The Letter D

D is for Dot

 D is for Duck.  Short Daughter did a great job of ensuring all the duck stickers were in the shiny blue duck pond.

 D is for Daisy.  We went for a walk to see what we could find that began with the letter D.  I don't think these 'weeds', growing in the vacant lot across the road, are actually daisys.  But they were near enough.

 D is for Darkness.  We cut out stars and Short Daughter glued them on some purple paper we had also cut star shapes from, then we covered the gluey bits with silver glitter.

 D is for Daisy again.  I must admit, I did most of the work on this one.  Short Daughter was very involved in commentary and supervision though.  I think she rather enjoyed the role reversal.

 D is for Dinosaur.  I would love to be able to give credit for this clever idea, but I just stumbled across a photo on the internet one day of a group of school kids wearing these.  Each one was a slightly different type of dinosaur, but all based on that well-known principle that 'dinosaurs are thin at the ends and fat in the middle'.

 D is for Daytime.  A bit abstract perhaps, but Short Daughter got it straight away that the cut-out of her hand was to be the sun.  And she did the gold glitter sunbeams herself.

 D is for Diamond. I cut out lots of diamond shapes and we covered a sheet of black craft paper with glue.  Short Daughter was told that the shapes needed to go next to each other, but not touching.  That the final result is vaguely diamond-shaped is rather more good luck than good planning.

D is for Daddy.  This was, not surprisingly, one of Short Daugher's favourite D activities.  I printed out some photos of her with Daddy on plain paper, she pasted them on a sheet of craft paper and suggested (in not so many words) that smiley face sticker would be an appropriate embellishment.

D is for Dalmation.  Short Daughter was in one of those three-year-old moods when presented with a cut-out of a dog for her to colour in.  She cheekily put one black dot on the dog and announced "Finished".  I went and got her Little Golden Book of 101 Dalmations and she was inspired to (enthusiastically) add more dots.

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