Octopus Hunt and the O-lympics!!

we started off our letter O week with an Octopus hunt!  instead of a lion hunt, we put on our letter O goggles and hopped in the Ocean to go on an Octopus hunt.  we took a huge breath and jumped into the Ocean, smush-smush-smushed our way through a sandbar, 

swish-swish-swished our way through seaweed,

splash-splash-splashed our way through some big waves,

and then found the Octopus cave in which our Octopuses (Octopi?) were hiding!  

after being captured, the Octopi were pretty hungry, so we brought them back to the activity table for a snack.  we traced around the letter O, then we brought out an alphabet soup.  the Octopi only wanted to eat letter O's, so the kids had to find all the O's in the mixed-up letters on the table and only glue O's on the Octopi's tentacles.

then we read "Oliver Octopus Takes a Job" from the two-minute stories book and counted all his arms and legs (8!)

then we used our four fingers on one hand and four fingers on the other hand to make our own little Octopi swimming in the Ocean.

on day 2, we had the O-lympics!!  first the kids had to paint their noodle letter O's.  once they finished painting, they would go down the slide and get a bike to ride around the big letter O on the ground.  after that they would go to the bowling lane and knock down the letter O (monsters were extra points...), and then back to the table to put together a letter O picnic plate--only foods that started with the "O" sound were allowed on the plate!

i seriously thought these activities would take us until 1015, at the very earliest, but these smarty-pants whizzed through all the activities!  they had more time to play!  everyone loved the slide, riding bikes, and coming back to paint more and more.

say "O"!!