EJ loves boats.  Loves them.  So I thought it would be a perfect way to end B’s week with paper boats!

Folding paper into boats would be a bit hard for EJ right now, so I made them myself last night.  I’m glad I didn’t leave it until this morning - some of the tutorials I found online were very confusing.  I wasted a lot of paper – and I was hoping to be able to send you to a website and say, “Hey, go *here* to learn how to make the best paper boats!”  But I can’t… I just didn’t find any that I liked.  I actually wound up making paper boats the way I used to way back when.  The couple I tried that were different from my old school paper boats… well, a lot of tape was involved to get them into boat-shapes. 

Here’s our fleet….

We learned that the newspaper soaked up water much faster than the white printer paper I used – in fact, one of the large white boats lasted the whole time before it got water-logged and sank. 

We put the boats in one at a time and blew them around… and wound up with a soggy, wet pile of paper after about 5 minutes.  It was fun though!  I even made EJ a paper hat – I figured a Captain of all those boats needed a hat.  EJ didn’t think so, though.  Notice there are no pictures of him wearing it.

After all the paper boats sank, we put some other B-items in the sink.  Did you know that bananas float?  I didn’t before this morning!  We also wound up with an octopus and two racecars in the sink as well.  EJ played in the sink for at least 45 minutes!

I promised a picture of our bubble art masterpiece once it dried…. here it is up on EJ’s “gallery wall.”

Yesterday was a busy day, with no time for a post or even a formal B activity.  We talked a lot about B’s, though, and ate a lot of B foods – broccoli, bread, beans – even some alphabet cookies that my mom brought over for EJ.  Of course, he only ate the B’s.

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Today’s activity was so much fun.  Bubble art!  There are so many posts/tutorials/examples of this on the web, with tons of different ways to do this, so I just made up my own bubble paint with products I had on hand.

Bubbles left over from party favors, washable paint, cups, plates, bubble wands, and bubble wrap.  I experimented with the bubble paint solution – adding more paint until it seemed concentrated enough, and then adding a tad bit more water so the bubbles were easier to blow.  Then I cut a couple small sections of the bubble wrap to act as stamps to dip directly into paint.  See?

We headed outside (what a wonderful day – high in the low 70’s in Virginia in September – unheard of!!!) with our paints and a big piece of butcher paper.  EJ started blowing bubbles onto the paper right away – and never touched the bubble wrap stamps.  Oh well.

The bubble art quickly changed into chasing bubbles around the yard, which was tons of fun, too.  Notice his new painting t-shirt: a blue Beatles t-shirt* that I “outgrew” a while ago.  More Bs!!!

We also blew big bubbles in our cups!

Here’s a glimpse of our finished product.  It’s hanging up to dry, and I want to hang it up in EJ’s room when it’s ready.  I’ll get some pictures of it hanging up before the B week is over. 

This project was a hit.  I think if I were to do it again, I’d use food coloring to tint the bubbles – the paint I used didn’t do exactly what I wanted it to do.  Others have also used tempura paint (powdered), but I didn’t have any on hand.  The bubble wrap stamps were not as interesting, although I had fun with them.  It might be more fun as a large scale project just using the bubble wrap.  The extra bubble wrap will be popped soon enough, though, bringing more bubble fun to our B week. 

*EJ’s still wearing the Beatles t-shirt.  I’m going to make him a Beatles fan after all!

Well, the title pretty much says it all.  Throw in some yogurt, some juice, a little drizzle of honey, and some help from Uncle Drew, and you get our B activity of the day!

A banana-berry smoothie, and a very happy EJ.

B is FUN!!!!  I have so many ideas running around in my head for this week – and something planned for each day!  Do you realize how many kid-friendly B-words there are?  Bike, ball, boat, bird, bat, bear, broccoli (a favorite here – really!), book, Bible, balloon, bubble… the list goes on and on!  I kept thinking of new ones all day.  Boo-boo, big, Big Boy (one of EJ’s nicknames), baby, Backyardigans…

As I looked for a B verse for the week, I kept coming back to the word “Believe.”  “Everything is possible for the one who believes.” and “Anyone who believes in Christ is a new creation. The old is gone! The new has come!” were my top runners until I came across “Children, obey your parents as believers in the Lord. Obey them because it’s the right thing to do.” Eph 6:1 (NIrV).  Bingo!  We are working hard on obedience daily – the poor little 2 year old does everything in his power to not obey us most days, it seems.  So this is the perfect verse for us this year week. 

EJ circled the B’s in the verse (no glue this week!), and we actually talked about it first, instead of leaving it until last like I did last week.  He was much more interested in it this time.

Then we colored and outlined our B alphabet sheet from First School.  EJ really worked hard to outline the letters on the worksheet – it’s kind of hard to see the parts he did in yellow – but I was so impressed… I didn’t say anything like, “Now, draw the B…”  I just opened the box of crayons and he started outlining them!

We also looked at other things that start with the letter B (bell, bee, binoculars, banana, berry, butterfly, bus…).  I’m not so excited about my clipart creation this week.  I think what made it such a hit last week was that he got to use the glue (which he asked for immediately today).  I had already glued the cutout pictures to a sheet of brown (blue, black, beige…) paper so I could avoid the mess.  EJ barely looked at them this time.  sigh… I really need to get over my fear OCD concern about messes so I don’t stifle my children’s creativity.  And for goodness sake – I have two BOYS!  Things are going to get messy around here!!!

And I also have a drawing to share… like Lydia’s robot, Razi, EJ’s drawing of faces has taken big steps.  I’ve labelled the individual parts, since my husband couldn’t tell what he was seeing.  But EJ specifically said, “Eye, eye, nose, smile.  And I want HAIR!”

In case you’re wondering… Tasha is the Tasha from the Backyardigans.  Those guys are all he talks about some days. 

And I know I’ve flooded you with pictures today, but I have one more to share.  B is for BROTHERS!