Making of a Masterpiece: Growing Gabe

My husband and I had a conversation a while back about still considering ourselves "new parents." It sounds odd to call yourself a new parent when your child is going on three. But, when it is your first child and your only, every stage is new. Every challenge requires new thought to maneuver through and every joy is insurmountably exciting. So, teaching a 2.5 year old new things is a different ball game for us. Now that I'm off for the summer, I've actually had time to really research different activities and actually do some with him.

I know that he really needs to start learning his letters. Through the use of flash cards and his magnetic letters on the fridge, he has come to recognize some letters but I want him to know his entire alphabet and be able to associate the letters with certain things with which he is familiar. I'd seen letter of the week crafts on Pinterest and decided to go with a set from the blog No Time for Flashcards. You can find all her letter of the week curriculum HERE. I'm not doing it all. I decided to pick and choose one craft that he would be most likely to associate with that letter because he's familiar with it. She has 2 or 3 crafts for each letter from which to choose. I also wasn't going to print out all her pages so I copied and pasted each photo of the finished craft into Word and then typed next to it what materials I would need and then made an ultimate list from that.

My super sensitive self started to come out on Monday when at first he didn't seem at all interested. Like, I seriously almost started to cry. I know - I have issues. Why a two year old's disinterest would have so much power over me is beyond my comprehension. Anyway, he ended up getting really into it. We did "A is for Alligator" since he is very familiar with alligators. It was super simple and he had fun coloring and gluing. Then he was so excited about the finished product that we had to go outside and show daddy. I'm only doing one letter a week and while we will continue to address the other letters during that week, we focus a bit more on that week's letter in a number of ways. He can also pick out the letter 'A' from his hodgepodge of magnetic letters on the fridge. I'll admit - I'm one proud mama that he can do that!

Here are a few pictures of our exciting "A is for Alligator" craft! I will continue to post as we complete more crafts and keep you updated on how he is doing learning his letters!

Here are the supplies we needed (not the pipe cleaners or pom poms but there were googly eyes in that package that were vital to this operation). I bought toddler scissors and really do plan on letting him learn with those but I shoved my big adult hands in there and used them myself...more difficult than you might think.