Toddler Theme: Family

This week, we focused on the theme Family.  And the great thing about this toddler theme is that it's very open-ended, so tailor it to fit your family's specific needs.  Last year, we used this week to talk a lot about welcoming a new baby into the family because I was pregnant with Mia's little sister.  We read books like Miffy & On the Day You Were Born and we also took a hospital tour to see where we would be picking up our new family member.  This year, though, we focused a lot on the sibling dynamic.  What it means to have a sibling, how to share, etc.

In my head (which is a scary place, I admit!), this week is divided into 4 sub-themes: Our Family, Your Role in Our Family, Your Parents, and Our Similarities/Dissimilarities.

Our Family.  Last year, we put an emphasis on our extended family because they all live out of town.  This year, however, we narrowed our focus to just our immediate family.  One of our big goals this year is to teach Mia the basics about her own identity for safety & in case of emergency.  Family week provides a great jumping off point for this and we started really simple -- our last name.  She's known our last name for awhile but I made an extra effort to drill it and test her.  And to also work on annunciation.  Schlosser...yikes!  We also looked through our family albums from the last few years and she enjoyed seeing her baby pictures.  I let her pull out a few of her favorite pictures and gave her one of those cheap Target Dollar Spot mini photo albums so that she could make her own album.  Similarly, I created a baby board book for little sister Millie that featured photos of different family members.  Check out Pinhole Press or Pint Sized Productions if you are interested in making your own (I've used both).  They end up being treasured mementos...Mia's book from a few years ago has been so loved and worn.  And lastly, we did a family tree art project.  I really like multi-step art projects because it allows Mia to try out different art techniques & create something bigger while also factoring in a short toddler attention span.  One afternoon, we painted the tree and then another, we layered on the leaves and pictures.  She put her dad & me next to each other.  Love!

Your Role in Our Family.  Over her life, she will have many roles in this family, but I started simply, with her role as a sister.  And not just any sister, but big sister.  Her little sister is sitting and crawling and grabbing things now.  Sharing is a hot topic, naturally, and sometimes that's hard.  But we focused a lot on the perks of being the big sis.  Mia spent a lot of the week showing Millie how to crawl and cheering her on as she rolled over.  And while Millie could help us paint little finger prints on our family tree art project, she couldn't doing any of the gluing.  You know, because babies don't know how to glue.  "I'll do it, Millie."  I also created a little chore chart so that Mia could see what things she was in charge of doing to make sure our house runs smoothly.  Right now, she's earning stickers for clearing her plate, putting her toys away, and wiping down the table.  I've just been drawing rough charts with colored pencil but Pinterest has a million and one free templates.

Your Parents.  The big message here is that she is unconditionally loved.  That we have her best interest at heart, even if it doesn't mean fun all the time.  And even when she does something bad.  Some books that help convey these themes are Dear Mili by Wilhelm Grimm (illustrated beautifully by Maurice Sendak) and The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  And here's another basic safety item we covered -- mom & dad's real names.   I hesitated on this one because, honestly, I don't want her running around calling me anything but Mommy at this point, but I think it is necessary in case of emergency.  A police officer would have a hard time locating "Mommy."

Our Similarities/Dissimilarities. What makes us similar?  What makes us different?  The word family can be used to group & describe so many things.  All Kinds of Families is a fun book to illustrate this idea.  To further solidify what we learned from that book, we played a similarity game.  I set out 4 items on the floor -- a blue car, a stuffed animal, a square block, and a kazoo -- and challenged her to find other similar objects to go with each of them.  The kazoo became a pile of noisy instruments.  The stuffed animal grew into a heap of plushies.  And I really thought she would make a pile of vehicles with the original blue car, but she went with all blue items.  Still a family, though!

A summary of all Family week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Looked through family albums and pointed out relatives, Played a "Families" sorting game to match up similar objects, Began teaching her more pieces of her identity as part of basic safety training, Created a chore chart to show how she can contribute to the family

ART PROJECTS: Made a hand print family tree collage

BOOKS: Miffy by Dick Bruna, When I Was Born by Isabel Minhos Martins, Where You Came From by Sara O' Leary, I'm a Big Sister by Joanna Cole, Sisters by David McPhail, Dear Mili by Wilhelm Grimm, Gaston by Kelly DiPucchio, All Kinds of Families by Mary Ann Hoberman

BIBLE STORIES: Abraham's family is as big as the number of stars in the sky; Who is Jesus' family?

BABY BONUS: Made a little family album board book to build facial recognition of long distance relatives

If you'd like to share a photo of your kid doing theme week activities, you can email it to me (email button in the left menu) or tag me on your Facebook photo or use the hashtag #weeklytoddlerthemes on Instagram (if you are private, just make sure I'm following you or tag me in the photo).