P is for Places: An ABC of Travel

It's no secret that we are a family of travelers. There's nothing I love more than packing our bags, hopping on a plane and finding ourselves in a new location, with new and exciting things for the kids to discover. Sure, travelling with kids can be stressful at times, but what we gain from the experience makes it all worth it.

Travel really is such a great way to educate kids about the world. It gives them the chance to learn about different cultures, different environments, different foods... But that education doesn't have to begin and end with the travel itself. My kids love to learn about places that we'll be visiting before our trip even begins. We read books, watch documentaries, and search the internet to learn about where we'll be going. Not only do the kids learn something new, but so to do I.

Once we're back home from a trip, the learning doesn't stop. We still read about the places we've visited, we look through our photos, and we talk about what we've seen and experienced. I often make photo books of our vacations and it got me thinking about how else we can use our travel experiences for education. Then it occurred to me... An ABC book of all the places we've been! 

I've always loved the idea of making an ABC book featuring my own photos of items/people/places that the girls are familiar with. Considering that we love travel so much, an ABC book of places was the perfect fit. 

31 Days of ABCs: K is for Kangaroo

This year I'm once again taking part in a wonderful series called 31 Days of ABCs. Each day throughout October a different blogger shares a project or activity related to a letter of the alphabet. 

Today it's my turn to share and we're up to the letter K. K for koala, king, kite, key and kangaroo.

I'm so excited to share this activity with you. Lola has been learning to recognize and write her letters (both at home and preschool) and one thing that I've noticed is that she gets a little stuck when it comes to matching upper case and lower case letters. Some letters are easy and don't change much between the cases while others look completely different and catch Lola (and many other young children) out. Upper case letters are generally pretty easy, but some of those lower case letters can be a little tricky. Especially when they don't look anything like their big counterpart. I'm looking at you g, r and d!

31 Days of ABCs: Y is for Yoga

I'm excited to be taking part in a wonderful series which has been running throughout the month of October called 31 Days of ABCs. Each day a different blogger shares a project or activity related to a letter of the alphabet.

Today we're up to the letter Y. Y for yellow, yoghurt, yarn, yak, yam and, as you'll see below, Y for yoga.

Here in Berkeley, yoga is a pretty big thing. My girls love practising their yoga and are always showing me different positions that they've perfected - or think they've perfected! This got me thinking about how they could use their bodies to make the letters of the alphabet with yoga inspired positions.

Om

Some of the letters were pretty simple to make, think I, X, T and Y. Others were a little trickier and required a bit of balance and lots of concentration such as G, J, S and V. And then there were some letters that we just couldn't work out how to make with only one person such as B, D, N and U. These required cooperation and teamwork from the girls in order to make them work. Or in the case of the letter W, let's make that almost work!

So let's take a lot at our Yoga ABCs...