No Wooden Spoons: Ariana's Alphabet -- I

Note: Ariana's Alphabet was created out of my need for more structure and learning while playing and creating together with my 2 1/2 year old. Each week we will explore a new letter of the alphabet and incorporate different activities along the way that go with our letter of the week. See other letters we've done by clicking the Ariana's Alphabet label highlighted in blue at the bottom of this post.

This week was letter I and it worked out that it was the week before Independence Day! We had a busy week and didn't feel like we got as much done, but enjoyed it none the less.

I is for Itsy Bitsy Spider.

We made itsy bitsy spiders using pipe cleaners, bottle caps and googly eyes. It went with our "I" story this week and she loved reading it to her spider. We also sang the song all week long!

I hot glued pipe cleaners on the bottom of recycled bottle caps I'd been saving and then let Ariana glue googly eyes on them. They invaded our backyard.

I is for Independence Day.

We celebrated Independence day by going to a carnival on base! Cotton candy, bumper cars, pony rides, ferris wheel, funnel cakes and more! We wanted to stay for fireworks but it doesn't start getting dusk until about 10 pm here so that didn't happen. Maybe next year.

I is for Ink Blots.

Using some watered down acrylic paint and cut up poster board, we made our own ink blots. A few drops of each color on the paper, fold it in half and when you open it up you have a pretty design.

Ariana wanted to do this all day long. I cut up 2 large poster boards into about 16 pieces and she had a ball doing this! She would even tell me what each picture looked like. We had a tree, mask, bug, dog etc.

I is for ice cream.

We made homemade chocolate ice cream using this recipe we found online. We added mini chocolate chips to ours right before adding it to our ice cream churn. So yum! I think we should add mini marshmallows next time too!

I is for ice.

We had some left over ice from making our ice cream so we let her play with it. Using salt, food coloring, and some of the watered down paint we had left over from earlier in the week ink blot project, she had a blast mixing and pouring and making ice soup haha!