B is for.....

Butterfly, Button, Bread, Banana, Builder, Bowl, Beads, Baby & lots lots more!

We started out our letter B focus with our Button decorated Butterflys & then had lots of fun with our Builder & Water Bead small world box.

We had a nice selection of work sheets to  use however Joseph (4) lost interest after he did the baby do-a-dot sheet from a great Baby Pre-School Pack, We also used work sheets from the pre-school printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler. For lots more printables & ideas check out my Work Sheets Pintrest board.

 Here is the banana bread that we made, we had lots of mix that wouldn't fit in my silicone loaf tin so we made some mini ones as well, which were great for the boys lunch box's. I used this Nigela recipe which is fab as it has a button to convert from UK to US measurements. I still haven't got my head around US cup measurements so I'm on the look out for a set of measuring cups so I can try out all the fab recipes I have pinned.

Joseph & I went to a local pet fancy rat show at the weekend (we didn't show our girls, but will at the next one). They had a colouring & a model rat competition for the kids. This was the first time that Joseph had used plasticine, he did find it hard to use at first, however soon got the hang of it. I helped a lot with making his model rat but the colour choice was all his! He decided to call his rat Bertie so we made a letter B for his plate.

Why not check out our letter A activity's.

x Jo x

Water Bead Small World Play

We have moved on from the letter A to letter B, so we decided that it would be fun to get our water Beads out in our sensory box. We 'grew' these beads back in October (before I started bogging) for some halloween sensory play & they have kept in an airtight container since then! If you haven't used water beads yet they are great fun & can be picked up cheaply from e-bay, being designed for flower arrangements. Please be careful with young children as they must not be eaten & could be a choking hazard.

On the first day we played with the beads, we used some things form our kitchen role play area, including Bowls, spoons & cups. I was served many cups of bead tea & bowls of bead soup!

When we got the box back out the next day we went for some small world Building fun, with Bob the Builder (UK TV character) & some other digger toys. This is the first time we have used our digger toys in a small word environment & it went down very well. The diggers were used to move the beads around & put them in & out of the bowls. Daniel (2.5) enjoyed the box so much we have had it out several times since!

Why not take a look at some other things we have played with in our box:

Beach Small World

Arctic Small World

x Jo x

Valentines Toilet Roll Butterflys

Continuing with our letter B activity's, we decided to make some toilet roll butterfly's. We were inspired by several ideas that I had pinned, like this bee, this caterpillar, & this butterfly.

While Joseph (4) was out on an errand with Daddy, Daniel (2.5) painted 2 toilet roll tubes with our red glitter paint. With the first one he left several bits unpainted so I touched these up for him, then on the second one he spent ages making sure it was all covered. Next I cut out 2 sets of heart shaped wings from pink card, I used some scrap paper to make a template, so I could fold it & get a symmetrical shape.

Daniel then used our heart shaped pastry/cookie cutters that we used with our valentines play dough last week, to print heart shapes on to the wings. He was enjoying the painting so much that he also ended up making 2 cards!

The next day we all assembled the butterfly's, we used double sided tape to stick the wings on & made some antennae with a silver pipe cleaner then added some eyes (always a favourite). To decorate, I put out some shiny valentines confetti, and we also added some buttons from my stash to continue the B theme.

Both boys enjoyed making there butterfly's, which (once dry) did several laps around the kitchen before landing among our heart display wall.

x Jo x

Bubble Wrap Hearts & Valentines Playdough

We decided to have a go at the bubble wrap printing that we saw over at Learning 4 Kids, to incorporate B for Bubble (our next letter, for letter A activity's see here), and an activity for Valentines Day.

 They both enjoyed using heart shaped bubble wrap to print, we used red glitter paint & plain red paint & 2 different shaped hearts. We wouldn't use coloured paper again as the boys printing didn't really stand out however the couple I did as an example on white paper looked much more effective.

As our bubble wrap looked nice painted I placed it on a piece of paper (bubble side out) to dry, I would do this again as it stuck to the paper & looked very effective being 3D. Once the paint was dry I cut out the heart shapes to use as a display on our kitchen/diner wall.

Daniel was enjoying the paining so much he used up the last of the paint with a brush, this made a nice dry brush effect. I used this painting along with several other random drawings & paintings sent home from nursery to add to our heart display.

 

Later the same day we decided to continue the Valentines theme & cut some hearts out of play dough. We love play dough & I did used to make a lot of our own however for Josephs 3rd birthday he was given a huge set & we have still only opened half of the pots that came with it & they are still going strong over a year later. For his 4th birthday he asked for the Play-Doh Candy Cyclone (which they both love) It came with a pot of white & a pot of bright pink, which over time has become this cool pink marbled play dough. It was perfect to use our heart cutters with.

 Valentines day isn't as big in here in the UK as it is over in the US. It tends to be just for couples & those looking for love, rather than to show love and appreciation to people you know. However its still nice to do some activity's with the boys, even though they wont be giving gifts & cards to friends etc. I mentioned to daddy about making some cards for Nanny & Grandma & he thought this was very weird! How do you celebrate where you live?

x Jo x