W Week- Fun with Food

We had a couple of fun treats during W week.

We indulged in the oldie but goodie dirt cups with gummy worms, which were a fun dessert for the whole family. Who doesn't like chocolate pudding and crushed Oreos?

We also had a lunch of wheel-shaped pasta with homemade cheese sauce and veggies. Trip was excited to get to help make this lunch. He got to pour the noodles into the water.

We then (somewhat) patiently waited and very carefully watched the noodles cook.

Meanwhile, I whipped up a quick cheese sauce (a roux of butter and flour, then some milk, garlic salt, and grated Pecorino Romano cheese). We added some frozen veggies to the boiling water a couple of minutes before the pasta was done. Once the wheels, peas, and carrots were drained, we mixed them with the sauce and lunch was served. 

We also had waffles several times since they are a favorite around here. I used my go-to recipe, Alton Brown's Basic Waffles. They are so easy and tasty that I make at least every other week.

W Week- Writing on the Window

Quite some time ago, my mom gave me a box of washable window markers. I pulled them out this week for Trip to try. He thought they were great fun!

I wrote him a little message and a W, then he requested a slide. As soon as I was done, he wanted a turn with the markers.

He wanted to try each color of marker and was quite pleased with his artwork.

A swing set also had to join the party before we were done. 

I think these markers will be quite useful in our future letter of the week activities!

W Week- A Walk in the Wagon

Last summer, my parents brought me the childhood wagon that my sister and I shared. It's now "antique" looking, but still works well and Trip enjoys riding in it occasionally. Of course, W week would not be complete without a walk in the wagon, especially since we don't currently have snow and have had mild temperatures.

The Nerf gun just had to come with us and we didn't get very far because all Trip really wanted to do was stop and shoot at a variety of targets on our street.

Not even a block later, he was ready to ride back home and was not  pleased that Mommy wanted a picture of him in the wagon.

Even if it was short, our wagon walk was a good opportunity to get some fresh air and practice some W words.

W Week- Hit the W

Trip loves throwing footballs, so I wrote a W on several sticky notes and put them on the wall. He then got to see if he could hit the Ws with the football.

He was thrilled with this simple game and got his University of Washington football in on the action.

After throwing the football for a while, he dumped out the contents of his little wagon and found the darts for his new Nerf gun.

That gave him the idea to shoot the Ws. He had a blast shooting the Ws at point blank range,

then tried it sitting down,

and finally he ended up shooting from the couch!

This game will have to be included in our activities for other letters in the weeks to come. As Trip gets a little older, the same game will be fun with a mix of letters. He would then need to find the correct letter to hit. Later on, this could be a fun way for him to practice spelling his name. The sticky notes could have the letters T, R, I, and P, as well as a few others. The goal would be for him to shoot/throw at the T, then the R, and so forth.

W Week- The List

W is our first letter of the week after our break from letters in December. It feels great to be back in the swing of things. I find that having a letter to focus on each week keeps me accountable to doing learning activities with Trip and makes me more intentional about spending quality time with him each day.

Our fun with W included:

• a game we called "hit the W"
• some fun food like dirt cups with worms and wheel-shaped pasta
• a walk in Mommy's childhood wagon
• working with wood
• washing play dishes
• writing on the windows

My brainstorming process and vocabulary list writing has gotten much easier in the last couple of weeks. I somehow came across this alphabet objects list, which is extremely helpful. I add words and don't use all the ones from the list, but it's nice to see what someone else has come up with. My W words list can be found here.