Letter of the Week Activities with the Letter T

We will conclude our activities for the letter T today. It has been a T as in Terrific week for me and my sons!

 

Let me enumerate the activities that we had in the past days.

 

First, we kicked off our letter of the week activity for the letter T by doing activities related to trains. My boys love trains so I thought that it would be a good idea to start with this concept. After finger painting the letter T in upper and lower case, we made trains from colored cut outs.

 

Second, I let the boys play with toys starting with the letter T. My eldest son who just turned 6 the other day helped me choose the toys he and his younger brother played with. He identified toys that start with the letter T and we set them aside as their main playthings this week.

 

Third, we read books about trains, trucks, a taxi, a tricycle and a book about a tiger. You may read my previous post here where I detailed the activities we had on our first day with the letter T.

This is the book we read this morning.
We used our boys' toys as props as we read it.

 

Fourth, we also had T as in Trinity activities. We painted some cut outs that symbolize the Holy Trinity and my eldest son wrote a Bible verse about the Holy Trinity. We watched a video where the Holy Trinity were manifested. Read more about the details of this activity here in my previous post.

 

Fifth, we talked about the lives of Saints whose names start with the letter T like St. Therese of the Child Jesus, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Timothy. These discussions were very timely because the two Saint Teresa's celebrated their Feast Days this October while my son who was named after St. Timothy celebrated his birthday the other day. Thus, one of our activities this week is T as in Timothy Day wherein we granted most of my eldest son's wishes. You may read more about it here.

 

Sixth, we made flags of countries whose names start with the letter T. We made big flags. We also made flaglets, which we stuck in my son's globe cake. Good thing the flags of these countries were quite easy to make.

I simply asked the boys to use their star shape sorter toy and trace its shape on bond paper and red colored paper. Then, my eldest son cut the traced shapes. He and his younger brother glued them based on my instructions. We used my eldest son's poster on the flags of nations as our guide/reference for this activity.

T as in Turkey flag by Mateo.

T as in Tunisia flag by Yanthy.

 Seventh, we watched a video about how the tiger got its stripes.

 

 

 

These are all simple activities but they are very effective in teaching little boys about the letter T. Watch out for my next post about our next letter of the week! We will have the letter E next!

 

If you have not read my posts about the previous activities we had for our previous letters of the week, here are the links:

 

Letter of the Week Activities with the Letter A

Letter of the Week Activities with the Letter M   

T is for Timothy Day

We celebrated our eldest son's birthday the other day without a birthday party. We simply granted some of his wishes. Thus, I call it T as in Timothy Day! ;)

 

During the weekend before his birthday, we granted his wish to have his hair cut at Robots and Dolls salon for kids. I was happy to find out that one of his privileges as a member of the salon's kiddie club is to have a free haircut on his birthday month.  

 

We also had his bike vulcanized as requested by our birthday boy. It has been months since he last used his bike because we could not find someone who can fix it. Thankfully, we found a vulcanizing shop nearby and we had it fixed on the week of his birthday. He rode his bike every morning in the past days leading to his birthday. 

 

On the night before his birthday, I had the lights on our Christmas tree installed because he wanted the tree to be lighted that night.

 

 

 

On the day of his birthday, we had pancakes cooked for breakfast. I poured chocolate syrup on his pancakes to form the letters G (for Gian) and T (for Timothy).

 

Then, we placed his birthday gift under the Christmas tree. We bought a police tool set for him because that's also his wish. He opened his gift after eating his breakfast.

 

 

After that, he played with his new toy by pretending to be a police officer.

 

By midmorning, we got ready to leave the house for our lunch. We had lunch at one of his favorite restaurants. It was also his wish to eat in this restaurant -- Bon Chon.

 

On our way to Bon Chon, we talked about St. Timothy so our son would get to know more his namesake. I told him that he was named after St. Timothy, who assisted St. Paul in his ministry. I told him that St. Timothy was still young when he helped St. Paul. Thus, I encouraged him to serve in whatever way he can in the church even while he is young. I reminded him of our friend, Brother JC, who is a young preacher at The Feast and who assists our main preacher Brother Bo Sanchez in his ministry. I used them as examples and I likened Brother Bo to St. Paul and Brother JC to St. Timothy. He understood what I meant and he named another preacher (Brother Adrian) who helps Brother Bo in reaching more people. I also told him that Timothy is one of the books in the Bible.  

 

We met up with my mom who joined us for lunch at Bon Chon. We ordered his usual favorite food -- Bon Chon chicken, rice and chap chae. 

 

 

It was also his wish to have a globe-designed cake. So instead of my initial plan to simply buy a regular dedication or birthday cake from cake stores, I had a baker customize a cake for him. The baker brought the cake at Bon Chon while we were having lunch. We sang him the birthday song after lunch but he was not able to blow his candles yet because we didn't have matches or a lighter. So we brought the cake with us to the play center where we headed next.

 

 

 

I previously bought vouchers from Active Fun in preparation for his birthday since I know that he loves playing there. I bought two extra vouchers so we can invite other kids to be his playmates aside from his younger brother. Good thing, the sons of one of our family friend were available that afternoon to join in the fun. The boys had a great time playing as usual. So two more wishes granted: to play at Active Fun and to have playmates/friends to join him there.

 

 

 

Another wish granted was that his Dad was able to spend time with him on his birthday. My husband filed for a leave from his work. He also spent time to play with our sons at the play center before our friend's sons arrived. Unfortunately, he hit his knee on the slide so he had to go out and ask our helper to accompany the boys afterwards.

 

 

 

We stayed at Active Fun until around 5:30 PM then we went home so we can go to Mass at 7 PM. We passed by the parish office actually before going to Bon Chon. I had a Mass offered in thanksgiving for my son's birthday. We also requested for our Parish Priest to come over to our house to join us for dinner and to pray the rosary with us. We were very happy to get confirmation from the parish office staff that our Parish Priest could come.

 

We got back home around 6:30 PM. My son opened the gift he got from my mom first. My mom gave him a new Cars plate set. That's also one of his wishes.

 

 

 

Then, we went to church to celebrate Mass.

 

After the Mass, we prayed the rosary together as a family with our guests and had a brief reflection and sharing time with our Parish Priest, Fr. Francis, and other members of our parish.

 

 

We had dinner after that. I taught one of our helpers to cook spaghetti and fried chicken. I simply marinated the chicken for her and instructed her to cook them just before the Mass.

 

We had a simple celebration for our eldest son's birthday but we know that he was very happy because we fulfilled many of his wishes. For other ideas on how to celebrate your child's birthday without a birthday party, you may read one of my previous posts in this blog. 

T as in Trinity and More

We had our second day with the letter T yesterday. Our main activity was about T as in Trinity.

 

First, I searched for a Bible verse that I will dictate to my 5-year-old son so he can practice his listening, writing and spelling skills through it.

 

Second, I asked my two-year-old son to trace his heart and cross shape sorters on a piece of white scrap paper.

 

Third, my 5-year-old son to cut the shapes.

 

Fourth, my two-year-old son finger painted the cut outs --- red for the heart and brown for the cross. Then, we air-dried them.

 

Fifth, I gave 3 popsicle sticks to my two-year-old and showed him how to form it into a triangle and where to put glue on them. I helped him glue the triangle. I briefly explained to the boys that the triangle symbolizes the Holy Trinity -- 3 sides in 1 triangle, 3 persons in 1 God.

 

Sixth, I drew a shape of a dove on the remaining white scrap paper and cut it.

 

We glued the painted cut outs and the dove cut out on the sides of the popsicles that we formed into a triangle. We let the glue dry again.

 

All this time, I was supervising my eldest son's writing practice of the Bible verse about the Holy Trinity.

 

When the triangle was dry, I glued it to a new bond paper and helped my toddler to write "T is for Trinity." 

 

 

After my 5-year-old son was done writing the Bible verse, I asked him to try to memorize it.

 

 

Then, we posted their work on our wall near their study area.

 

After lunch, the boys also had some free play pretending to ride/drive a train and taxi complete with pieces of luggage. They used our sofas as train or taxi while our throw pillows are their pieces of luggage. 

 

Before their nap, I read books to the boys about a tricycle and a taxi, still in keeping with our letter of the week, which is the letter T. As usual, I used our toy props to retell the story/read the book.

 

 

My toddler had his nap earlier than his older brother. My eldest son and I had some Math lessons first. I introduced multiplication to him and we used his wooden blocks as his manipulative toys. By the grace of God, we finished answering all the multiplication questions in his Math Level 3 book of Fun Thinkers. Just in time for his birthday celebration today! Thus, aside from celebrating his 6th birthday today, we will also celebrate finishing our Fun Thinkers program for Math and English for all levels. This is one of our homeschool milestones.

 

Before bed last night, we watched again the videos of St. John the Baptist. I used these videos to explain further about the Holy Trinity and how the Holy Trinity was manifested in this life event of Jesus.

 

My eldest insisted that we watch St. Matthew's videos also. He said that T is also for tax collector so I gave in. ;) You may watch their videos here.

 

That's it for now!