b is for...

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this week it is all about the letter b around thebelfry. elfling thinks it is by far the most fabulous of letters as his name begins with b. you did not really think i had named my children thehobbit & elfling, did you? that would have been fabulous, but alas, no.

in addition to displaying recent art & other bits of fabulousity (real word), we have taken to hanging our letter-of-the-week images on our art wall. i have been poking about pinterest, in search of images that do not make me cringe, & printing them. (i do not own these images, so please, if you do, or know who does, let me know. i want to give proper credit.)

in case you were wondering, b is for (in order): the burrow, broomsticks, barbers/baby/bubbles/bee, & booksellers.

oh! i missed one.

& bow ties. bow ties are cool. 

~peace.

skoo is coo

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belfrys big & small are having the most fun with the many activities i have been putting together for elfling's skoo, as he calls it. rather than bombard you with post after post of toddler homeschooling activities, i thought i would bombard you with one post of gihugic (real word) proportions.

here, without further ado, is what we have been playing with around ye olde belfrye:

the busy bucket that i chatted about a few weeks back has been swapped of it's hallowe'en theme, & replaced with the above. the left basket holds the scooping set, with the velcro sticks activity in the right.

the wee wooden scoop was purchased last weekend at the japanese $2 store. it is the perfect shape & size for tiny hands to scoop. you can find tiny scoops in restaurant supply stores, & shops like world market, though i cannot vouch for the same low price.

the felt buttons were also found at the japanese store. real buttons would work equally well for the scooping activity, but it seemed easier to me to buy these than  to try to get past the family of trolls currently inhabiting my mess of a studio search for my buttons.

another japanese store find (all in the same trip, do not think (like a certain manlyman does) that i live there) were these pom-poms. i do not care for them myself, but elfling saw the pom-poms & asked if they belong to tinker bell, so i knew i needed to buy a box.

thus far he has: raked them, sorted them by color, counted them, & transferred them with his chopsticks. that is a wicker cornucopia they are filling, in case you were wondering. so much for my pretty autumnal table display.

a closer look at the ugly little things.

if you are following the letter of the week, it is currently o. or it was when i wrote this. i think by now the letter has changed. le sigh. i am a wee bit confused, & most likely in need of some sort of warm boozey drink. anyway...

elfling used the do-a-dots to decorate his o. here is the link to the entire alphabet, if you are inclined to join the fun.

another o activity elfling has been enjoying is this o-road (idea from here. please ignore that her o is much more o-shaped than mine. i could not find the good paper scissors.) i used black card stock, & a silver marker. apparently others do this with the entire alphabet. i am much too lazy, so will probably revisit this only a few times. with the easy letters.

my favorite o this week has been this one:

elfling & i decorated o for obama when we had the do-a-dots out. yes, i did help with the dotting, & yes, if you don't press hard enough you end up with many boobies instead of dots. we have a hand-print boobie tree hanging too, if you're interested.

the last of today's bombardment is our book bucket. this sits on elfling's wee table, & the books get rotated by theme. i try to choose themes by things going on in our lives, saving random themes for the in-betweens. currently we have one such random theme: colors.

he likes to open all of the books to the same color, then chat with us about the pictures. it does frustrate him that a few of the books have more colors than the others, but that's ok. here are the books pictured:

* angelina ballerina's colors
* andy warhol's colors
* richard scarry's color book (could not find the exact copy we have, sorry.)
* van gogh's world of colour
* my  many colored days

2,3, & 4 were given to us by beloved aunties, with the other two coming from the used book shop.

i hope you have enjoyed seeing all of the fun activities we have been up to. when i say we, i mean it. the entire family has had fun helping elfling play at skoo. because skoo is coo.

he asked me to take another photograph of him making shapes with the velcro sticks.

he then asked if i would take a photo of him winking. i love my odd little elfling.

~peace.

p is for pumpkin

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elfling has officially entered the world of homeschooling. as he is only three, mostly this means that when thehobbit is working on a project that requires his wee brother not run about screaming like a banshee, elfling sits down with his own activity.

for this to last longer than 30 seconds the activity needs to be something elfling does not get to do at other times. & that brings me to today's babble: the letter of the week.

you know how it goes - each week a letter of the alphabet is chosen to be featured, & all week activities are done that focus on that letter. i did this with thehobbit when he was teensy, & he still recalls it fondly. of course, back then we were dirt poor, so this involved a great amount of me drawing pictures for him to color.

happily, whilst i am on a tight budget, i am no longer dirt poor. unhappily, elfling doesn't do much coloring, so i shall have to get vastly more creative.

what you see in these photos was the making of the letter feature frame. i got the idea from this pin. i had it in my head to use a fancy frame that was used in my biz, insert a sheet of metal, & buy a few sets of the cheapie alphabet magnets. my thought was that he would enjoy digging through a bin to search for a bunch of the same letter. i still do think that, but a certain manlyman has asked me to hold off on purchases right now, which meant that i had to use what i had on hand. spoil sport.

the first photo shows what i did, but in case you have had a bit much to drink today: i took apart a small frame, & used the glass to trace the shape onto watercolor paper. after cutting out 13 of the rectangles, i stuck a letter onto each (both sides). i waffled over whether to use the glass or not, but in the end decided to give it a try. my instinct tells me that elfling will not be able to resist peeling the letters once he realizes he has easy access to them. we shall see!

a mint tin was the perfect size in which to store the letters waiting for their turn at being featured.

first up? the letter p! because, p is for pumpkin, of course.

a very happy hallowe'en to you - blessed be.

~peace.