Alphabet Pretzels!

Some of you may remember our Valentine Pretzels from last year.(Find the original post HERE) This week we decided to make them again but this time we skipped the hearts & made the pretzels into letters! It was so fun for the girls & educational at the same time. Both M1 & M2 enjoyed rolling out the dough into long "hot dogs...."

But then the real fun came when we began making them into the actual letters. M1 did a great job making an "M" and a "B" (Which is the first letter of our last name.) She had a few other favorites as well...S, O, L, I, etc. And even though M2 is a bit small to be creating actual letters, she was a pro with creating letter o's!

Delicious as usual. You can visit the original post for the recipe or find it here @ Food Network. We especially like to dip these in our family's favorite Chive Dip. It's so easy to make & one of the best recipes my Grandma has ever given me.

Chive Dip

1 - 8 oz pkg cream cheese

1/4 tsp. garlic salt

1/4 tsp. onion powder

1/4 c. dried chives (in the summer we use fresh chives....much better)

2-4 Tbsp Milk, added one at a time (enough to make it a creamy dip)

Mix all ingredients with a mixer until combined & smooth.

It's a staple at any family gathering & usually served on crackers, but it sure tastes good with these soft pretzels as well. We froze the leftovers in a large ziploc freezer bag. They are easy to just pop in the microwave for a few seconds & have for a quick snack.

Enjoy! s.b.

Faded Alphabet

Finally the rain has stopped...we've had so very few sunny days in the past three weeks. It's definitely nice to see the sun! Hopefully the slow down with the rain also keeps the building of our house moving along.

Here's what we crafted yesterday. Perfect for a cloud-free day!

Supplies- *Black construction paper, *Alphabet magnets, *Tape..not glue!, *Scissors optional in case your little one wants to cut out the letters.

1. Head outside & find a flat place to set the black piece of paper. (We used the patio table.)

2. Use two small pieces of tape to fasten the paper to the surface so it doesn't blow away.

3. Assist your little one in placing the letters right side up all over the paper.

4. Now is the long part. Let the letters sit untouched in the warm sun for at least an hour. (We let ours sit for a few hours. It may depend on how strong the sun is & the time of day.)

5. After the paper has faded, go ahead & let your little one discover the letters on the paper. M1 thought this was so crazy & was so excited to show others!

6. Then it's all up to you. We used the paper to practice letter recognition by saying a letter & having M1 find it. I think after a few days of this game, we'll go ahead & cut them out so we can put them in ABC order. That's where the glue may come in handy. The individual letters could then be glued onto another colorful piece of paper.

Enjoy! s.b.

M is for Mosaic

I've just started working a bit harder on the uppercase letters with M1. My goal is to have her writing her name by fall when she'll start 3 year old preschool. She knows all of the letters but is no where near being able to write them & really doesn't have any interest in doing it at all! So I thought maybe if I started crafting with the letters she'd show a little more excitement. We'll see... but I decided to start with M since it's the first letter of her name. M is also for Mosaic!

Supplies: *Construction Paper, Printed letter M (I used a Word Document & blew up the letter), *Glue Stick, *Scissors, *Paper Scraps

1. Cut out the letter "M"

2. Glue it to a piece of colored construction paper. (Your child can choose the color.)

3. Press the letter down to secure it to the paper.

4. Allow your child some time to cut several different colored pieces of construction paper. The small cut up scraps will be used as the mosaic pieces. We used some of the paper scraps we already had in addition to the ones M1 cut herself.

5. Use the glue stick to cover the "M" with glue.

6. Place the colored mosaic pieces to cover the entire letter.

7. Allow drying time & DONE!

This project could be done with any letter of the alphabet. It just so happened that M1's name begins with an "M" so that's what we chose. We'll continue on with the other letters of her name & many others over the next few weeks.

Enjoy! s.b.

Jelly Bean Door Hanging

Not only is April 22nd Earth Day, it's also National Jelly Bean Day. It is a perfect opportunity to use up all the left over jelly beans & have an excuse to keep eating them a month after Easter!! The Earth Day posts will arrive later this week & into next week, so be on the look out for those also. But for now, use up the jelly beans & create this cute door sign with your little one. It's a great activity that promotes sorting & letter recognition too.

Supplies- *Jelly Beans, *Glue, *A Piece of Cardboard, *White Paper (To cover the cardboard), *Scissors, *Crayons, *Stickers, *Ribbon for Hanging.

1. Cut a piece of cardboard to your desired size & cover it with white construction paper using glue to secure it.

2. Use crayons that match the jelly beans to write your child's name across the paper, seen below. (We chose to do M1's initials instead of her name.) If your child is old enough to write his/her own name, they can do it themselves.

3. Have your child sort through the jelly beans picking out the colors used to write their name. Put them into small piles according to color.

 

4. Once there are sizeable piles of bean created, go ahead & put a thick line of glue over the letters.

5. Place the similar color jelly beans along the crayon line until the entire letter is outlined with beans.

6. Allow at least a few hours of drying time. If it doesn't dry completely, the beans will fall off when you stand it upright. It may even be beneficial to leave it set overnight.

7. Punch two holes in the top of the hanging & string the ribbon through the holes, knotting at the ends.
8. Optional- Give your child some time to jazz it up a bit by adding stickers.

8. It's ready to be displayed on a bedroom door or where ever you choose!
Enjoy! s.b.

Plastic Egg Letter Matching Game

If your house is anything like ours, you probably have a million of these little plastic eggs laying around this time of year. They are EVERYWHERE... I can't tell you how many times I day I've picked up these colorful eggs & put them back into one of the many Easter baskets we have! I know M1 & M2 enjoy playing with them, but I was thrilled to find this idea in one of my "teacher" resource books titled Recycled Container Arts & Crafts Acitivites. Finally a purpose for these eggs!

Supplies: *26 Plastic Easter Eggs, *Black Permanent Marker

1. Beginning with the letter "A" and one egg, write a lower case "a" on the top half of the egg & a capitol "A" on the bottom half of the egg.

2. Repeat step 1, writing the remaining upper & lower case letters of the alphabet on the eggs. Because M1 is still in the process of learning her letters, I did write the letter pairs on matching egg pieces. If you're looking for more of a challenge, you could write the upper & lower case letters on different colored halves.

3. Once they were all completed (pictured above) we went ahead & started our matching game.

I placed all of the upper case letters in an Easter Basket & set up the lower case letters on a table so they were all visible. (pictured below)

4. One by one, M1 picked an upper case letter out of the basket & then began looking to find the match.

5. After finding her matching lower case letter, she clicked the pieces of the egg together & set it aside in a seperate pile. She then went on & chose another uppercase letter out of the basket & repeated the process until she had matched them all.

 

Fun "Easter" themed game that works on letter recognition at the same time. Finding a purpose for all those plastic eggs is an added bonus!!!

p.s. An additional activity for older children... addition/subtraction or multiplication/division practice! Example: 1+1= written on the top half of the egg & the answer "2" written on the bottom half.

Enjoy! s.b.