You know those days when it takes everything you’ve got, just to make it to nap time? Those days when you’re over-tired, not feeling well, burned out from racing around the park all morning in the hot sun? Or those days when your adorable children are being…well, less than adorable? Of course you do! Every parent has had at least one of those days.
I was having one of those days recently, and when nap time finally came, I let out a (quiet) squeal of joy. All I wanted was to kick back and relax on the couch for the next hour…but, I also wanted to make sure that the afternoon wasn’t going to be just as much of a struggle. And thus, I decided it was time for an ABC Hunt!
I had saved this wonderful alphabet activity, that I came across on Busy Toddler (http://busytoddler.com/2017/03/alphabet-find-learn-activity/), for just such an occasion. A simple, yet engaging activity that would take just minutes to setup, but would keep my little nugget focused for quite some time! Susie (Busy Toddler) dubs this a “magical” and “life-changing” activity for parents, because it gives you the opportunity to sit back and relax, while the kiddos run around the house searching for letters.
ABC Hunt
All you need for this activity is some squares of construction paper, a marker, and some tape – and that’s it! Simply write a letter on each square of paper (I chose to write both the uppercase and lowercase letter, since we’ve started trying to learn our lowercase letters recently). And then tape the letters up around the house, at a height that is within your child’s reach.
The prep for this activity was so quick and easy, that I still managed to get some quality couch time, while my daughter continued to nap! Woohoo!
She immediately noticed some of the letters when she emerged from her bedroom. She looked up at me, smiled, and said, “What are we going to do, Mommy?” She was already excited and engaged!
I explained that we were going to go hunting for all of the letters of the alphabet. To stop her from just racing around the house ripping down all of the paper squares within seconds, I presented an extra instruction…we were going to hunt for the letters in the order that they appear in the alphabet. This added caveat made her stop and think each and every time we found a letter…what comes next? She ended up singing her ABC’s quite a few times that afternoon. π
Once she discovered the letter we were hunting for, we talked about what words started with that letter. She is always asking us what words start with a certain letter – it’s a frequent meal-time conversation.
As she spotted each letter, she removed it from its hiding place, and plopped it into a pile on the living room floor. When we were finished with out hunt, we gathered up all of the letters and put them away for another day!
This simple ABC Hunt activity salvaged our day! My little explorer thoroughly enjoyed hunting around our house for the hidden letters. We will definitely be doing this activity again in the future. Next time, I plan to place each of the letters on an object that actually starts with that letter. The different possibilities for this activity are numerous! If you’re interested in more variations, follow the link over to Busy Toddler – she has more great ideas!
What are some of your go-to activities for those tough parenting days? I would love to hear about them in the comments below.
