The Letter A

Last week was 'A' week.  I was really excited about starting alphabet activities with Aria.  Strangely enough, a lot of my ideas revolved around food, but that isn't all we did.  I really didn't do a ton of activities.  I just planned a few 'A' meals, pointed out things that started with 'A' and put them up on her closet.  Aria was excited about it and I think she now recognizes little 'a' much better.  Here is what we did:

Our first activity was to cut out a big 'A' and little 'a' and put them up on her closet door.  Aria colored them a little bit.  We also talked about what 'A' says.

We made a picture collage on the computer of people Aria knows whose names start with 'A.'  Our list included, Aria, Augie, Abby Cadaby, Annabelle, Andrew, Ashlynn, and Ashley.  We know a few more people with 'A' names, but those are the ones Aria is most familiar with and actually calls them by their name instead of so-in-so's mommy or daddy.  We hung that collage on her closet.

We colored pictures of an ape (which it was hard to get her to not say monkey), astronaut, apple, apricot, aardvark, alligator, and ant.  Also went on the closet.

We tried some new foods that start with 'A.'  We had:

•  Lemon-Apricot chicken, (she didn't like it)
• almonds (loved them)
• green bean amadine (wouldn't try it)
• apricot jelly on toast (ate an entire piece and then declared she didn't like it)
• ants on an apple (ate the peanut butter and raisins, didn't eat the apple)
• apple bars (dessert--of course she loved it)
• apple juice (took a lot of convincing to get her to try it and then she spit it out)
• animal crackers (a regular favorite)
• angel hair pasta in alfredo sauce (she loves pretty much any pasta)

We also made grilled cheese sandwiches a little more fun:

I allowed playing with her food because it was so cool to see her zoom the airplane around in the air.  We then made a paper airplane because flying food all week isn't a good idea.

We read about Adam and Abraham in My First Story Bible, but I don't think the stories resonated with her that much.  She understood their names started with 'A' and she had fun talking about all the things God made, including Adam, but I don't think she really remembered the stories.

So, I found a coloring page of an angel and we put glue, glitter, and angel hair on it.  We talked about how the angels came to tell about Jesus' birth.  I think she got that a little bit more.  She told Justin the angel told about baby Jesus.

We also read, Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie by Herman Parish and My "a" Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure.

And, totally by random chance, yet perfect opportunity, we had been trying to arrange a time to meet with our pastor.  We invited him, his wife, and his daughter, baby 'A'nnabelle over for dinner during 'A' week.  It was fun to tell Aria we were having Annabelle over during 'A' week.  Plus, she loves babies.

Overall, it was a lot of fun to have a little bit of focus in our lives and to see Aria remember some of the 'A' things we focused on.  We are already full swing into 'B' week and I'll report on that later!