Alphabet Book

The library summer reading program has begun! Actually it started last Monday. I took Sydney and Griffin to the library last Saturday to sign up. The lady kindly informed me that we could not sign up until Monday. I was a bit annoyed because I do work full time and I wanted to take Sydney with me to sign her up and it is difficult to take the kids to the library on a week day. So anyway we picked out books (so many that they would not all fit in our canvas bag) and I went back on Monday during my lunch to officially register Sydney. While picking books I stumbled across a section in the kids area for parents and teachers. The section is educational aids and project books. I found a wonderful book called Carson-Dellosa's Jumbo Alphabet Book. For each letter there are lists of words that begin with the letter (names, objects, careers, opposites), tongue twisters, activities using senses, craft ideas, foods (and recipe to make), songs, finger play books and suggested reading list. I went through the entire book and copied a few things for each letter that I though we would enjoy.

Today we decided to talk about the letter "F". I had Sydney practice writing the letter F and tracing the letter F. Then we decided to do an experiment. The idea in the book was to discuss the concept of floating. So we gathered various items, we each picked a few and a few other supplies and headed outside.

I let Sydney fill two rubber tubs with water from the hose.

Then we took one object at a time from our pile and put then in the water to see if they float.

We picked one tub to be the float tub and one to be the tub for items that sank. As we tried each item I asked Sydney if she thought it would float or sink.

These are some of the items that we tried:

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plastic lady bug

plastic fish

wiffle ball

golf ball

clothespin

plastic bee

small rolling pin

foam letter F

shovel

water flute

It was great fun. It is in the 90's here today so water play is always a good choice.

For lunch we had a few things that started with the letter F and talked about them as we ate. We had tuna fish on pita, a few goldfish, fruit (oranges, raisins and prunes).

Later on we did some finger painting!!

I will share some of the other letter ideas as we go along. We are going in no particular order, I am just looking at the list and deciding which projects would be good for the day.