A Work in Progress - Alphabet Boxes

I have decided I am that mom that is always doing stuff with their kid in order to stay sane.

I need to be doing something, and I like hanging out and interacting with him so watching television is short lived. Now don't get me wrong, Dylan gets to watch one of his "shows" when he wakes up (right now he is in love with Diego) and he gets to watch a show before he goes to bed, but in between those hours I need us to be busy.

We do all of the "regular" things - color, paint, play with Play-Doh, read, go places (park, library, store, etc), but sometimes I want us to do something different, perhaps educational, and fun for both of us which leads me to the inception of the alphabet boxes.

When I proctored TAKS testing this year, I was stationed at a Sylvan Learning Center, and since all I could do was wander around and watch the kids test ALL DAY, I observed things. One such thing was some alphabet sounds teaching tubs. After testing I looked at them more closely and discovered they came from Lakeshore Learning. I thought they were seriously cute and fun and EXPENSIVE so I didn't think of them much after that.

That is until I saw this post about making letter boxes via "scavenger hunts" with the children.

I thought it sounded like something Dylan and I would enjoy making, so we made a trip to Hobby Lobby and procured some supplies to get us started - small boxes Dylan could open and close, sticky letters, and a few little items to start. Dylan had fun choosing our supplies, and when we got home we looked around for some other things to add to the boxes.

So, this is what they look like.

I know... not too exciting, but the fun part is making them and then adding the contents. Dylan also really likes emptying them and going through the boxes which is really the whole point - associating the alphabet sounds to objects.

Here are some of the sample contents.

The "B" box has birds, a bell, a blue bead, a basket and a basketball (which is Dylan's favorite).

The "D" box has a dinosaur, a donut, a dog, a donkey, a picture of Dylan, and a picture of Daddy.

We still have a couple of empty boxes (K, N, Q, V, X, Y, Z) and a few boxes with only one or two things, hence the work  in progress title. I am hoping we can work on adding items for quite some time.

Here is Dylan examining the contents of one of his boxes (BTW - although Dylan hasn't put any of the things in his mouth, I know they are choking items so he only plays with them while he is supervised).

If you have any suggestions for contents, I would love to hear them!