Rr is for...

Sam is 41 months and Ray is 21 months.

This week we worked on letter R. I completely have slacked in taking any pictures this week of our activities so, here is a (boring) list of what we did (scroll to the end for a recipe if you want!). Apparently, I slacked in the creativity department (except for this) too because it is basically a list of links to other things....

Do a Dot Markers (are you catching on to how much Sam loves these?!) on a Racecar, Rock, and Rainbow pages from Make Learning Fun (they are actually magnet pages but work well with the markers too). With the rainbow page I wrote numbers on the circles and then made a key with a colored dot next to each number creating a color by number activity.

We practiced writing the letter R with playdough, cars, Leapfrog Scribble and Write (we really love this toy and I need to write a separate post about it telling you how great it is) and on paper.

We read a poem about Robins in the March edition of "High Five" (Highlights magazine for pre-K).

At preschool, Sam read "The Rainbow Fish", made a rainbow fish magnet, and ate rainbow goldfish crackers!

We went to hobby lobby last night and Sam picked out (and paid for) a $0.50 wooden rabbit ornament to paint. We are going to do that tomorrow.

We followed a recipe to make playdough. I love this recipe and I'm sorry to say I don't have an original source for it because I have been carrying it around for about 10 years! It love it because it's easy, cheap and integrates the sense of smell. I had planned on making red but Sam requested yellow so we used lemonade Kool-aid and I had to add a bunch of yellow food coloring (the other colors/flavors you don't have to add food coloring). Here's the recipe:

Kool Aid Playdough

2 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cups Salt
2 packages of (unsweetened) Kool Aid
2 Cups of Boiling Water
3 Tablespoons of Vegetable Oil

Combine all ingredients and mix together. I use my dough hook on my stand mixer because I'm lazy but you can do it by hand too. Let it cool down a little bit (throw the bowl in the freezer for a few minutes) and play! Store in a ziplock bag or airtight container in the fridge for several months (we've kept it as long as 6 months!). This recipe makes enough dough that as a family of four we each have more than enough to play with.

There has to be a million different things to do with playdough. Leave a comment with your favorite things to do and we'll see how many we can come up with! I'll start:

1. Make snakes
2. Scissor/cutting practice
3. Shape letters, numbers
4. Cookie Cutters
5. Fossil Imprints
6. Eat it (that is one of Ray's favorite things to do...)
7. Smashing (Sam says that's his favorite.)

Share ideas at Tot School.