Week 12 - Letter F

So I completely forgot to post about our Letter F week....from over 2 weeks ago!!  F was a fun week for us...

Our memory verse that week was John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  I was a little skeptical that Jenna would be able to memorize the verse since it's so much longer than our regular verses, but once again, the sponge-like minds of kids this age surprised me!  I think she had it completely memorized after day 3.  Oh to still be able to memorize things that quickly!

Letter F computer game - always a favorite!

Wikki Stix

I just love his smile here!  This time around I gave him an extra letter, but it didn't seem to throw him for a loop.  He still found and correctly placed all the letters.

Jenna's a pro at this

                 

Size sorting

Another great grin.  Jenna was doing her poke page and he wanted to do it also.  So I gave him a thumbtack, explained the correct way to use a thumbtack!, and gave him a blank sheet of paper to poke away.  He really enjoyed it!

Letter F pattern blocks

Fish lacing card

If I remember right, I believe Grant wanted us to have our picture taken...

We decided to make some fudge...however, it was my first time making fudge and I botched it up.  So we never got to even try it!  I guess that just means I'll have to try it again here soon.  :)

Pre-writing

Do-a-dot markers

If I remember right, I think Jenna completed this page all on her own.  Very proud of her for sounding out the pictures and circling the correct ones!

Color puzzles

Fish alphabet lacing

The kids making the letter F with their bodies.

A measuring activity using Goldfish

Jenna even correctly estimated the number of Goldfish needed to measure the length of the blue fish. 

Paint tracing bag - Jenna was looking up at the alphabet on the wall to figure out how to write the F.  Grant looks thrilled, doesn't he?  In his head he's saying, "If I could just open this bag, then I'd REALLY have some fun!"

Patterns

Cinderella joined us for a few activities.  ;) 

Making a capital and lowercase F with her geoboard.  I love her creativity with the lowercase F.  :)

I made these puppets last year as a Christmas gift for Grant, so I pulled them out and we sang, "Old MacDonald had a Farm" while using the puppets. 

We traced Jenna's feet, cut them out, and made the letter F with them.

Letter maze

We had free kid's meal coupons to Frisch's Big Boy restaurant, so we went there for dinner one night.

We also had some Frosty's that week.  Yum!!

Cutting page

Jenna copied the pattern

Capital and lowercase sorting

Letter hunt

Letter writing practice

She surprised me with her coloring page.  I just expected her to quickly color the fish  and maybe the seaweed, so I was surprised when she had also colored the sand and water.  I've noticed she's starting to enjoy coloring more.

We also cut some Food with her Melissa and Doug wood food cutting toy that she got from Aunt Cathy a few years back.  It's still a favorite!

Grant wanted to get in on the action...

But apparently the knife just wasn't cutting it, so he grabbed his saw.  Drew was so proud.  ;)  Haha!

For her ABC book, we crushed some Froot Loops and glued them to the letter F page.

Fish puzzle

Magnet page, but this time we used the decorative marbles.

For the fish graphing pages, I had Jenna use Goldfish to fill in the graph and then she also used the number cards to correctly label the fish. 

Of course, at the end of the week, we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and put up the letter F on our tree.

Jenna's cut and paste page.  It was a lot of cutting, but she did it!  I love how the eyes and fins are off on their own.  ;)

Happy Halloween

 Last Wednesday was Halloween, so we took a break from the letter D and did some fun Halloween activities!

Of course the kids had to wear their Halloween shirts

For snack I popped some popcorn and then sprinkled some orange cheese seasoning on top.  I figured the orange made it a little festive.

B had sent them a Halloween box that had some fun crafts inside.  They each got two wooden pumpkins.  So they used markers to color one of the pumpkins and then painted the other pumpkin.

Very colorful pumpkins!

B also included these fun foam pieces to make their own jack-o-lanterns.  These were all of Jenna's creations.  She did the jack-o-lantern faces all on her own.

And these were Grant's pumpkins.  I helped him make the jack-o-lantern on the right, but then let him do his own on the other two.  :)

B also sent the jack-o-lantern drinks.  They LOVED getting to drink out of something "fun."  I let them have orange juice (again, it goes with the orange theme) and made a jack-o-lantern quesadilla for lunch.

B also sent one of Drew's favorite Halloween books from childhood, Rabbit and Skunk and Spooks by Carla Stevens.  Drew was so excited to see it!  Just skimming through the book brought back great memories for him!  :)  Both the kids really got into the story - very cute!

Then that evening was trick-or-treat.  Beforehand we stopped over at my Grandpa and Grandma Shafer's house so they could see the kids all dressed up. 

My parents came too so they could see all the grandkids.  I have to say that's the cutest little banana and owl I've ever seen! 

Group picture

 Originally I just planned on Jenna wearing one of her princess dress-up outfits and I was going to put together a Mickey Mouse costume for Grant.  Then I kept seeing Minnie costumes at the stores and finally caved and got one for her.  I just couldn't resist! 

So the dress and ears came with Jenna's costume and since it was an unbelievably cold night, she wore the black turtleneck, thick black tights, and black stretch pants overtop (along with her winter coat). 

For Grant's costume, I bought a black headband at the store and made his ears out of black scrap felt (and cardboard).  I didn't have a black shirt for him, but found one of Jenna's old ones that fit him - shh...don't tell anyone it's a girl shirt!  I found the red shorts at Goodwill and bought big white buttons to sew on.  I also bought white gloves at the store and then sewed the three black lines on them using black yarn.  I was baffled on how to make his shoes yellow.  I'm all about inexpensive Halloween costumes so I wasn't about to go out and buy yellow shoes just for this occasion.  Then as I was walking through Walmart one day I saw these very BRIGHT colored adult socks and it dawned on me, I could just use adult yellow socks and put them over his athletic shoes.  Perfect!  It was fun putting together their costumes this year and actually having them go together - not that that's a goal of mine every year, but who can resist Mickey and Minnie Mouse?!  ;)

Minnie and Mickey Mouse ready to go trick-or-treating! 

Time to trick-or-treat!  She was beyond excited this year to go.  We worked very hard on the "trick-or-treat" part and even more importantly, saying "thank you!"

Grant went to a few houses, but when we came back to the house for a quick potty break he began taking off his gloves and coat.  So Drew stayed back with him while I took Jenna out for a little longer.

Afterward I planned on making these Halloween parfaits, although they didn't turn out like the pictures.  They're supposed to be layered with crushed Oreos, vanilla pudding, and orange sprinkles.  Of course in the picture there's like an inch of orange sprinkles, but I figured that's way too much sugar.  So it's not as pretty, but it was still good.

Jenna didn't seem to mind the uneven layers.  ;)  She couldn't even take a break for a quick picture.  Haha!

Now that Halloween's over, we're getting geared up for Thanksgiving.  We're excited to have B, Aunt Cathy, Uncle Brian, and Aunt Natalie all here to celebrate with us in a few weeks!!