The Letter B

Well, the letter A was a bit wobbly - to say the least.  But it's the first letter of Short Daughter's name, so I'm confident she'll figure it out despite my early effort. 

As soon as she came into the kitchen and saw the fridge door she asked 'Why is there a B on my fridge door?'. So, full marks for recognition. 

I sang Old MacDonald's Farm to her and, after the standard ducks and cows, I sang that he had a B on his farm.  She caught on straight off that letters make sounds, just like animals do.

I found these butterflies in my local giftware/homeware shop for about $2.  Sooo easy! 

The bag contained three different sizes and quite a few colours (including metalics).  Short Daughter  applied Mod Podge as glue and I stuck the butterflies one on top of the other. 

Then I threaded a long length of cotton through the 'nose' of each completed butterfly, tying the cotton so that I could loop it over some dowling or chopsticks. 

I stuck a foam, self-adhesive B to a couple of the bottom butterflies to reinforce the B-is-for-Butterfly theme.

I think the wings of these 'bees' were actually small, white butterflies from the same bag. 

We painted small icy-pole sticks yellow and drew black stripes with my sharpie.  Some googly eyes on a black pompom and a foam B on its back completed a bee that she loved so much she insisted on taking to bed.

The wings were a bit worse for wear the next morning but otherwise it survived pretty much intact.

A tip for beading with small children (besides the obvious don't do it with children under three as beads can be a choking hazard) is to prepare your thread the night before by dipping the end in some white or craft glue.  I then hang mine over the back of a chair to dry overnight.  This stiffens the end of the thread and makes it much easier for children, and parents, to poke through the beads.

B is for...

bat
bath
beach
beads
beans
bears
bell
bird
biscuit
blue
bones
bows
bread
brown
black
bubbles
bumble bee
bus
butterfly