Mama’s week in review – letter Z

Zebra. Zig Zag. Zip. Zero. Zoo. Zoom.

We didn’t talk a lot about words starting with Z this week, the boys were preoccupied with other things, but that’s OK. However, we did do a lot of playing with Z things!

Bible Story –  We followed Hubbard’s Cupboard’s suggestion and talked about Psalm 51 this week. Since it wasn’t really a story I thought the kiddos wouldn’t like it. I was partly right, as Sweet Pea always got down to play after the first few verses each day. Cutie Pie, however, listened intently. I tried my best to explain to him what some of the words meant and tried to break it down into sections and explained the meaning as best I could. The last day we read it all the way through and talked about how we can become white as snow by believing Jesus died for us and asking forgiveness for our sins. I explained that this involved talking to God, and that’s what we are doing when we pray and that we can talk to God whenever we’d like. He started talking to God right then and asked him to forgive him for something that he did. Then he kept very still with his head cocked to one side. I asked what he was doing and he said he couldn’t hear God talking to him! He was so sincere in the asking and in his response to me, it was hard not to giggle! 

We did a little artsy thing to illustrate being white as snow. I drew a Zero in white crayon when Cutie Pie wasn’t looking. Then I asked him to paint in black on the paper and explained that could be like our sin. Following that I asked what color blood is and had him paint in red over the black and said that Jesus’ dying on the cross saved us from our sin. He could then see the white Zero showing through the paint and I told him when we go to heaven and God asks if we have sin Jesus will answer for us and say we have Zero sin, making us white as snow. (idea from Hubbard’s Cupboard)

Language Arts – Cutie Pie again started coming up with words beginning with Z all on his own at random times throughout the week. He always caught me off guard, too! Usually when we come up with a letter of the week word we write it on the white board side of our easel and we did this with our Z words, too. Mostly the boys liked the words Zoo and Zoom this week, so we did a lot of Zooming of cars and we took a field trip to the Zoo. I was also impressed one day when I was just doodling, making Zig Zags on black paper with colored chalk at the table while the boys were finishing breakfast (hoping they would be into creating something for Nana for Mother’s Day) and Cutie Pie started drawing Zig Zags with me! I love it when he takes the initiative to try to write and draw! He’s getting really good at the letter P!

Art and Science- Cutie Pie loves car painting so we got out his monster trucks and as he was Zooming them around this week he realized the wheels have a Zig Zag pattern on them. So, I got the paint out, placed gobs of it in a pan, laid down a large sheet of paper and let the boys roll the monster trucks around in the paint and on the paper making Zig Zags! This sort of activity never gets old for them! It was also a great opportunity to get out the incline and ‘do’ some science! Sweet Pea then combined all the colors of paint on the tray and made neat patterns with the tires and his fingernails. (science again!)

This week we took a field trip to the Zoo. First, it was letter Z week. Second, it was finally sunny and relatively warm! We were all very excited to go see the animals, be outside, and have some fun! Unfortunately, we must have gone at an off time because most of the animals were in their dens while their cages were being cleaned or were sleeping. The boys had fun, though. 

As we walked through the Zoo we talked about the different animals we saw – how big they were compared to the previous animal we saw, their colors, what they eat, how many feet they walk on if they walk, etc. Even though Seneca Park Zoo is a fairly small Zoo, it almost always takes us a good 2 1/2 hours to go through it because my boys love to stop and watch the animals! Then there’s the Zot Zone where they can pretend to be a veterinarian taking care of animals, where they learn by doing. They love this place!

Play – (a carry-over from last week) – When we went to The Strong National Museum of Play last week we played with Zoobs. That’s the day we talked about the letter Z being our next letter of the week, so Zoobs deserve honorable mention here! (We did a lot of outdoor play this week, so we didn’t make it back there to play with them again…)

And of course we did a lot of zipper practicing!

Now that we’re done with learning the letters of the alphabet Cutie Pie wants to learn to count higher, so we’re moving on to numbers while we keep reviewing our letters. I think I will concentrate more on lower case letters and the letters in the boys’ names this time around! I’ll continue posting on those to complete our alphabet pages. Any and all ideas are welcome!

I’m going to try to link up to these this week: