ABC Book - letter B

We have started making an ABC book.

I had this idea of creating a couple of lapbook-type pages of activities for each letter. We did B first. This was actually done a few weeks ago, but I waited to blog about it because I wanted to make all the activities available to print if you would like to use them too!

I'll give you the links to the .pdf files as I go through the page elements. Just click on the the picture of each activity (this does not include the letter craft picture) and you will be taken to the download page.

I hope this is as fun for you as it has been for us! Please use them for whatever you like; you don't have to make an ABC book like ours if you don't want to, but you could use them to make your own lap books or just for tot school activities. If you do, let me know, I'd love to see what you've done!


First, we did our letter craft, and glued buttons onto our Bb's. The templates for these are found here.


Here's a shot of the following activity pages:


The first pocket on the upper left is "Things that Start with B". We looked through these and named each one making sure to hear the /b/ sound at the beginning. (I also used some of the printables found here.)


Next we had the "Color the Bulldozers" pocket. M enjoyed this the most. I had each one labeled with a color to use, and the print was in that color (ex. red). M was able to see which color to use and did it all on his own. He was very proud (so was Mommy). The next time I will laminate these and let him use his window markers to color them. That way we can clean them off and he can color them over and over.
Next up is "counting baby birds":

And finally, "baseball size sorting":

{All of the pages are cardstock and here's a little tip:
*Place clear packaging tape along the side of the pages (fold it over so half of the strip of tape is on the front and half is on the back) before punching holes in it; this will make the pages much stronger and you won't have to worry about it tearing out of your 3-ring binder.*}

These activities were a fun way to practice other skills (colors, sizes, counting, etc.) while talking about the letter B and it's sound. It was a lot of fun! Letter F is up next!

Have a Beautiful day! :)

Art Time - Masking Tape Resist Painting

There's been a lot of this painting technique going on at other blogs and it's something I've been wanting to do with M for a while now. I really want to make his initial with it, but wanted to start off with a project where he just learns the basic technique.

He loves masking tape lately, we are finding small pieces of it all over our house, so I knew this would be a hit. :)

We used the shiny side of freezer paper to paint on. I knew the masking tape would peel off of this pretty easily. I'm wondering about using it on wax paper the same way. I bet the finished piece of art would look pretty hanging in a window!

First, it's always a good idea to tape the paper to the work surface. It just makes any kind of art so much easier for little hands. Then tear off several pieces of masking tape and stick them where your child will be able to get at them easily.

Explain how to put the tape on the paper in any design they want, or just randomly. At first M wanted to put the tape on the edge of the paper, as if he were taping the paper down. I had to show him that I wanted him to put the tape in the middle of the paper.

Next - paint, paint, paint! Let them do this as long as they want, and ask them to try to cover the entire piece of paper. M was very proud of himself when he got every little inch covered in paint.

Let it dry.

Then have them pull the pieces of tape off. You will probably have to start each piece for them. Hold the page up to the light if you are wondering if you've got them all. You'll be able to see the tape outlined if there is any left. It's a neat surprise for the child to realize what they've done, that they kept some of the page white by putting the tape on before painting.

The finished artwork:

It's beautiful to do with watercolors on watercolor paper, but we used regular tempera paints today. There's a lot of variety with this technique - you can use shapes cut from contact paper, or color with a white crayon and make a "mystery design".

Have fun! And have a beautiful day! :)