The Letter B

B is for Boo!

This is my favorite book for the Halloween season, ever. I love it and every one of my kids has loved it. I've done this activity once before, but we did it again and it was a hit.

 I like acting out each part as we read this book together and your kids can help with the sounds that each part of the (spoiler-alert!) scarecrow makes. My two year old was so nervous by the time that jack-o-lantern said, "BOO!" I knew that was the word that we needed to run with for the letter B.

 Every Fall, I add a bit to my collection of Halloween crafts and I happened to have a bunch of foam pumpkins left over with sticker faces that make them into jack-o-lanterns. You could use construction paper, felt, or even have your child paint faces onto a paper plate pumpkin to make their own jack-o-lantern. The possibilities are overwhelming.

 I let my little ones decorate as many pumpkins as they wanted and we traced some hands because someday I will burst into tears when I open my Halloween bin and see those tiny fingers.

 We talked about the story and decided that we needed to go find a pumpkin head for our own scarecrow we had made out of Edison's clothes, pronto. He currently looked like a lifeless toddler-sized body laying on our front stairs. 

We went on a field trip for Joy School that same day to an elk farm in the valley, which happened to have a self-serve pumpkin farm close by. That's when I realized that I had no cash and had to take all of my children into a local grocery store, by myself. Then back to the pumpkin farm. Then back to the grocery store where they actually had better prices on pumpkins.

But that's another story.

 Gosh, I'm lucky.

 But we did find just the right sized-head for our own scare-crow and Charlotte drew on a face that seemed to shout, 

"BOO!"

"B is for Bats"

The next day, my older girls didn't have school so we kept the ball rolling with our Letter of the Week and did "B is for Bats."

 This idea came from a cute blog I recently found called Crafty Morning.

I like it because it's an activity that can work for a variety of ages.

First, I printed off a few of the templates provided by Crafty Morning, HERE.

Then I had the able-scissor-handed kids (did I say that right?), cut them out. 

As modeled so brightly by Charlotte here.

Tape the bats onto white or black paper, depending on the color of paints you want to use.

I gave each kid a paper plate with paint on it and a pencil with an eraser for the dots.

Dip the end of your pencil into the paint and outline the bat first, then move outward, keeping the dots heavy around the bats so they show up when you remove them after the paint dries.

Knowing my personality, I would have never guessed that making a big crafty mess on my table with a bunch of kids (we had a few extras) would be my thing. 

But this picture makes me so happy.

 Even my two year old enjoyed this activity for about 30 minutes. I gave him a paintbrush and he later added some of his sister's discarded bat stencils.

I always try to drive it home with one last refresher before we move on. Today we read some more "B" books from the library and practiced writing the letter B on paper.

I had some bug stickers that we used to cover the B, reiterating it's shape.

 

Here are some more books that help teach this letter: