Z is for... Zebras and Zinnias!

     Are you ready for the last alphabet post?!  It’s been a long time in the making, but we finally made it to the letter Z!  Hooray!

     Ok, I will admit it.  I took the easy route with Zz and with zebra! There are lots of great zebra books and I wanted something a bit easier for my kids to be able to complete with little help!  Thus, without further ado… the letter Zz!

 

Materials:  Index card with capital z, black crayon, zebra head, google eye, and glue stick.

Front of card

Back of card

1)    Use the black crayon to draw stripes on the capital letter Z.

2)    Trace the upper and lower case Zz on the back of the card.

3)    Glue the zebra head on the Z and add the google eye.

     By now I am sure you all know what comes next.  The 2^nd craft for my four to six year olds, of course.  I really struggled with this.  Finally, I found a cute zinnia craft.  I know zinnia is a bit unexpected for Z, but it gave me an opportunity to introduce the kids to a new word while also being able to celebrate spring!  Hooray!  Click here to get the instructions on how to make this zinnia.  Warning:  you will have to scroll down a bit on the website to see this craft.

     As for my book selection this week, like I said previously, there are a ton of good books about zebras.  Though, unbeknownst to me, I actually revisited a zebra book from a series that I had previously read.  In October, we read a ghost book about a zebra named Zee.  Guess what, that’s actually the title of this week’s book, Zee by Michel Gay.   Both the children and their parents enjoyed this great little story about a zebra who is trying his absolute hardest to get his parents to wake up.  I don’t want to ruin the story, but let’s just say that Zee gets into all kinds of trouble when he decides that coffee is the only way to wake them up!

     I thought that finding a book to go with my zinnia craft would be difficult, however, it really wasn’t.  Eve Bunting authored the book, The Flower Garden, which discussed a little girl who lives in an inner city.  The little girl and her father are created a birthday present for her mother.  Of course, the book involves a flower garden with zinnias, but that is all I am going to say.  If you want to figure out how I the world a girl can plant a garden in the inner city, you are just going to have to pick it up and read it yourself!

     Slowly but surely I am getting caught up!  It’s nice though, to be officially done with the alphabet!  The kids enjoyed doing it, I thought it was really fun and educational, and the parents appreciated a craft that didn’t clutter their houses every week.  Stay tuned for my next post when I show all of the pictures of the alphabet crafts in order!