and say, "Did I actually DO anything today!?"  The answer is yes.  You were there for your kids, and that is a full-time job.  Give yourself some grace.
• Adopt an attitude of adventure.  I know these are anxious times, and I know there are a lot of inconveniences and disappointments swirling around everyone, but as much as possible, approach these next few weeks with a purposeful attitude of adventure.  We've never done this before.  We are all in this together, including your kids.  Keep a "quarantine journal" or blog or vlog.  Get your kids to add to it.  

We are going to get through this together, you guys.  We have so many resources at our disposal.  Eyes up, hearts up!  You've got this.

In my next post, I'm going to go over some basic ingredients for a day, and then I'll give some easy no-prep activities for those who want to keep it super simple, and some theme day ideas for those like me who need a plan!

Let me know if you have specific questions.  I'm always happy to help!

Awesome and Easy Collages for Toddlers

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.  I am not otherwise compensated for my opinions.

I found a couple of pins recently that inspired me to do some new simple projects with Cricket's easel.  This is the style of easel we use.  It's just a basic white board on one side and chalkboard on the other.

She loves to paint and draw on it, but these were a few other quick and low budget projects that I used to fill some time when I was tired or she was restless.  

Feelings Collage

First we went through a couple of my old magazines and looked for pictures of people who were showing different emotions, and I cut them out.  Cricket helped me find pictures, and we talked about what they might be feeling and why.  

It was easy to find happy people, and even excited and proud people, but it took a while to find pictures of people who looked sad and angry.  Prescription ads ended up being very helpful.  :o)

I just used plain easel paper from this pad I ordered for Cricket's second birthday.  It's lasted forever!

I taped a piece of easel paper up and wrote "I Feel" in the middle of it.  Then I wrote emotion words like "sad" and "happy" around the paper.  She painted some glue around it and stuck the corresponding pictures next to the word as we talked about it.  

Of course, she loves painting, so painting glue was great fun for her.  She also liked the pictures, and she enjoyed talking about them.

The emotions we ended up with were happy, sad, angry, proud, surprised, and grumpy.  These are all emotions we have talked about with her for a while now, and they have come up in several of her books.

Not only does this help teach her how to express her own emotions, it also helps her practice recognizing social cues in other people to determine their emotions.  This is a valuable skill for toddlers (and for adults), and one that doesn't always come naturally, so it's good to practice.  

After we finished putting the pictures on, she decorated it with stickers just for fun.  She used a couple of stickers as band-aids for the sad person, which showed me that she was really listening to what we were talking about and empathizing with the person in the picture.  

When she finished her collage, we taped it to her bedroom door.  She is very proud of it, and she loves to show it off to people, which gives her even more opportunities to practice recognizing and repeating the emotion vocabulary she is learning.  I was really happy with this activity and highly recommend it.

Sticker Collage

For something even easier, I just put up a piece of paper and let her stick stickers wherever she wanted.  She loved it!  

Just about every toddler loves stickers, so this is a fun and really easy activity for them.  I had a bunch leftover from my classroom that I pulled out, but if you need some, Dollar Tree always has a bunch, as well as the dollar bins at Target or Wal-Mart.  Melissa and Doug also has some great sticker pads that come with hundreds of great looking stickers for a decent price.  A friend got Cricket one last Christmas, and she's still using it!

The only thing about stickers is, some of them are hard to get off the paper they come on, so I stuck a bunch to a chair so I could do dishes while she worked on her collage.

When she was finished, I gave her the option to further decorate her collage with crayons or colored pencils.  She wasn't interested at the time, but I left it up for a few days, and she did come back and color it a little.

She has asked to do this again and again, so I'd call this one a success as well.  

Torn Paper Collage

This is another super easy one.  I taped a piece of contact paper to the easel, sticky side out.  

I let Cricket and her friend tear pieces of construction paper and just stick them on!

They chose to tear the paper into big pieces.  I love that since the contact paper is clear, you can see the drawings she had done on the easel, giving it a kind of background.

To add a natural sensory aspect to this one, try the Contact Paper Window I wrote about when Cricket was younger.  

Remember, it doesn't have to be complicated to be a fun and absorbing experience for a toddler!

Awesome Gifts for Expectant Parents

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.  I am not otherwise compensated for my opinions. 

If you are anywhere in the 25-40 age range, chances are, you get invited to a fair number of baby showers.  For a while, it seemed like we had a wedding invitation for every weekend of the year, but now, those have definitely morphed into baby showers.

While my first advice is always to get something off the registry, (They picked it out.  They obviously need it and want it!) some people don't like using registries.  Or maybe you just want a more personal gift.  Or the store they registered at is not in your town and you don't have time to order online.  Whatever the case, here are some great ideas for baby gifts that I have either given or received and loved!

Nursing Survival Kit

One of my friends gave this to me, and we have given it to several others since then.  If you know the mom-to-be is planning on breastfeeding, put together a basket of things she might need.  You could include:

Nursing Cover, Nursing Pads, and Lanolin for the basic needs.

      

Energy bars, a cute water cup, and a small book to make mama smile.

          

Nursing tank and burp cloths to make nursing a little easier!

       

Of course, several of those would make great gifts by themselves, but put a couple of those in a cute basket and you have a really memorable and useful present!  This is a good one for a group or hostess gift, because the more you put in there, the cuter it will be!

Fleece Nose Wipes

This may seem like a weird gift, so let me explain.  When I was pregnant, my mom gave me a bunch of cute fleece squares she had cut out for me to use as cloth baby wipes.  However, once I had Cricket, it became very obvious that they were no good as baby wipes because they didn't absorb liquid well.

I had all these cute little fleece squares sitting around, never been used, and I quickly figured out that they worked great as nose wipes for tiny, sensitive noses!  They are way softer than tissues, you can use them several times, and even toddlers can use them without tearing a hole in them every time they wipe their nose!  Two years later, we are still using them!

So here's what you do.  Get some cute fleece, like these.

  

Cut them into six inch squares, tie a dozen up in a pretty ribbon and give them along with a note saying what they are for.  No need to sew because fleece doesn't fray.  Easy, cute, and unique!  It is a great thing to keep on hand for last minute gifts!

Little Remedies Box

My sister gave this to me when I was pregnant, and I am STILL using some of the stuff in it!  This is a collection of Little Remedies products for babies and young children, like gripe water, eucalyptus rub, saline nose spray, etc.  It's great, and any new parent will greatly appreciate it!

Books

Ok, y'all knew this was coming right?  No way am I not going to talk about books.  At my baby shower, my hostess put in the invitation a request for guests to sign their name in a board book instead of a greeting card.  They are the same price or even cheaper than a card, and they are way more useful!  Plus, it is so fun to read books to Cricket and get to tell her who gave each one to her.

One of Brian's long time family friends sent us Pat the Bunny when I was pregnant, along with a list of several dozen books that she recommended or that her children had loved growing up.  What a great idea!  I made notes of a bunch of them to get as soon as I could!

I love to give books, so often I will give several of my favorites as a way to start the child's library.  This one is always in the group.

  

Whether you give a stack or just one, you can never go wrong with books!

Name Bands for Sippy Cups

I don't know if y'all have seen these, but they are rubber bracelet-looking things that go around bottles and sippy cups to label them.  The idea is that they are washable, so you don't have to take them off, and they aren't adhesive, so you don't have a gooey mess after a couple of weeks.  There are several different kinds.  The original ones are actually debossed with your child's name.  (You could also add other information like allergy alerts, phone numbers, etc.)

    

Or you could get one of these that you just write on with a permanent marker.  Either way, these are a fun and unique but practical gift that any parent will appreciate.

   

House Cleaning

I don't have a link to this, because it's more of a local thing, but it's worth mentioning.  One of my favorite gifts for friends who are about to have a baby is to pay someone to come clean their house while they are in the hospital.  That way they come home to a sparkling house and no chores to worry about!  This would be a good hostess gift or group gift, as well.

A bonus to this is that if you have friends who clean houses as a job, you are helping them out as well!  If you don't know anyone who cleans houses, you can ask your friends on Facebook for local recommendations or hire a professional service, although that will obviously be more costly.  Just make sure that this is something the expecting parents will enjoy or someone they know, since some people are hesitant to let strangers in their house for obvious reasons.  When in doubt, ask ahead of time on this one.

Closet Organizers and Hangers

This is my go-to gift right now.  I stumbled upon the realization that Amazon has literally dozens of designer closet organizers.  This is awesome because you can find some to match just about any nursery theme!  (I have been known to stalk pictures on Facebook to figure out which colors and designs will match!)  They are a decent price, too!

Closet organizers are super handy because you always end up with clothes in four or five different sizes, and this helps you keep them organized so you don't end up finding an outfit that your baby never got to wear because you didn't realize it was his size four months ago!

      

Pair them with some matching baby hangers and you have a sweet and thoughtful gift that they won't want to return!

 

I hope this gives you some good ideas for baby gifts!  What about you?  What are your favorite go-to gifts for baby showers?

An Awesome Playlist for Toddlers

Ok, so I know "I made you a mix tape" is so 1996, but toddlers don't know that, so bear with me.

I decided to make Cricket a playlist that combined her favorite songs from the Pandora Toddler Radio stations we listen to, plus some of my old favorites and a few educational ones thrown in there for good measure.  My goal was to find songs that wouldn't drive me crazy and that were at least tolerable from a musical standpoint.  No tone-deaf kids scream-singing or tinny synthesizers and canned vocals.  Blech.

It has a little of everything.  ABC's, Raffi, Elmo, Muppets, and Veggie Tales.  It has a couple of more modern takes on old classics, like O.A.R.'s cover of "Itsy Bitsy Spider" or the "Crazy ABC's" about words that start with silent letters.

The result is a surprisingly awesome CD that even I enjoy listening to.  I liked it so much, I gave it as gifts to all of Cricket's toddler friends and cousins.

So here is my playlist.  Most of these can be found on iTunes.  A couple of them cannot, but you can buy CD's on Amazon or find a couple of them on YouTube.

Cricket's Mix

1.        All I Want is You by Barry Louis Polisar

2.        ABC’s by Ralph Covert

3.        The B-I-B-L-E by Veggie Tales 

4.        You are My Sunshine by Elizabeth Mitchell

5.        Fifty Nifty United States by Ray Charles

6.        Crazy ABC’s by Barenaked Ladies

7.        Pollywog in a Bog by Barenaked Ladies

8.        Alphabet of Nations by They Might be Giants

9.        Little Sack of Sugar by Elizabeth Mitchell

10.      Animal Alphabet Song by The Hollow Trees

11.      Elmo’s Song by Sesame Street

12.      Mr. Sun by Charlie Hope

13.      If All of the Raindrops by Laura Doherty

14.      If You’re Happy and You Know It by Larry Groce

15.      Itsy Bitsy Spider by O.A.R.

16.      Brush Your Teeth by Raffi

17.     Mah Na Mah Na by The Muppets

18.      The Green Grass Grows All Around by Jewel

19.      A Pirate Says Arr by The Backyardigans

20.      Patience by Music Machine

21.      I’ve Been Working on the Railroad by Larry Groce

22.     Walking, Walking by Anne-Marie Akin

23.     God is Bigger by Veggie Tales

24.     Silly Songs Remix by Veggie Tales

25.     Happy Tappin’ with Elmo by Sesame Street

26.     Apples and Bananas by Keith Urban

27.     Roll Over by Charlie Hope

28.     Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes by The Wiggles

29.      Skinny Marinky Dinky Dink by Cooltime Kids

30.      Wheels on the Bus by Ukulele Jim

31.      Baby Beluga by Raffi

32.     Goodnight by The Laurie Berkner Band

33.      Sing by Sesame Street

In case you don't feel like spending the absurd amount of time on this project that I did, which I understand, here are a couple of really good CD's that I got several songs off of.  Just get a couple of these and your toddler will be happy.

Ralph's World

Elmo Dance Songs

Veggie Tales Sunday School Songs

Whaddaya Think of That

Songs for Wiggleworms

I also did a post not long ago about great music for toddlers, and several of these songs come from CD's I recommended on there, so check that one out as well.  Happy listening!

Awesomely Easy Toddler School: Letter A

This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.  My opinions are all my own.

Last time, I introduced Toddler School as a way to incorporate learning into your toddler's every day routine.  Today, I'm going to go over specifically what we did with the letter A, so if you wanted to, you could use this as a kind of template to make it easy on yourself.  No need to reinvent the wheel!

Just as an aside, please remember that this is not forced or meant to be a super structured sit-in-a-desk time.  This is a fun, do whatever she's interested time.  Not every child responds to this kind of thing.  If yours doesn't, you'll have to get sneakier or more creative about how you introduce information to them.  You can still do it, but maybe not in this way.

Ok, but if you do want to do what we are doing, this is how we do it.

Calendar Time and Number Play

First of all, we start out day by doing our calendar.  I talked about it in my last post.  The calendar is a great way to practice counting, number recognition, prereading skills, days of the week, months, and more!  I also use calculator play, number puzzles, and the Poke a Dot books for number and counting practice throughout the day.  These are not really related to my alphabet theme, but I do try to make a point to do at least one number activity or book with her each day.

She loves playing with "her" calculator.

Alphabet Unit

As I said in my last post, I decided to do units based on a letter of the alphabet.  Each unit lasts approximately two weeks.  During that time, I try to cover two famous people (one man and one woman), at least one animal (usually a bunch), one place, and one object, all beginning with the target letter.  I also choose a character trait that is usually based on at least one of the people we are studying.  (It may or may not begin with the target letter.)  Here are the ones I chose for the letter A.

Man:  Albert Einstein

I have some leeway in whether I want the first or last name to start with the target letter, and it varies depending on which person I choose and honestly, which books my local libraries have.  We found a couple of simple ones on Einstein, and we emphasized that he worked hard and studied so that he could discover new things.

Also, I recently got her this book, Quantum Physics for Babies:

It is awesome, and the last page says, "Now you are a quantum physicist," with a picture of Einstein, so it got read a lot.

Woman: Amelia Earhart

This was Cricket's favorite part of the whole letter A unit.  She absolutely loves Amelia Earhart!  We got several books from the library about her, but Cricket's favorite by far was this one, called I am Amelia Earhart.

It really is a cute book, and apparently the illustrator used to work for Marvel Comics and some other big names.  Cricket would often repeat the lines Amelia said, like, "This is awesome!" and "This isn't a good idea.  It's the BEST idea!"  We emphasized that Amelia Earhart was very brave to do all the things she did, and the book makes a point of saying that she wasn't a natural pilot.  She just worked harder than anyone else.  I loved that part.

Brian found an old pair of tinted goggles that
immediately became her "Amelia Earhart goggles."

I used this coloring page for Amelia Earhart, but you can find plenty just by Googling it.

Animals: Alligator, Ant

We got a book about alligators and crocodiles and had fun reading it and looking at the pictures.  I used this coloring page for the alligator.  It is actually a whole set of letters made in the form of animals that begin with that letter, so I am making a little book out of them as she colors each one.

Places:  Atlantic Ocean, Antarctica, Australia, Alabama, America

Letter A is the jackpot when it comes to places.  Print off a map and you'll realize that the majority of the continents begin with the letter A, as well as several oceans, states, and countries.  (Not all of them begin with the traditional "A for Apple" sound though, so I used those for letter recognition, but not for the phonics emphasis.)  The main place we focused on was the Atlantic Ocean because it went along with the life of Amelia Earhart.  We also found some library books about Antarctica and Australia, so we ended up talking about those some, too.  They were a cute little series that was just perfect for a toddler attention span, with cool pictures and facts.

     

I printed off a world map to cover the oceans and continents, and I printed off a map of America and a map of Alabama, because we live there.  We also checked out a colorful children's atlas to look through, and a couple of books on Alabama.  Cricket especially liked Y is for Yellowhammer.  It goes through the alphabet and tells an interesting fact about Alabama for each letter.  They make them for several different states.

Object: Apple

The activities from 1+1+1=1 (more about them below) were all apple themed, so that was our main object, but of course, we talked about lots of words that started with A when we found them in our books or just out and about.  I think we even managed to eat applesauce and/or an actual apple sometime during the two weeks.  I am not stressing about trying to coordinate snacks to fit my theme (like some blogs I've read).  This one just happened to fit.

I also used this airplane coloring page because we were already talking about Amelia Earhart, so she had seen the word airplane a lot. The word airplane doesn't start with the traditional "A in Apple" sound, so we didn't focus on it for the phonics part, but we did use it for the letter recognition.  Airplanes are also great to talk about because toddlers are just starting to be aware of airplanes in the sky, so it comes up regularly.

By the end of our two weeks, our kitchen cabinet display was pretty full.

Character Trait:  Bravery

I know it doesn't start with an A, but since bravery came up naturally in the Amelia Earhart books, I made a point to emphasize it during these two weeks and beyond.  When she did something on her own the first time, we told her she was brave like Amelia Earhart.  We talked about how being brave meant doing something even when you were a little scared, like going into her bedroom when it was dark and turning on the light herself.  This has been something we have continued to talk about with other historical figures and Bible figures, emphasizing that there are many different ways to show bravery.

Bible Activities:

As I mentioned before, I printed off these amazing verse cards and put them on a ring.  The verse for A is "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  Joshua 24:15."  Cricket had no trouble memorizing this.  I would just read it to her and show her the card each morning, and for almost a week, she just listened.  Then one day, in the middle of lunch, she just started saying it.

I have to say, I was a little skeptical of trying to get her to do memory verses.  I didn't know if they were too long or too complicated, but she picks them up so fast!  We still review all of them every day, but she absolutely can say them by memory by the end of the two week unit, just saying them once a day like that.  Kids' brains are amazing.

We also read a Bible story every day from our Big Picture Interactive Storybook.

I did a blog post a little while ago on how and why we chose that storybook Bible.  We are loving it so far.  The stories are a little longer than Cricket's normal books, and since there is one story per page, sometimes she gets anxious for me to turn the page, but she usually makes it through the story ok, and she is definitely picking things up.  The other day she started repeating, "God always keeps His promises," which was the theme of the story on Abraham we had read that day.

I also try to make sure we listed to some praise and worship music or some verses set to music at some point during the day.  Pandora has a great praise and worship station, and Seeds Family Worship has some AMAZING Scripture set to music that she and I both love.

Other activities we did during the two weeks:

Play Dough

I have a set of alphabet cookie cutters that my sister-in-law gave me, and boy have they come in handy over and over!  Here's a set you can get on Amazon:

When we were talking about the letter A, I gave her the A cookie cutter and she had a blast making her own letters.

Google eyes and pipe cleaners are also super fun.

Alphabits

Alphabits are the new Cheerio's at our house.  I got them for her birthday party, but she loved them so much, I've kept getting them!  (And they're surprisingly not full of sugar!  They have a pretty short list of ingredients, too.)  She loves pointing out the letters as she's eating them, and even spontaneously decided one morning to look through her bowl of dry Alphabits to find the letters that spelled April.

It didn't even occur to me to do that, but we've done it several times with different words since then.  Whenever she finds a target letter in her Alphabits, we make a point to say the sound it makes.

Alphabet toys and puzzles

I absolutely love my Melissa and Doug Alphabet puzzle.  It is how she learned her letters in the first place, back when she was potty training.  She would spend forever working on that puzzle, and by the end of the week, she could recognize every letter and say the word for the pictures underneath them.  She still plays with it a lot.

Other alphabet toys that I love are the foam bathtub letters,

the magnet alphabet on our fridge,

and this Light Up Alphabet Apple that I got at a consignment sale.

They are all great review and practice for letter recognition and phonics sounds, and there are lots of things you can do with them.

Printables

As I mentioned before, I use several printables from 1+1+1=1.  It is a great site with just TONS of stuff you can use for your young child.  I just use a few basic ones, like the traceable target letter and the letter with a couple of pictures around it, both of which I put in page protectors so she can use dry erase crayons to color every day.

    
If you haven't discovered this combination yet, you're welcome.

Toddlers are not able to write letters accurately yet, so don't push that.  Just let them color the picture and watch you make the letters.

I also print out a couple of her pages on cardstock that Cricket can play with over and over.  There is always a little puzzle picture for the target letter, a matching shadow game, a sequencing game, and a lacing picture.  Cricket loves these and often asks to play with them several times a day.

So there you go.  That's everything I used for the two weeks we focused on the letter A.  Please remember, I didn't do all of this every day.  Some of it, like the play dough, I may have done once a week.  It just depends.  Also, remember this is just an introduction.  This isn't kindergarten.  My goal was for her to be able to recognize the letter, give the sound it makes, (or one of them anyway, since it's a vowel), and learn some stuff about people and places.  I didn't work on lots of phonics practice or writing drills.  It's just directed play.

I hope this helps inspire you.  If you come up with other ideas, please post them in the comments so we can all try them, too!