Toddler Theme: Sweets

My most favorite food group ever is sweets so it gets it's own special week!  That's one of the perks of being the mom...you can do things like design entire toddler themes around sugar.  Ha!  Hammond's Candies is based here in Denver and we visited their factory to do a little research.  If you are local, they offer free factory tours every half hour M-F 9:00am-3:00pm and Saturdays 10:00am-3:00pm.  If you aren't local, you can still check out this video on their website to see all the candy making action.  When we we visited, the smell of peppermint greeted us at the door because they were already hard at work making this year's candy canes.  Mia loved watching all of the workers through the glass and kept confirming that I was seeing what she was seeing.  "You see that?!"  The tour routes you through their retail store so, of course, we all had to pick out a little treat to take home.  Oh, and one for daddy, too!

That afternoon, we made our own "candy" creations with play dough and doodads -- beads, coffee stir sticks, etc.  You can buy candy molds at a craft store.  IKEA even has inexpensive fun-shaped ice cube trays, but we just used a mini muffin tin to make our candy.  That's what I had on hand and I'm simple like that.  I made a pretend lollipop to demonstrate what we were doing and get Mia started.  She ran with it from there.  All of our play dough ended up mixed together as she tried to make swirls of colors like she saw in the Hammond's Candies lollipops.  

We went on a little breakfast date at a local donut shop another morning this week.  Seeing your kid's eyes as they look through the glass case at a bakery is something special.  She went with the usual, frosted cake donut with sprinkles.  There is the the sweetest (<--sorry, had to) donut printable on Oh Happy Day's website.  The link is included in the summary below.  I printed out 2 sets and we played a donut matching game, but you could do so many other things with the printable.  Great ideas on that website.     

I always like a good busy work activity to occupy Mia while I make dinner.  This week, I gave her a big bowl of Froot Loops and a lacing cord.  I found this particular pack of lacing cords with the reinforced plastic ends at Michael's.  She made a couple of necklaces by stringing the cereal.  I set one of them aside for church this weekend.  

And lastly, we baked cupcakes.  Actually, she baked cupcakes.  She typed in the oven temperature setting based off of the numbers on the box.  She separated all the paper cups and placed them in the muffin tin.  She mixed the batter entirely and attempted to pour spoonfuls into the muffin cups.  I even let her don oven mitts (she insisted on the mitts) and put the pan in the oven.  Use your judgement on that one but we are learning household safety like hot water vs. cold water & sharp object care and I knew she was capable of safely getting the pan into the oven.  I am well aware of her strong independence but honestly, even I was impressed with how capable she was with this exercise.  Kids will surprise you.  While the cupcakes baked, I set up a decoration station.  Since we've been consuming all kinds of sweets this week, I toned it down on the toppings.  My setup included chopped walnuts, almond slivers, and carrot shreds which we used to make flowers on top of our carrot cupcakes.  It would be really fun to put out different types of sprinkles & candies and colors of icing.  We'll try that some other week.  I'm going to need a sugar detox.  

A summary of all Sweets week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Strung Froot Loops on a shoelace to make necklaces, Played a donut matching game (get the printable from Oh Happy Day), Watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory together 

ART PROJECTS: Used play dough to make "candy" creations

OUTINGS: Went on a tour at the Hammond's Candy factory, Visited a local donut shop for a breakfast treat

SNACK: Made cupcakes and set up a decoration station

BOOKS: Jamberry by Bruce Degen, Counting with Wayne Thiebaud by Susan Goldman Rubin, Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

BIBLE STORY: Canaan, the land of milk and honey

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).