The Letter B

We visited a preschool this week. Unfortunately they were all full so we’ll keep doing things at home! While we were there, Sammi got herself into this adorable bee costume. Afterward, when she was sad they didn’t have a spot for her, I promised her we’d practice some letters. She choose to practice the letter B and I set to work thinking of a few things we could do.

B the Bee

The first activity was to make a bee. I drew it with pencil. Then I had Sammi trace it with the black marker. I helped her trace it in the direction that we write the letter b. Then we drew stripes for the body and colored away. I was going to have her glue yellow construction paper on for the wings, but she colored them in on her own while I was finding the paper.

My favorite part is the pipe cleaner antennae with pompoms glued to the ends. I let Sammi pull the trigger on the glue gun to attach the pompoms to the pipe cleaner. She loved it! She felt so grown up and since it was a short project, it was easy to keep it clean and keep her safe.

B is for Butterfly

Since the bee was such a hit, we moved on to butterflies. To introduce how the B could become a butterfly, I folded a piece of paper in half and drew the letter B on the fold. Then I held it up to the mirror and asked Sammi what it looked like to her. She saw the butterfly right away. To make the mirror image appear, Sammi painted the B with black paint. Then while it was still wet, we hurried and folded the paper back in half and pressed down with our fingers. When we opened it up, the image had transferred to the other side. Sammi thought it was pretty cool. We did it a few times to get the paint dark everywhere on the mirror side.

To decorate the butterfly, we took cut squares of tissue paper. Sammi chose purple and black and I chose the multicolored ones. I gave her a sponge brush and put some glue on a plastic plate. She painted the paper first then put the squares over the glue. We folded the edges in so they wouldn’t cover up the paint lines. Then Sammi drew the antennae and added the jewel stickers.

In the Meantime

Elli was awake from her nap in the throes of both these activities. So, to entertain her she did her own projects. The Bee day she colored a Cars ColorWonder page. She wanted googly eyes, too so I gave her two to add to Lightening McQueen. Instead, I found one eye stuck to the side of her head. She’s just too cute!

On the butterfly day, Elli painted one half of the paper and then we folded it in half. When we opened it back up, it looked just like something out of a psych evaluation. She sure looked cute with her black smudge of paint under her eye. When she was done with her picture we strung beads on a string while Sammi finished gluing the tissue paper to her butterfly.

We had a fun time with our projects!