Magazine Alphabet

My son finished a project today that he has been working on for the last week.  His assignment was to search magazines and choose pictures of items that begin with each letter of the alphabet.  Next he needed to cut each picture out and tape them to his workbook page.  And then he was to write the letter each image begins with next to the pictures. 

His "workbook" is simply a basic spiral lined paper notebook. 

We found a box of them at Walmart several years ago marked 5 cents each - yes, that's right!!!  FIVE cents!  Can't beat that.  So we purchased them all...and have found great uses for them.  For my son's school workbooks I simply labeled each of them. 

We use them for just about everything, Math, Bible, Writing, Journaling - but I think that's a post for another day. 

I thought this project was a great way for him to develop motor skills as he practiced cutting with scissors, to identify images, to sound out and spell words, to gain experience organizing alphabetically, and to practice writing letters.  Plus, it was a way to put a few old magazines to good use! 

I was delighted with his creativity in choosing his pictures, so I thought I'd share with you what he found.

A is for Animals.

B is for Baby.

C is for Crackers.

D is for Dollars.

E is for Eat.

F is for Food.

G is for Grass.

H is for Him.

I is for Ice Cream.

J is for Jack-O-Lantern.

[He didn't know what this picture was, when I told him, he exclaimed, "Hey Mom!  That starts with J!"]

K is for Kid.

L is for Light.

[Because "the lamp is turned on and the brightness is coming out of it..."]

M is for Money.

[Ok, so far we have Dollars and Money...]

N is for Naked.

Now, when he came to me while I was cooking and proclaimed proudly that he had found a picture for "N" and it was "naked", I was initially slightly alarmed.  Ummmm...gee son, what kind of magazines are you ruffling through?  I was relieved when he clarified that it was a naked baby.  Ohhhh, a naked BABY...whew.  [I was pretty confident it couldn't be anything too risque...I mean, he was cutting up Martha Stewart and those free Parenting mags they send out to new moms...but you never know.  A boy could stumble upon a Dove advertisement or something...]  Naked.  Lol!

O is for On.  The boy is On the clouds.  Nice.

P is for Parachute.

[This picture is sooo tiny!  I'm amazed that he spotted that parachuting teddy in the first place - and knew what a parachute was.]

Now, "Q" was a little bit difficult.  All he could think of was quilt.  But he couldn't find a quilt.  So, I listed off as many "q" words as I could think of for him, and this is what he came back to show me:

Q is for Quack.

I know he misspelled several words...but spelling out the words wasn't even part of his assignment.  He tried on his own initiative and did pretty well phonetically.  So, I bit my OCD-perfectionist tongue and told him "good job."  We can work on the details later.  ;)

R is for Read.

[...because "these are words that you read, Mom."]

S is for Silly.

T is for Toy Story.

[This was by far his favorite picture to cut out: a Toy Story Lego Set.  See the missing triangle above Woody and Jessie's heads?  More on that later...]

U is for Up.

["This bear is riding an airplane...which goes Up in the sky."]

V is for Vegetables.

W is for Walk.

["Look, somebody is walking."]

"X" was another tricky letter.  Neither he nor I could think of very many words that begin with "X".  So I told him he could find a word with the letter "X" in it.  He found...

X is for relaX.

["Because it looked like she was gonna relax."]

Y is for You.

Remember the missing triangle from the Toy Story Lego set?

Z is for buZZ.

BuZZ Lightyear.  To the end of the alphabet...and beyond! 

So...now you have a use for your stash of unwanted magazines.  Turn them into crafts/homework.  ;)