Miscellaneous Letter B Activities

These are some of the other activities that we worked on during letter Bb week.

Bb Bottle Caps

I have a round hole punch that is the same size as a bottle cap (how convenient is that?).  I punched several circles from blue cardstock.  I put one circle inside each bottle cap.  Inside five of the caps, I put a letter B sticker and inside the other five, I put a letter b sticker.  Arin and I used these bottle caps to play tic-tac-toe.  I drew a tic-tac-toe board on a small bag.  The bag doubles as the playing board and the storage container.  Arin loves tic-tac-toe, so she really enjoyed this.

Ella is too little to play tic-tac-toe, but she isn't too little to think that she needs to be included in everything that Arin does, so we gave her all of the bottle caps and let her put them in two piles, the B or b pile.

Balancing Butterflies
The girls loved the magic of this activity.  First, they painted the butterflies and I cut them out.  Then the magic was added (pennies to the underside of the butterfly). 

The girls loved that these paper butterflies could balance on their fingers, shoulders, corner of the table, etc.  You can find the template/instructions for making these butterflies here.  We printed our butterflies on cardstock.

Bottle Bowling
We've been working on colors with Ella and reintroducing color mixing with Arin.  This is such a simple game to make, and so much fun to play.  We also did this same activity with Arin when she was little.  We filled bottles with water and the girls colored the water with food coloring.  We let Ella make the red, yellow, and blue bottles and Arin made the bottles that required color mixing (purple (which didn't come out that great), green, and orange).  Then we began the fun of bowling!  To go along with our color lesson, we read All About Color by Irene Yates.

Letter Hunt
We did this activity during the letter Aa week also.  It is a quick activity that Arin seems to enjoy, so we'll most likely continue it for each letter.  You can print this worksheet for this site.

Letter Bb Tracer
Prior to this letter of the week curriculum, we had not practiced writing too much, so I like to include a trace and write page for each letter.  The letter Bb worksheet can be found here.

How Many Birds?
Sticking with our bird theme, I made a few other learning games that featured pictures of birds.  Using Microsoft Word and Microsoft Clip Art, I created a game to help Arin review counting and number regognition of the numbers 10-20.  Each piece of cardstock had a certain number of birds on it.  She had to count them and then find the correct numbered clothespin to attach to the cardstock.  She needed a little help with the 13 and the 15, but otherwise she did great with this activity.

Sight Words

Again, sticking with our bird theme, we used birds in our sight word game.  I printed the sight words starting with the letters a and b on card stock (one word per card) and I also printed several pictures of birds (one per card).  I placed all of the cards face down in front of Arin.  She drew a card.  If it was a sight word, she did her best to read the card (lots of practice still needed here).  If she correctly read the word, she kept it.  If she did not know the word, it went back into the pile face-down.  If she drew a bird card, then she would stand up and "fly" around the room as if she were a bird.  This game was a huge hit!!!!  Reading the words wasn't too much fun, but drawing the bird cards and flying was a blast (even for Ella!).  If you were playing with multiple players, the one with the most bird cards at the end of the game would be the winner.  We played a game similiar to this when Arin was little.

Bird Addition
I made Arin a set of bird addition memory cards.  Again, using Microsoft Word and Microsoft clip art I made these cards.  First, I printed the front side of the card.  I printed 3+0 through 3+7 on cards.  Arin still counts on her fingers, so I wanted to make sure the sum was not more than 10.  On the back side of the cards I printed one of two types of birds: red birds on the backs of the problem cards and blue birds on the backs of the answer cards.  I placed them all face down in front of Arin.  Then, she would flip one of each type of card over.  If it was the correct answer, she'd keep the cards, otherwise she'd flip the cards both back over and try again (basic memory game rules).

Spooning Beads
The girls quietly entertained themselves by spooning brown beads from a bowl into a blue muffin tin.

Homemaking Skills
For Arin's homemaking skills this week, she helped make butter.  She also learned how to sew a button.  We started with a two-hole button and will move to a four-hole one sometime in the future.

Brilliant Idea
While out and about during Bb week, we saw a brilliant idea: a playground covered by a sunshade.  Bravo to the brains behind that idea!

Physical Fitness
Balancing (which wasn't too hard to do on this wide balance beam!)

Bike Riding

Bowling

Family Time
We went to the girls' cousin's backyard birthday party,which was a blast!

Just for Fun
We ended our letter Bb week by watching the movie BOLT (Arin loved this movie) and going to Bruster's Ice Cream.  They give the kids a free ice cream cone, so this place is always a hit with the family!

Additional Books We Read
I have already listed some of the books that we read during Bb week on other posts.  Here are the ones that I have not previously mentioned.

The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco (we also read this one a few months ago and Arin enjoyed it then and now)
Wild About Books by Judy Sierra (most request "just for fun" book this week)
Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens
Button, Bucket, Sky by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Beautiful Bananas by Elizabeth Laird
Bunny, Bunny by Kristen Hall
The Best Book to Read by Debbie Bertram & Susan Bloom
The Big Balloon Race by Eleanor Coerr
The Sleepy Little Alphabet by Judy Sierra (this is the book that Ella most often browsed on her own)