{"id":2961,"date":"2014-01-24T08:08:48","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T13:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/?p=2961"},"modified":"2016-01-18T20:42:30","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T01:42:30","slug":"f-is-for-family-and-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/24\/f-is-for-family-and-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"F is for Family and Fun"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night my girls and I had a magical moment.\u00a0 One of those times that I know I\u2019ll cherish as they grow older.\u00a0 A moment where the stress of life just disappeared and we just spent time together enjoying each other\u2019s company.<\/p>\n

Hubby had a work dinner and the kids and I had been out to eat with my parents.\u00a0 We returned home and I was still hungry so I decided to make it an ice cream night.\u00a0 Dessert is a special treat for our kids and usually consists of a cookie or small piece of candy.\u00a0 We hadn\u2019t had ice cream in a very long time.<\/p>\n

I scooped up the ice cream (peppermint for Sugarplum and peanut butter cup for Honeybun and me) and let the girls adorn theirs with the sprinkles of their choice.\u00a0 The girls began to wander towards the couch and I gently reminded them we have to eat ice cream at a table.\u00a0 Instead of sending them to their small kids table as I usually would, I asked them to come sit at the kitchen table with me.<\/p>\n

As we sat all together, everyone happy and calm for once, I suggested we play a game while we ate.\u00a0 We went around the table, taking turns going through the ABCs, naming the next letter and a word that starts with that letter.\u00a0 We made up a little song (actually I stole it from Dr. Suess\u2019s ABCs):<\/p>\n

I started: \u201cA is for Alligator. A, A, A.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Honeybun: \u201cB is for ball. B, B, B.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Sugarplum (with coaxing \u201cwhat letter is next, AB\u2026\u201d): \u201cC is for car.\u00a0 C, C, C.\u201d<\/p>\n

We went around, taking turns until we reached Z.\u00a0 I was amazed by how well my girls did.\u00a0 Her first few turns Honeybun tried to cheat by looking at the alphabet we have hanging up (see\u00a0“Letter Learning”<\/a>)\u00a0but after I asked her to use her own head she came up with the letters and words all on her own.\u00a0 Sugarplum needed a little help with figuring out what her letter was (I sang the song up to her letter for her) and needed help with thinking of a word about half the time.<\/p>\n

Letter sounds and words that start with each sound is something I\u2019ve been working with Sugarplum on during our morning together.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t seem to be something she easily understands as Honeybun did.\u00a0 I remember shortly after moving to Dublin, walking around town with Honeybun (not yet 2 years old) and talking about \u201cWhat begins with B?\u201d\u00a0 And my little one who has just begun to talk would respond \u201cB is for ball!\u00a0 And bear! \u00a0And buggy!\u201d\u00a0 Letter sounds and their uses just seems to be something Honeybun \u201cgets\u201d whereas Sugarplum does not.<\/p>\n

\"SONY<\/a>\u00a0I got Sugarplum a game for Christmas called \u201cFishing for Letters\u201d (it was at the dollar store but could easily be made at home).\u00a0 The game consists of each lower and uppercase letter on a card.\u00a0 It\u2019s supposed to be a memory game where you match the lowercase letter with its uppercase pair.\u00a0 I find memory games take too long so we always leave them facing up.\u00a0 When she first got the game I would have her tell me all the letters as we are still working on letter recognition with her (especially lowercase) but recently I\u2019ve added in the \u201cwhat word starts with that letter?\u201d element to the game.\u00a0 She tells me the letter, if she can\u2019t come up with a word then I will give her the sound and help her come up with a few words.<\/p>\n

Sugarplum loves playing games and I figure any game where I can added in an educational twist is double the fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night my girls and I had a magical moment.\u00a0 One of those times that I know I\u2019ll cherish as they grow older.\u00a0 A moment where the stress of life just disappeared and we just spent time together enjoying each other\u2019s company. Hubby had a work dinner and the kids and I had been out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-life","category-the-home-school-zone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2961"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3117,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions\/3117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beyondmommying.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}