Under the Sea (Alphabet Summer)

As the sign says, today is U day! The kids woke up and checked the sign to see if we were starting our Alphabet Summer yet. I couldn't wait after their excitement over our master list yesterday so we kicked off the first day of summer by crossing an activity off our list - Under the Sea day.

Next to the locker is their chore list that happens to have a white board on the back so I used that to write the Bible memory verse that corresponded with the letter U. We worked on this throughout our day:

Breakfast was Vanilla Bean Yogurt with Acai Berry Powder stirred in to make it a pretty purple. Banana Bread with a U cut out of it made for fun discussion at the breakfast table.

I printed off some U color sheets from this site and wrote the names of the U items pictured so that they could see them in print. Nathan worked on writing other words that start with U while the other two boys colored.

While I got their next project ready I sent them on a quick hunt for 1 item that started with U (which they relied on Nathan to help them find) and 1 item that could be found Under the Sea (which was perfect for Jordan to lead). They came back giggling with a pair of underwear {boys!} and stuffed shark. This was a great spur-of-the-moment activity that got them thinking and moving.

We then made some fun shark hats that only required construction paper, scissors and tape (inspired by this picture). Easy and provided lots of shark play fun for the rest of the day.

And what do hungry sharks like to eat for mid-morning snack? Goldfish of course!

Those teeny tiny goldfish only keep a shark's hunger away so long so lunch was quick to follow. On the menu were blue scrambled eggs with seaweed and octopus pancakes. The whole time they pretended they were sharks eating an octopus family and growing big from their seaweed. Whatever gets them to eat, right?

While Isaiah napped the boys enjoyed their quiet time with an Under the Sea themed movie - Shark Tales. If only we had Little Mermaid...darn!

We then worked on the first structure for our Alphabet City. This project will be ongoing and incorporate every letter once we are done. Our U structure is an Underground Tunnel. We started with a narrow shoebox and some cans and let our imaginations go wild. Nathan was the Architect, I was the Builder and Jordan was the Decorator. We are excited about the final product:

Helping the glue dry

When Isaiah got up we had Jello Stars and Fish for snack (hard to tell but you get the idea):

Then we created sea urchins out of play doh and spaghetti noodles (inspired by this picture). Let me tell you, I almost skipped this one and I am so glad I didn't. Seriously, this kept all 3 of my boys busy for more than a half an hour. That never happens! They had a lot of fun and at one point all contributed their noodles to Jordan's super-spiky urchin. We will definitely be doing this again in the future!

Jordan and Nathan then decided to write/draw about their Under the Sea day...

Nathan had to take a picture of his story:)

We ended the day with a game of Sink or Float in the bathtub by rounding up some items from around the house and guessing whether each one would sink or float. All in all, today was a fun day and we were all exhausted by the end of it. This is just the start of our Alphabet Summer so be on the lookout for more activities from our list.