Fire f

I know I am only part way through the lowercase alphabet and I am repeating f, but true to what I preach I wanted to make something that was relevant to my little man. He is very into firefighters right now and he has had me read the books below countless times so I thought it more important to focus on his interests than if we’re repeating a letter or not.  Also he is not in the pictures today because he was out with his grandparents for a birthday treat.  We will be making this in the morning .

1. Gather your materials. You will need red and yellow tissue paper, one piece of orange construction paper, one piece of black construction paper , glue , a marker and scissors.
2. Start by writing a lowercase f on the orange paper.
3. Cut your tissue paper into rough strips.
4. Add glue
5. Add your flames ( tissue paper)
6. Let dry
7. Cut out
8. Glue to the black paper.

Books

Firefighters A to Z by Chris L. Demarest is an alphabet book that teaches about fire safety and the danger firefighters face every time the alarm sounds. My son is fascinated with firefighters right now, he loves to dress up as one at preschool and we often take the long way home to swing past the station and see if the engines are in or not.  He loves this book but I don’t think your child needs to have the level of obsession mine does to enjoy it.

The Little Fire Engine by Lois Lenski is a simple little book about a fire engine that goes to put out fires. Nothing special but every time my son sees it at the library he won’t let it go. In 6 months we’ve taken it out 4 times. I think the bright retro illustrations ( it was originally published in 1946) and the simple text is what makes it so appealing.
Fire Engines by Anne Rockwell is the current favorite at our house. I found it at a thrift store for twenty five cents and I am definitely getting much more than my moneys worth! It’s a cute book with easy text and cute cartoon dalmatians as fire fighters. I particularly love that there is a fire boat in the book since we often see those around here. Cute book for fire engine lovers!

Food f

Food is a great word to use for letter of the week, because there is no doubt your child knows what it means, uses it daily and probably likes it ( most of the time).  We used a recipe magazine that was packed full of pictures so it allowed my son do some of the cutting himself successfully since there were so many to cut out in a small space. This is a fast project so we slowed it down a bit by talking about the food we were cutting out, if we liked it or not and if it was a “growing food” or a “sometimes treat” .

1. Gather your materials. You will need 2 sheets of construction paper, any 2 colors will do, some pictures of food like a recipe magazine or you can draw your own, scissors, a glue stick and marker.
2. Start by writing a lowercase f on one of the sheets of construction paper.
3. Hand your child their scissors, and let them cut out pictures of food. We chatted about what he was cutting and I had to help a lot but he managed to cut a few out with only a little help too, better yet there was no frustration!  That is a huge success for us, cutting is hard and it takes a lot of practice to be precise, so let them practice! I cut many out as well.
4. Gather all the cut out pictures. 
5. Time to glue!
6. Add the food !
7. Cut out the f
8. Glue on the 2nd piece of paper and let dry.

Alphabet Books!

Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z by Lois Ehlert is an alphabet book extraordinaire! Wonderful paintings of fruits and vegetables seem ultra simple and it is but somehow the way the author has pieced this simple book together is brilliant. Maybe it’s that children learn about food at the table multiple times a day and feel proud being able to identify not only some of the letters but some of the pictures too! From a teaching standpoint I love that there are both upper and lower case letters on each page! This book will grow with your child, and beware it will also make you hungry!

The Abc Bunny by Wanda Gag was first published in 1933 and is delicious! Readers follow along with a little bunny all the way from a to z ! The rhyming text is bouncy and my son was fully engaged. I thought the black and white pictures may throw him off but he loved them and didn’t seem to notice that there was no color, they were beautifully done and that was all that mattered. I love the language used like the words dash, gale and jaunty. Good books are good books no matter when they were written, and readers will always love them, I loved this book.

The Human Alphabet photographs by John Kane. This book is fascinating. Each page is a a different photograph of dancers making the shape of both the letter and something that starts with the letter. The letter is always obvious ( and in order which helps…) but the picture isn’t and I love that.  It forced my son and I to work together to think of words that started with each letter to figure the tricky ones out .