Bean Bags

This summer, I was visiting a friend of mine and she had Letter Bean Bags. The girl's loved them and played with them A TON while we were there. I decided to make some for the kids. I naively thought, I could finish a set in one night. Not sure where I got that idea!

I printed off the letters, cut them out, traced them onto applique paper, cut them out again, cut my fabric into squares, ironed the letters onto the fabric, sewed them on, put the bean bags together (I stitched around each one three times because I don't have a Serger), filled them, and then finally hand-stitched each one closed. NOT the quick, simple project I envisioned which is particularly silly since I was aware of the process BEFORE I started. (I guess 'perfect' me does things way faster)

Originally, I planned on making only Uppercase Letters but then I decided to do Lowercase too, because I have no filter when it comes to projects. I hate to admit, but I really did think - "No big deal to do lowercase too and how fun would that be?" Ironically, everyone else seems to be able to see what I am getting into...everyone but me! :)

These were finished several weeks ago and the kids love them! We play hide a seek, matching games, sorting games, and Paul plays catching and tossing games with them.(With the kids not by himself...although he probably would play with them by himself) In the end, I am glad we have them but would be in no hurry to take these on again.

My redo on these would be making the Uppercase letters just a little bit
smaller so they weren't so close to the edges.

Letter L

It was bound to happen eventually. Not only am I posting this a week late but we had a long week with school and we missed two days. We still finished our letter book crafts and our number and shape worksheets. We just skipped a lot of our extra concepts. Here is what we did for the Letter L.

Here are our Letter L sound pictures:

L is for Lizard:

V made a heart lizard - hard to see from the picture but she didn't want
a boy lizard so she added hearts.

We made hand print lambs for our craft. The girl's loved that their white crayon worked really good  on black paper and loved gluing on their cotton balls. These decorated the girl's magnet board for over a week - always a good sign!

Bristol's lamb

Vienna's lamb

We had to let the lamb's dry overnight which meant the picture didn't get taken until several days later - in case you were wondering why the girl's changed clothes mid craft. 

We also made punch letters again this week. It worked so much better because I knew how to make the page better.

B punching her Ls

V punching her Ls. Bristol testing to see if the pins really would poke her or
not - I am sure you can guess what happened next

Our shadow Lls! :) They worked!

Maybe not working hard but definitely playing hard! These are animals - Bristol is a bear and Vienna is a puppy...kind of! 

When school interferes with nap time!

Doesn't she do a great pathetic face? :)

The girl's also finished their  5 worksheets to practice writing their letters. They both thought writing Ll was SO EASY. Bristol said it was because she was "just really smart!"

Alphabet Book: Letter H

Alphabet Book Crafts for Letter H:

H is for Hearts:

V right - B left

H is for Horse: V worked really really hard on her horse because it was a beautiful girl horse. 

V right - B left

Letter H Collage Page:

V right - B left

Letter H

Week 2 down! We made it! This was a long week for us! I learned that we really should do school in the morning instead of the afternoon if I want the girls to be excited and participating. I learned that sometimes I overdue it (shocking I know) and that I need to scale back even more on some of our days.

Here is what we did for the letter H:

H sound pictures

H is for Horse:

We did Bingo Art Pages this week the V and B LOVED these!

We also practiced writing the letter H. We do five writing worksheets a week. By the end of the week, Bristol could freehand H and h. Hopefully, she can retain it!

 I can tell by their serious faces that they are really concentrating

And finally, our H craft was a hedgehog which is looks to much like a porcupine and is kind of confusing they ended up eventually trusting me it was a hedgehog, although I did hear V saying that hers was a hedgehog porcupine thingy....

B, Mom, and V. The girls told me that mine was kind of pretty but kind of boring
cause it was just brown.

Some other favorite moments:

B decided it was faster to color with 3 markers

Dad was home for a few minutes during school and helped B color her hearts

V wanted a picture coloring too so she grabbed 3 random markers and
"colored".

The girl's consulting with each other about if their coloring looks nice

Hudson normally naps during school but he woke up before we finished. He
likes school because he got an extra snack that day! 

Alphabet Book: Letter E (Finally)

It took an extra week to be posted but here are the Letter E, "Alphabet Book" pages.

E is for Eggs: It felt like it took FOREVER for the girls to color their eggs. I learned that  on Fridays we need fewer activities because these alphabet crafts take longer than I thought they would.

B on the left - V on the Right

E is for Elephants:

B Left, V Right

Finally - here are the collage pages. These ones were spread out over three different days. One day to color the small, sound pictures, one day to color the letters, and one day to glue them on. The girls were thrilled to finish this project, according to Bristol she worked on it for "so, so many... a lot! of days"

B left, V right

Letter E

Our first Letter of the Week! The Letter E. V already knows her letters so she is working on sounds and handwriting. B knows most of her letters but needs a good review and is working on writing and sounds. Here are our Letter E pictures.

The girl's got to color their own smaller versions of these pictures and then make them into a  collage for their letter books.

This week we did 5 tracing worksheets to practice how to write E. Bristol can trace them great but still gets confused trying to free hand a lower case e.

Look at that concentration! :)

Here are three of their favorite letter E crafts/activities from the week. The shadow letters was the favorite! They had so much fun punching out the letters - B kept saying, "This is so much fun - pokey fun!" I think this will be a weekly activity!

Next time I am going to make the letters closer together so we can
get both letters on the wall together. 

E is for elephant craft:

And finally, eggs in a basket. When I did this craft I wasn't thinking specifically about Easter. But as soon as the girls started it quickly became an Easter craft. The best thing about it was it was something to play with after "school". The girl's did Easter egg hunts for the rest of the afternoon.

At the end of the week, both girls had 4 letter E pages to put in their Alphabet Books. E is for Elephant, a picture collage, a coloring page, and letter E craft page (we decorated E and e - pictures to come)! 

It was a busy week but so fun! It was a great way to spend time with the girls. They want to start school every morning first thing. Of course, they could just be trying to get out of doing jobs! :)