CERP: Letter of the Week "B"

It's been a few weeks since Tory and I worked on our Letter of the Week activities. We've still talking about letters while we read books or play with magnets on the refrigerator door, but it wasn't until this week we finally had time to complete other activities on my CERP (Craft / Eat / Read / Play) list. That's okay; I don't have a specific timeframe to complete these activities. My goal was to talk about letters of the alphabet as we're engaged in things we already do around the house, as it fits into our lives.

Here's the entire lesson plan for the Letter B:

Craft: Make a "B" Bumblebee (source)
This bumblebee craft is fairly self-explanatory. Follow the link for detailed instructions.

I copied the suggestion of Mama Tully and began collecting our Letter of the Week crafts in a three-ring binder for Tory (and someday, Aden) to flip through.

Eat: Banana Bread
It seems like I always have ripened bananas on the counter and Tory loves to bake, so making banana bread is a no-brainer in our house. Tory and I bake in the kitchen together at least once a week, so our conversation over the mixing bowl on this day included making the "ba" sound for banana bread. One of my favorite banana bread recipes is Buttermilk Blueberry Banana Bread (muffins - because we always make ours into muffins; easier for little hands to eat). The buttermilk keeps the banana bread light and fluffy. I like to toss my blueberries in the flour mixture before mixing the wet and dry ingredients together so the blueberries don't sink to the bottom of the batter. Recommend.

Read: Books we read together: Lila Leapfrog's Ballet Jitters, Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See and Alphabet Under Construction.

Play: Stringing Beads
I bought these Melissa & Doug Stringing Beads a while back to help Tory's hand/eye coordination when I noticed her little friends were far better at those lace activities than she was. Tory likes making "necklaces" with these, so we did this activity together one morning. I just love Melissa & Doug products and this one's no different. Tory's gotten so much better at threading these beads (and working closely with her hands) thanks to this little activity.