We did it!

We did it! We completed every letter of the alphabet. Some days there were tons of activity ideas, lots of fun foods to eat, and places to go. Other days we just did a few worksheets & a craft. My kids were really enthusiastic about it the first few weeks (while the letters were easy & there was lots to do). The middle third of the alphabet was challenging. We were all pretty burned out. After we came back from our vacation, the end was in sight.

It was a fun way for my 2nd grader to keep up some of his skills during the summer and my preschooler (who this whole project was geared around so that he could learn his letters) now recognizes letters on most everything he sees and he can write each of them fairly well. It was a lot of work for me but it gave us something structured to do during the long, hot, boring afternoons. This experiment just confirms to me that I am NOT cut out to do homeschooling, nor would my children's personalities and learning styles be conducive to that environment. I consider it a success, but I'm sure glad it's over and school is starting again!

Letter Z

Foods We Ate:

Zucchini muffins

Baked ziti

Other Food Ideas:

Zingers

Activities We Did:

Printable activity pages

Preschooler practiced writing his upper & lower case Z

2nd grader wrote & illustrated a paragraph about zig-zags (he didn't like my suggestion about writing about the zoo)

For our craft we made zucchini muffins (I was going to do a cute zebra craft, but my printer decided to stop working)

Other Topics/Outings:

Zoo

Zebra

Zippers

Z Movies:

????

Letter Y

Foods We Ate:

Yogurt

Other Food Ideas:

????

Activities We Did:

Printable activity pages

Preschooler practiced writing his upper & lower case Y

2nd grader wrote and illustrated a paragraph about yellow

(No craft today - I was lazy!)

Other Topics/Outings:

Yahtzee (we were all set to play until we realized a dice was lost!)

Yarn

Yo-Yo

Yellow

Yak

Y Movies:

Yu-Gi-Oh

Letter X

This was the hardest letter of the whole alphabet!

Foods We Ate:

????

Other Food Ideas:

????

Activities We Did:

Printable activity pages

Preschooler practiced writing his upper & lowercase X

2nd grader wrote & illustrated a paragraph about x-rays

Craft - I couldn't find any good craft ideas, so I just got out a stack of old magazines and had the boys each find and cut out 10 letter "X"s and make a letter X collage. This was pretty easy for my almost-7 year old. It was pretty challenging for my 4 year old.

Other Topics/Outings:

Xylophone

X-rays (thankfully we didn't need any today!)

X Movies:

X-Men (if you have older boys)

Letter W

Foods We Ate:

Waffles

Whipped cream (with our waffles)

Water

Wheat thins

Other Food Ideas:

Watermelon

Whoppers candy

Activities We Did:

Printable activity pages

Preschooler practiced writing his upper & lowercase W

2nd grader wrote & illustrated a paragraph about walruses

Craft - paper bag whale - template HERE - this turned out really cute, but it took a long time to color the whole bag with crayon!

Other Topics/Outings:

Water

Whales

Wolf

Wagon

Wizards

W Movies:

Wiggles

Wall-E

Wallace & Grommit

Winnie the Pooh

Letter V

Foods We Ate:

Vanilla pudding

Vegetables

Other Food Ideas:

Vanilla anything (ice cream, wafers)

Velveeta cheese

Activities We Did:

Printable Activity Pages

Preschooler practiced writing upper & lowercase V

2nd grader wrote & illustrated a paragraph about my sister (his aunt) Vikki

Craft - made paper model volcanoes - template HERE

Watched VeggieTales video

Other Topics/Outings:

Volcanoes

Violins

Vultures

Vegetables

Other V Movies:

????

Letter U

Now we're getting into the final letters I've been dreading from the beginning...

Foods We Ate:

?????

Other Food Ideas:

?????

Activities We Did:

Printable Activity Pages

Preschooler practiced writing upper & lowercase U

2nd grader wrote & illustrated a paragraph about umbrellas

Did unicorn craft - templates HERE

We went to visit daddy at work since his company name starts with the letter U

Other Topics/Outings:

Unicorns

Umbrellas

USA

Underwear

Play UNO card game

U Movies:

Up (the new Pixar one)

Letter T

It was hard to get back in the swing of things after being on vacation for a week. Thankfully we had a pretty good letter waiting for us.

Foods We Ate:

Teddy Grahams

Tacos

Tomatoes

Toaster pastry


Other Food Ideas:

Tomato soup

Tortilla chips

Turkey

Tuna fish


Activities We Did:

Printable activity pages

Preschool practiced writing upper & lowercase T

2nd grader wrote & illustrated a paragraph about a T-Rex

We made a train craft (very easy & cute, but it took awhile to color, cut out, and glue on) - templates HERE


We watched Toy Story movie

We played Trouble game

The tooth fairy even visited our house


Other Topics/Outings:

Teddy bears

Turtles

Tractors

Teeth (maybe visit a dentist?)

Trees

Turkeys

Trains (maybe take a ride on a train or go watch model trains)


Other T Movies:

Tarzan

Thomas the Train

Letter S

Thank goodness we are going on vacation tomorrow. I think we're all a bit burned out with this Letter of the Day stuff right now!

Foods We Ate (I had bigger plans, but I am trying to eat down things before our vacation):

Salad

Spaghetti

Strawberry yogurt

Strawberry fruit leather

Other Food Ideas:

Sandwiches

Steak

Soup

Strawberries

Smoothies

Squash


Activities We Did:

Printable activity pages

Preschooler practiced writing his upper & lower case S

2nd grader wrote & illustrated a paragraph about smiles

Our craft for the day was baking sugar cookies (star & snake shapes) - sorry, I forgot to take a picture

We played Sequence for Kids (great game, by the way)

Watched Stuart Little movie


Other Topics/Outings:

Snakes

Snails

Spiders

Starfish

Stars

Sharks

Sheep

Sports

Go to the Science Center

Seasons

Scrabble


Other S Movies:

Scooby Doo

Spirit

Sword in the Stone

Snow White

Space Chimps

If you have older kids, maybe Spiderman, Superman, or Star Trek

Letter R

Foods We Ate:

Raisins

Ravioli

Raspberry yogurt

Raspberry fruit leather

Other Food Ideas:

Rice

Rolls

Roast beef

Ribs

Activities We Did:

Printable activity pages

Preschooler practiced writing upper & lowercase R

2nd grader wrote and illustrated a paragraph about rhinos

Did Robbie the Rectange Robot craft (template HERE) - fun & easy craft, but it takes awhile if they are coloring it

Other Topics/Outings:

Rabbits

Raccoons

Reptiles

Rainbows

Radio

R Movies:

Ratatouille

Robots

Letter Q

I was dreading letter Q, but it turned out okay. Now I'm just dreading letter X...

Foods We Ate:

Quakes

Quesadillas


Other Food Ideas:

Quizno's Subs


Activities We Did:

Printable activity pages

Preschooler practiced writing his upper & lowercase Q

2nd grader wrote & illustrated paragraph about queens

Craft - we made queens to match our kings (king craft shown HERE) (queen templates are HERE - I didn't do the skirt - that would have been more challenging for my boys and they don't really care)

Other Topics/Outings:

Quail

Questions

Quilting

Quarter

Q Movies:

I couldn't find any appropriate children's ones

Letter P

We could have easily spent 2-3 days on letter P. So many foods and fun topics!

Foods We Ate:

Peaches

Pizza

Popcorn

Pancakes

Pudding

Popsicle

Pretzels

Pears

Plums

Pop-tarts


Other Food Ideas:

Peanuts

Pasta

Peas

Pumpkin pie (or any other kind of pie)

Pork chops

Pickles

Potatoes

Pineapple


Activities We Did:

Printable activity pages (sorry - I don't feel like including the link again)

Preschooler practiced writing his upper & lower case P

2nd grader wrote & illustrated a paragraph about pizza

Instead of a craft we played with playdough (which is quite a novelty around here since I HATE the stuff and it makes a huge mess)

We went to the pool

We played with a police toy set

Did puzzles

Ate pudding pops

Had homemade pizza

Watched a Pokemon movie

Other Topics/Outings:

Panda bears

Pigs

Penguins

Pumpkins

Plants (maybe visit a botanical garden?)

Picnic

Piano

Pirates

Princesses

Painting

Party

Pets (maybe visit a pet store?)

Penny

Park (maybe go to a park? we would have but it's too hot here right now)


Other P Movies:

Pete's Dragon

Peter Pan

Pinocchio

Letter O

Foods We Ate:

Oreos

Other Food Ideas:

Oatmeal (or oatmeal cookies)

Oranges

Olives

Activities We Did:

Printable pages from links HERE

Preschooler practiced writing upper & lowercase O

2nd grader wrote & illustrated paragraph about the ocean

We made homemade oreos

Craft - paper bag owl puppets - templates HERE (this is a very cute, easy craft but it takes awhile to color everything, cut it all out, and glue it all together)

Other Topics/Outings:

Ocean

Octopus

Ornaments

Otters

Origami

Old Maid - play game

O Movies:

Over the Hedge

Oliver (cartoon Disney one or musical)

Open Season