The boys love to do crafts, but I am not the craftiest mom around, so I went in search of some help online and stumbled upon a fantastic website at
http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/. I decided to use some of her crafts to start doing the letter of the week with the boys. We started with A and every week we'll learn all about a new letter through crafts, books, and some cooking!
The first craft we did was to make an alligator A. They were so cute! We also went to the library to check out some A books. Our favorite alligator books were Alligator Baby by Robert Munsch and Alligator Alphabet by Stella Blackstone. We also listened to "Don't Get Close to the Alligator" by Joe McDermott a lot!
The next day we made lowercase a apples and read
Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington and
Apple Trouble by Ragnhild Scamell.
After school on Thursday, we made acorns using oatmeal and dry cereal and read
Dot & Jabber and the Great Acorn Mystery by Ellen Stoll Walsh.
The boys both munched on their cinnamon cereal while doing this craft project!
Will was so excited to show Daddy his finished acorn.
They turned out so cute!
Then we moved into the kitchen to make apple crisp. My little helpers couldn't help munching the apples as we assembled everything.
Ready to put it in the oven.
Goofy little boys.
Yummy apple crisp!
Henry and I made an ant out of an egg carton when Will was at school on Friday.
Add some googly eyes, six legs and two antennae, and you've got a cute ant!
On Friday, we decided to take a field trip. Can you see where we went?
Will had been asking to go back to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston to look at the paintings, and since art begins with A, we decided it was a perfect fit!
Will and Henry looked for the letter A on the exterior wall and found two. Inside, we searched for apples and other A words. At home, we've been reading our art books; our favorites are Seen Art? by John Scieszka and Colors of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston by Caroline Desnoettes.
Our letter A week was a huge success! The boys and I had so much fun doing our craft projects, making apple crisp and visiting the museum and I can tell it's already helping Henry with his lowercase letters and sounds. We can't wait to start on B next week!
climb,
gather leaves,
run,
hide under the cypress tree,
chase bubbles,
catch and pop the bubbles,
eat salmon and yellow squash off Daddy's plate,
sit on a pumpkin,
and swing.
What could be better than this?
Then we moved into the kitchen to make apple crisp. My little helpers couldn't help munching the apples as we assembled everything.
Add some googly eyes, six legs and two antennae, and you've got a cute ant!
balancing,
tossing the football,
sitting awhile, 
and making knots, like pirates do.
But I think Daddy found the best way to enjoy the backyard:
with a beer in the hammock!
So when Will finds a willing participant or two (usually daddies or grandpas), he goes full force.
Notice his two fingers curled into claws. T-Rexes only have two fingers on each hand. If you had three, you might be an allosaurus. We're all about accuracy when it comes to dinosaurs. 
Henry likes to play too, as long as he doesn't have to be the prey!
Can you see that Henry is sprinkling Uncle Mike with grass? He's a really fierce T-Rex!
Mary was not sure about this game and did not like having the T-Rexes get her daddy. I don't really blame her.
These two had so much fun playing together. While Will worked on his dot-to-dot book, 
and talked 
and gave lots and lots of hugs. 
can juggle!