This DIY fabric octopus is really easy to make, but it would look better if you had the right kind of supplies. I did not so I just made do with what I had since I knew it was going to be a while before I could get the supplies. By that time, we would have finished letter O long ago.
Basically you just take a styrofoam ball, some scrap pieces of fabric, and some fabric glue or any other better way to attach the fabric vs. staples like I did, ha ha. My daughter wanted a face on hers, so I Read more [...] DIY Fabric Octopus
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This DIY fabric octopus is really easy to make, but it would look better if you had the right kind of supplies. I did not so I just made do with what I had since I knew it was going to be a while before I could get the supplies. By that time, we would have finished letter O long ago.
Basically you just take a styrofoam ball, some scrap pieces of fabric, and some fabric glue or any other better way to attach the fabric vs. staples like I did, ha ha. My daughter wanted a face on hers, so I Read more [...] 
This week for letter O has been all about otters! Esmeralda and I have been reading Oscar Otter, an I Can Read Book by Nathaniel Benchley. Since we have been enjoying that book, we chose to continue the otter theme by adding it to our nature alphabet book this week! We found our facts from otter-world.com. Here is some of what we learned below:
Consume mainly fish even though most assume most of diet from plants and berries!
Males are called meowters, females are queens, and 
This week's mini social studies unit for letter M is all about Mexico. This is related to my family already, as I married into a 100% Mexican family, so my children are 1/2 Mexican. I try to teach them some Spanish words, they can listen and understand my in-law's when they speak to them in Spanish, and we introduce them to foods that my mother in-law cooks. My 20 month old particularly likes potato taquitos. My almost 4 year old can count to 10 in Spanish and knows some basic words such 
To finish our Letter K week, we made a King's Crown to go along with our King Solomon "mini-unit." However, I have a very girly little girl so our king's crown is very.... feminine. I let her choose her own colors, but you can obviously make this more realistic looking or with more "boy" colors if you choose to do so.
What You Need:
Construction paper
Stapler (or tape)
Material to decorate of your choosing. We used pom poms, glue, mosaic tile squares, and crayons
What You 
This week, we have been reading the book Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too? by Eric Carle so we decided to look at kangaroos for our nature alphabet book this week! Both my 3.5 year old and 1.5 year old enjoy this book, so Esmeralda loved learning about kangaroos. For information about kangaroos, we visited the encyclopedia website! Here are some things we learned:
Found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea!
Gestation period of 40 days!
Baby kangaroo stay in the pouch for six months!
Male 
This week we returned back to our usual routine of learning by letter. Since this week is Letter K and a lot of our learning is involving kings, I wanted to throw a little bit of religion in there and do a small bit about King Solomon. Since we have only a little bit planned, at the end I will have ideas on how you can expand our ideas into a whole mini unit for you to do at home!
We have been reading about King Solomon. I purposely looked for a website that has easy summaries of what 
For Letter J, we looked at the junco birds! Unlike last week, Esmeralda was not too interested in learning about them. We barely skimmed through the little that she would hold attention for. The only thing she liked was the sound clips. She did not even like the video. To find some information on the junco bird, Esmeralda and I looked at the Dark-eyed Junco page at All About Birds! When we looked at the map, we saw that the junco is a popular bird in the state we live in year-round. 
We had a short week this week due to Thanksgiving, but one of the fun things we did for Letter J was do jelly bean math matching!
After buying some jelly beans, we found math matching printables from 3 Dinosaurs website. She has a Thanksgiving Pack of printables that you can print for your own personal use. You can use these specific pages at any time during the fall since the pages I printed from her pack feature cornucopias, and not a pilgrim or a turkey, for example.
Esmeralda and I 
To finish up last week's Letter I, Esmeralda (3.5 years old) and I did a very tiny mini-unit on Italy for social studies. This mini-unit consists of a little geography, an Italian folklore, and a kitchen project making and baking bread! I have a list at the end of ways to expand this unit if you want to do more as well.
Geography: First we looked for a blank map of Italy to color. We found the blank map here. Esmeralda absolutely loved coloring Italy's map. Instead of just scribbling it 
Letter I is all about iguanas! I started Letter I off this week with flash cards, one being an iguana. I had no idea that Esmeralda was so excited about iguanas until then, so I was glad that I had planned out iguana for our Letter I addition to our nature book.
To find some information on iguanas, Esmeralda and I looked at the Green Iguanas page on National Geographic Animals! Along with reading the paragraphs about iguanas, we saw a map, looked at the picture, and read some of