Teach Me Tuesday: Playdoh Letters

The few learning activities that I've shared have been so well received that I decided to make sharing them a regular feature. I'll try my best to stick to this schedule: Tuesdays will be for literacy activities and Thursday will be for math skills.

I know all of you are doing activities at home with your children too and I would love for this to become an opportunity for us all to share learning experiences, regardless of the age of the child. Starting next week I'm going to put up Mr. Linky so we can all share. I thought if I let you know today then maybe by next week some of you will be ready to go☺

I think this will be a lot of fun, I hope to learn some new tricks and tips, and I'd love for you to all participate! My friend Katie over at A Listmaker's Life is also posting and is even helping me out with a cool graphic, isn't she the nicest! She's got an a letter activity posted today too, so visit her for another great learning idea.

Prewriting Practice: Playdoh Letters

Learning Objective: Child will form letters out of playdoh, engaging fine motor skills, practice beginning letter printing, and early letter awareness.

Materials: Playdoh, cardstock with large letters printed on them (laminate for durability)

Procedure:

Sing the alphabet with child, holding up the corresponding letter card as each letter is being sung or read an alphabet book to get the child engaged in the concept of the alphabet.

Explain that you are going to be working on building letters together.

Show child how to make ropes out of playdoh, I still have to assist my daughter with this step.

Build each letter out of play doh ropes, saying each letter and words that begin with that letter as you work. Assist or discuss with your child as needed.

Child can complete as many letter cards as their age and attention span allows for. In kindergarten students could easily do all the letters, in toddler land maybe three or four get done at a time. As you can see from the picture, she's also into smushing the play doh lines down.

Extension Activities: Try to vary the ways in which your child practices learning letters.

For writing practice have your child: write them with their finger in a salt tray, use a dry erase board, small chalkboard, magna doodle, or lite bright. Alternate making the letters out of play doh with making them with bingo daubers. To use daubers, write the letter on a sheet of paper and have your child use the daubers to make circles along the lines. You could also form the letters out of dough, bake, and then literally eat the alphabet. These variations will make the activity fresh and new and help keep their interest in practicing a skill that can be quite challenging.

Recipe Round Up - Start with a Rotisserie Chicken

Some of you may remember that learning new recipes and how to cook is one of our resolutions for this year. We noticed we were eating out way too much, and all that saturated fat was going right to my stomach. We also want to teach our daughter good eating habits and not just how to ask for fries with her happy meal. Cooking is really challenging for us, we've been making the same few stand bys over and over and over...hence the tendancy to just avoid it all and eat out. Thank you to everyone who responded to my begging and sent us something new to try!

Here are two simple and quick recipes that both start with a rotisserie chicken so they are good after a long day at work. We were able to make two recipes with one chicken because there's only the two of us and ER, who doesn't eat a lot at one time. With recipes like this we may not have to resort to the drive through for dinner.

Hoisin Chicken Lettuce Wraps

Anna over at k e household gave us this fun recipe for Hoisin Chicken Lettuce Wraps. She's one of my blogging buddies who's blog I enjoy reading because we're going through a lot of the same things as our little girls are both about the same age. I enjoy seeing little snippets into her life and getting her opinion on things. It's fun to see that even though we live in different countries, albeit neighboring ones, toddlers do, say, and are interested in the same things. I love how blogging breaks down the distance barriers and has introduced me to wonderful women I'd never have met otherwise.

I was really looking forward to trying this one because I love getting lettuce wraps out as an appetizer. The ones at PF Changs are especially good. Unfortunately we didn't have any dry steam friend noodles this time, but they tasted great even without them. Next time I'm going to go to the bigger grocery store instead of the smaller one just across the street from our subdivision. We needed a quick meal and didn't have time to make multiple stops to get all the ingredients today.

I love that this can start with a rotisserie chicken and cut out a whole step. Plus Anna was right our little one will eat the various components so we only have to make one meal. Ours really liked the carrots and chicken. I can't wait to see what she makes of the noodles, as they're a type we haven't made at home before.

Chicken Cobb Salad

The second recipe we made with the other half of the rotisserie chicken was a cobb salad from my Everyday Food cookbook, page 36 if you have it and also on Martha Stewart's site here. That version is made with turkey, but we used our leftover chicken and it came out great. I really like this recipe because of the simple dressing. It's very light and tasty; normally I do not like Dijon mustard but this is a winner. I used to eat cobb salad's with Ranch dressing so this is a lot healthier. Hey even baby steps to a healthier eating count, right?

Question: Does any one have kiddos that will eat lettuce? Our won't touch it and won't eat the rest of her food, even if she want it, if lettuce is even on her plate!

These recipes and many more tips and meal plans are part of the following weekly blog linky parties!

Kitchen Tip Tuesday at Tammy's Recipes

Tasty Tuesday at Forever Wherever

Tempt My Tummy Tuesday at Blessed with Grace

Tackle it Tuesday at Five Minutes for Mom

Felt Heart Necklace & Bobby Pin Hair Ribbons

In my typical fashion I procrastinated too long to make the wooden disc pendants I had planned to make as one of the prizes for tomorrow's Valentine play date. Even though I'd known about it for weeks, every night I'd think oh I should really start those, because the process takes a few days. But no, I never did. So yesterday I was scrambling thinking what am I going to make?

Then I saw a tutorial for cute Valentine pins on The Purl Bee. I really liked them, but ER really isn't ready for a pin yet. Plus I already had the jump rings and premade string necklaces I'd bought at 40% from Joann's. These felt heart pendant necklaces are what I came up with. I think they're super sweet and that the girls will love them. To start I used my Sizzix Sidekick and a little heart wafter thin die cut to make enough felt hearts for three pendants. The die cuts are meant for paper and not fabric but running the felt through the machine leaves a clear imprint and makes it easy to cut out perfect hearts. The Purl Bee provides a heart template on her tutorial, so if you want a similar heart check there.Holding two of the felt hearts, use three stands of embroidery thread and a running stitch to sew together. About half way through, push the metal flower brad through the heart that will be on the front side of the pendant. Bend the prongs back to secure it in place. If this is for a young child, skip this step and backstitch the child's first initial onto the front heart before begining.Continue using a running stitch around the entire heart, as you get to the end stuff a little fiberfill into the heart to give it some dimention, it also makes the pendant a whole lot cuter! Finish stitching around the heart. At last stitch bring needle up to in between the pieces of felt, knot end of thread to secure. This hides the end knot. When finished knotting, continue to pull the needle between the layers of felt. Bring it up in the middle of the back side of the heart. Pull taunt and hold.
Continue to hold thread firmly; clip the end as close to the felt as possible. Release thread so the end slides back underneath the felt. This is called burying tails.
If you want, use a mini rub-on letter to add the recipient's first initial, these rub-ons are from my favorite scrapbook supply company Doodlebug Designs, to the front of the metal flower brad. Attach a jump ring. I do not have jewelry making tools, nor do I know how to make jewelery. I just used my fingers to pry the ring apart and then pushed it back together to close up the ring. I used a thick needle to poke a hole through the layers of felt to help me attach the jump ring. Then put it on a premade string necklace, this comes complete with metal clasp already attached and ER can slip it on and off by herself when it's in the largest setting.
I also made a set of hair ribbons on bobby pins using One Crafty Mumma's tutorial. The ribbon is a thinner version of the ribbon I used for the felt cuffs. You might remember I also used her tutorial for a felt needleholder. My mom liked mine so much, I also made her one.
I packaged the whole thing up in these little bags I made using patterned scrapbook paper and a Tempting Template from Stampington's Company's Stamper Sampler magazine. It's based on an Ellison gift box die cut, the template can be found here. There are several free unique templates available there.