Bee Mine... Bumble Bee Valentine Day Fun!

Bumble Bees, Writing Practice, Paint Hearts, and Pinto Bean Math

Here it is.....! MJ's sweet little bumble bee. I had already decided to that everyone in the family would do a Valentine's Day bee.

This craft was very simple. We took stuff that we already had and used them! 

What we needed:

Toilet paper roll

Craft sticks

Permeant marker 

Googly eyes

Felt for wings and nose

Glitter

Glue (I like to use a hot glue gun)

Yellow and Black construction paper

At this point my every-so-sweet 2 year old is up now. He destroyed all of the piles and what I was doing and even lost one of my googly eyes. This mad one irritated Mama! It was so much fun because he was whining and wanting to do a bumble bee too, and MJ was wondering what he could do next! So I pulled out the paint and let them paint! JD did it later and I wasn't able to get photos of him but they each made enough to send to both set of grandparents and to decorate the house with! All it took was me grabbing a bunch of typing paper and drew some large hearts on the pictures, I finished up doing my bee and work on JD work on his. Dada did his once he go home for dinner.

Now I can't remember when this happened but I am sure it was well little man was sleeping. MJ loves to tell people about our puppy! So I figure why not let him write about it! He was very proud of this when he was all done.  Then I tried to do replicate from what I remember about school and did repeat the a few of words individually.

I got this idea from Webster's Early Learning Center's Math Night about 3 years ago, when we went to go with my BBF's son. I wrote the number of beans that go in each slot and then grabbed a heaping pile of pinto beans. Then I gave him directions and that was that. Next he had to ignore the numbers and count by twos. JD even enjoyed to do this.

I really like the February/Valentine's Day mantle.

The Letter L Day 2

So now that we now that the letter L has only two lines we decided to make the letter out of popsicle sticks! Long line down and little line across bottom. 

We started with the letter then we had traced it and connected the dots. Towards the end he was confidant enough to do it on his own. We also thought of lots of fun things that start with the Letter L. 

I also decided draw a heart and put inside of the heart a verse from the bible. I use a word such as LOVE and the Letter L with a connect the dots and had everything else spelled out. Malachi then wanted to trace the heart. I had written LOVE and four little heart stickers and was going to have my son tell me the verses that have love in them. He did a great job! He would put down a sticker and then I would ask him what the verse was and then he would tell me.

Now after this project my son, Josiah woke up from his nap, so I decided to distract him with coloring page while Malachi and I finished this project. You can probably tell that Josiah flew threw that coloring book as fast as he could and then was sitting right next to his brother! Luckily this time we were a little more rested and not as grumpy the other post on the letter L. On this project we had some stickers and a leaf. First I drew a Letter L on the paper with a block letter. Now I had ____adybug,  _____eaf, ____ion, _____amb and then I had my son write L in the blank spot. Then I would give him the sticker of the item he had just had written. I plucked a silk flower leaf and both the boys helped tape it on the paper. Malachi was willing to share with his brother and nothing makes a Mama happier then seeing them work together and encouraging each other by saying, "Good job brother!" or "Nice work!" instead of whining with words like "mine" and other silliness. Also Josiah had to have "Pa Grape" from the Veggie Tales "the Pirate's Who Don't Do Anything" in his hand or close by him at all times!

Sure do love my boys even when they aren't happy when I take their picture's, but especially when they really want me to take them!

The of the week Letter "L"

Day 1

Ya know how they say practice makes perfect? Well it is so true with little guys! I feel so horrible because it snowed and I have been too grouchy or "too busy" to do school with Malachi. He loves to learn but he forgot how to write his name. Yikes! I am unsure if he simply forgot how to write his name or if he was simply not able to concentrate.  Sometimes obviously people just don't like to listen, so it could be that too.  So know we have to try to get on a better schedule of me working with him with his numbers shapes and letters. 

To start with the letter L, the first thing that we did was to write in a coloring book for pre-k that I purchased at Wal-Mart was began with capital L. Then a few days later we did this project together!

Before I told Malachi to sit for this project I had a peace of paper that I drew the letter L and then wrote at the bottom... Name:______________

Next I pulled off some silk flowers leaves, had some lady bug stickers that were given to us and some sweet leopard skin border self adhesive tape for scrapbooking that my lovely sister in law gave to me.  (I think she got at at hobby lobby) You can do what ever you want! I already had the stickers and and leaves so why spend money on something if you already have it.

I had some issues getting the self adhesive and the backing to come off but eventually I was able to do so and had my son put down the outside of the letter.

Next I did this part on my own. I had a hot glue gun and then put the leaves on the paper. MJ calls the hot glue gun the gunner glue hot, super cute! There are only a few things he doesn't say correctly and I am okay with that. Especially how he says the color yellow.... lellow... it makes me HAPPY!

We have been working on following directions and I ask MJ to please choose 4 lady bug stickers and put one on each leaf. I was really impressed, he did a great job of listening and finishing the project.

And then came his breakdown of learning the hard way that practice makes perfect. He was able to write an M but that was it. He had been super excited because he learned how to write his name and he was doing it every time were outside with sidewalk chalk and on every piece of paper that he could find. Now that I think about it.... It might not be my fault or the mixture of not writing in so long on paper or the fact that I had made a Name:______________________ area which he has never had to write his name so small before on. I guess I will never know. Oh well.  So from that point on I told him it was fine and I would help him by giving him his name spelled out with dot to dot for each letter. Much better!

 Now for a bit of comic relief at least for me. Both boys were up and that has been another reason why we haven't done "school" One boy is going to be 4 in August and the other 2 in May. My sweet little 23 month old loves to take what ever the 3 1/2 year old is doing and destroy it.... then the 3 1/2 screams and starts to bang on the ground, chair, bed, himself or wherever.

So I thought.... that I could give Josiah a piece of paper and his name on it and let him go to town on it while Malachi and I would be working on "L."

 You would think that he would be super proud of this and want his picture taken but NO instead he had a epic melt down!

 Malachi was finishing the letter L and now really wanted to color just like his baby brother... ?

 After he was done the brothers went on to the marble set that C and J gave to them before their big move. So thankful for that because the could play with that for hours and then put it away for 30 minutes and then be ready to build again and again!

Here is the final product!

The Letter "H"

So I have been working with my son MJ (3) on his writing letters and so on... Here is some of the stuff we did for the letter "H"
We started with the letter "H" because we were going over his Cubbie (AWANA ministry) book trying to achieve the Apple Tree sticker and there was a little Project that you could do to help you remember the verses and they were chain HEARTS. So then I got way ambitious and thought that we could make some for the other Cubbies  (AWANA age 3-5) seeing how it was January we would have time for V-Day.

So the chain hearts are easy to do. You fold a piece of paper into a fan and then make a cut out of a heart half.

Once you finish the  folding the paper all the way then you simply cut a heart shape out but you only have to cut the large curve and the angle.

Then unfold it and you can add what ever you would like. My son loves to put the first verse that he learned on it " 1 John 4:8 God is love".  We added some stickers on them and a colored on them and made an awesome memory and project that he helped with.

We had fun sending them to our cousins and Grandparents! This is one of them that we sent on to some of the family Of course it is a different verse than I had mention.

So then we started to talk about other things that begin with a "H." We then complied a this of things that began with "H" such as hat, hair, head, happy, hazel, heart and hippopotamus. So then I made a quick scrabble to the craft area and pulled out a bunch of things that we could do to make stuff with the letter "H." We grabbed some popsicle sticks, felt, sharpie, yarn, and paper with handwriting paper.

We then made the letter "H" with popsicle sticks. 

I then wanted to describe to my son with word actions of how to create the capital letter H.

Big line down. Big line down. Little line across. 

He really seems to understand those terms. For his first attempt at drawing the letter H he did a very impressive job.

Then we drew a head I tried to make a face shape with a sharpie on the and got some glue and glued some hair to it. 

He was super pumped about the one on one time with his momma since his brother was napping and he also really likes to learn so this was right up his alley.

I think we will do a letter of the week for a little bit and  continue to work on his verses for Awana together.