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)