Toddler Theme: Dinosaurs

It's DINOSAUUUUUUUUUUUUUR week!!  Which is very exciting, if you can't tell. ;)  We borrowed a bunch of dinosaur books from the library and the biggest hit was Dinosaur Farm by Frann Preston-Gannon.  The book inspired a lot of quiet indoor pretend play with all of our dinosaur figures & the farm set.  A huge blessing since it was a rainy week.  Thank you, Frann!  In one of the dinosaur reference books, we learned that many dinosaurs had scaly skin like we see on today's lizards.  That gave us an idea for a special art project.  We looked through a bunch of old magazines for green and brown pictures.  Mia had the color identifying job, and then I cut out lots of paper scales from those pictures.  Once we had a good pile established, I cut out a rough dinosaur body shape from white card stock.  Armed with a wide brush and Modge Podge, Mia attached the scales to her dino.  She completed the project with a googly eye...and a prompt bath (it's a sticky project!).  If you don't want to buy Modge Podge, you could water down some Elmer's School Glue.

To make bath time a little more interesting this week, we tossed in all the dino figures and colored the water green with bath tablets I found in the Target Dollar Spot (they have Elsa and Ariel on the front of the package if you're looking for them).  There isn't a green tablet, so you have to use both a blue and yellow one but it's a great early lesson in color mixing.      

One morning, we took a field trip to Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison.  It's free to hike up the ridge and scope out real dinosaur tracks and fossils.  If you prefer, you could buy tickets for a driven tour, but we liked getting the fresh air and walking out some sillies.  Several types of dinosaur fossils have been found in this area and they are still discovering Stegosaurus bones now.  There is a section of the wall where you can actually touch the exposed dinosaur bones.  Perhaps the coolest area, though, is the section of the Dakota hogback with visible dinosaur tracks along the surface.  These prints date back to around 100 million years ago.  They've identified several different types of dinosaur tracks and you can actually see the run patterns.  A few of the tracks are available to touch and this was a very big highlight for Mia, literally and figuratively.

To wrap up our fun week, we made dinosaur track cookies by pressing the feet of Mia's various dinosaur figures into cookie dough before baking.  To keep baby sister Millie occupied and out of trouble while we did this, I prepared a simple dino sensory bin for her -- uncooked oatmeal with buried plastic dinos waiting to be discovered.

A summary of all Dinosaur week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Played dinosaur farm (based on the book) with all of our little dinosaur figures, Took green dinosaur baths all week

ART PROJECTS: Created a scaled dinosaur collage with green & brown magazine scraps and Modge Podge

OUTINGS: Hiked up Dinosaur Ridge

SNACK: Made dinosaur tracks cookies

BOOKS: Dinosaur Farm by Frann Preston-Gannon, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? by 

Jane Yolen & Mark Teague

BABY BONUS: Oatmeal sensory bin with buried plastic dinosaurs

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).

Toddler Theme: All About Me

Mia's third birthday is coming up in the next month and she's changing so fast these days.  I'll admit, this All About Me toddler theme might be just as much for me as it is for her.  It was fun taking the time to celebrate the little person she is right now.  To kick off our week, we pulled out a bunch of Mia-centric books -- her baby book, an ABC book I created for her, and her My Very Own Name book from I See Me (they offer such cool personalized books and this one is a favorite gift).  She really enjoyed seeing her baby photos and often claimed they were her sister Millie.  It delighted her to find out that she was a baby once...but not anymore because she's a "big girl now." <insert mom tears>

There are so many fantastic All About Me interview forms out there -- just search on Pinterest -- but I thought I'd share two of my favorites.  The first one is an editable PDF download available from Paper Nook (get it here).  I've actually saved off a copy for both girls and I plan to fill it out annually...it goes up to age 18.  The second is a fun printable from Tiff at A Day In My Life blog (find it here).  It's two pages and she's included a section for their signature, handprint, favorites, a photo, and interview questions.  We worked on filling this out all week...a little bit each night before dinner.  One of my favorite, and unexpected, answers was her reply for favorite book.  She told me it was "Jesus" and when I questioned further for clarity, she ran and got her special storybook Bible.    

We also used this theme week to start covering some locational identity items.  She's still a little too young to memorize her address but we worked on recognizing which button to push in the elevator for her floor (we live in a high rise).  I also created an Elevator Safety Plan with her in the event that the doors ever close before Mom or Dad make it on.  Yes, it's already happened once.  Ha!  If you're wondering what that plan looks like, I taught her to look for the elevator button with the star on it and to wait there for us to catch up.  The star is a universal symbol for the main floor so it's easier to remember to look for that rather than a 1 or an M or L...or whatever other designation is used.    

Next, we dove into a little learning about where we live -- Denver, Colorado (we'll cover the U.S. in a few weeks).  One afternoon, we did some iPad research and discovered that our state flower is the Columbine, our fossil is the Stegosaurus, and our state flag has a big C on it.  We got out that paints and tried to recreate the flag for ourselves.  Flags are good for painting because they are usually pretty simple in design and you can talk about shapes.  And lastly, we took a field trip to Four Mile Historic Park to explore what life was like for Denver's earliest settlers.  The Four Mile House is Denver's oldest standing structure and served as a stopover for travelers on the Cherokee Trail.  The park is perfect for an afternoon picnic and lots of toddler exploration.  There are chickens, goats, and horses.  Lots of cool structures to explore as well -- an old schoolhouse, a teepee, a miner's tent, etc.         

A summary of all All About Me week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Made an All About Me poster (check out this printable from Paper Nook or this one from A Day In My Life blog)

ART PROJECT: Painted the Colorado state flag

OUTINGS: Visited the Historic Four Mile House to learn more about early life in Denver

BOOKS: Read through her baby album and several other books made specially for her

BIBLE STORY: Jesus loves the little children and the song "Jesus Loves Me"

BABY BONUS: Made a 1 year handprint to save for the baby book and then finger painted with the rest of the paint

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).

Toddler Theme: Feelings

This week we explored the theme Feelings.  But really, isn't every week Feelings week when you have toddlers around?  Ha!  Jokes aside, that's why there are so many children's books on this very topic.  I listed a bunch that we have in our little library in the summary below.  We pulled all of these out Sunday night and then worked through them over the course of the week.  I also taught Mia the song "If You're Happy and You Know It."  She's a physically active kid so this was a big hit and she had me making up lots of new verses to keep the fun going.  Song writing and, let's be real, singing are not my strong traits -- okay, I'm awful -- so I came up with an animal emotions dice game.  You don't even need to make it as complicated as a dice game...just pair up an animal and an emotion and challenge your kid to act it out.  We made dice because it added to the game-ness (not a word, I made that up) of the activity and kept Mia engaged longer.  I used 1" wooden cubes from the craft store and then Modge Podged several animals & emotions I had printed out.  Since I already did the work, I thought I'd share the printable but you could just write on the blocks with a marker.  Easy!

If you want to explore Feelings with a more art-focused approach, then there are some neat and free options available on the web.  Mr. Printables has a printable for a cool 'Make a Face' emotion toy.  You just need a few brad fasteners and card stock.  We made that one last year for this same theme and Mia loved it.  I also like the blank faces drawing page from Dabbles and Babbles.  It's the same one we used during Detective week, but this time around I drew different types of facial expressions and had Mia guess the emotion.  Another simple thing I do when the opportunity presents itself is help Mia identify emotions in real life situations or on real people's faces (on television, for instance).  I might say something like "Mia, I think something is bothering your little sister...is she upset?"  "How do you know she's upset?"  Ultimately, I'm trying to help her gain not only a better understanding of her own feelings, but also a social awareness of emotions in others (her Emotional IQ).  And empathy, lots of empathy.

A summary of all Feelings week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Sang the song "If You're Happy and You Know It," Played an animal feelings dice game (Want to make your own dice? Get the printable here)

ART PROJECTS: Made the 'Make a Face' emotions toy with the printable from Mr. Printables (get it here), Drew & guessed emotions using the blank faces drawing page from Dabbles and Babbles (get it here)

BOOKS: In My Heart by Jo Witek, Little Owl Lost by Chris Haughton, A Boy, A Dog, and a Frog by Mercer Mayer, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen, Happy Hippo, Angry Duck by Sandra Boynton, Owl Babies by Martin Waddell

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).

Toddler Theme: Mothers

Photo Credit: Kourtney Hand Photography

With Mother's Day coming up, we made our focus Mothers this week.  I decided that this would be a perfect time for this mother to take a mini blogging break.  So while we still celebrated this theme by reading mother-centric books, I nixed structured activities in favor of some extra snuggles with my girls instead.  I did, however, want to share our little Mother's Day gifts craft project.  I found a tutorial for heart thumbprint charms on the That's What Che Said blog (see it here).  I followed her directions pretty closely except that I bought gold polymer clay which eliminated the whole painting step.  You know how I like to keep it simple and all.  The heart is made up of both Mia & Millie's thumbprints and maybe it's just me because I'm their mother, but gosh, these made me smile.  Oh, and I bought all of the supplies at Michael's for under $10 (polymer clay, DMC floss, mini heart cutter as part of a 6 piece Wilton set...look in the baking aisle).  If you include the pack of Spritz blank note cards from Target that we used to package the gifts all up, then this whole project came in under $15.  We ended up making 7 charm necklaces for all of the great-grandmothers, grandmothers, and godmothers.  Then Mia wanted her own so we made an extra set for both sisters (does this count as their first best friends necklaces?).  I laced ribbon through a couple to use as Christmas ornaments later this year.  So, all in all, we made 12 charms and still had leftover supplies.

BARGAIN NOTE - I just noticed a slew of cool new art supplies in the Dollar Spot at my local Target.  There were all kinds of paints, dabber paint markers, textured paint brushes, sand play clay, pony beads, bath paint, etc.  We're going to be having Texture week soon so not a bad idea to snag some cheap supplies ;)

A summary of all Mothers week activities with links:

ART PROJECT: Made polymer clay fingerprint heart charm necklaces for grandmothers, aunts, & godmothers (full tutorial here)

BOOKS: I Love You, Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt, Olivia by Ian Falconer, My Mom Snaps by Kari McGrath, Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman, I'll Love You Forever by Robert Munsch

BIBLE STORY: Jesus' mother Mary

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).