This week our theme was Treasure Hunts and more specifically Maps. I personally loved treasure hunts when I was a child. They provide hours and hours of entertainment but there are also very educational aspects to treasure hunts. Things like following simple directions (or complicated directions), learning prepositional words (under, over, near, far...), and honing spatial awareness. We started our week out with the book We're Going on a Bear Hunt to brush up on some prepositions. And because I thought Mia was finally ready, I shared with her my favorite movie of all time -- Goonies. She calls it the pirate movie and watched it twice because she loved it so. If your kid is really into pirates, then your week could take a turn into that realm. Mia got a compass for her birthday last month, and this week we pulled it out to see how it works. She's a bit young to master this skill but it was a good kickoff to learning about the directions (north, south, east, and west) and the compass rose on a map. We played a little direction guessing game when we were outside one afternoon and I started showing her how to use environmental cues. For instance, the mountains are to our west and the sun rises in the east.
To put all of this learning to work, I made a treasure map and surprised Mia with it one morning. Do you know how to make an authentic treasure map? It's easy! All you need are scissors, a black marker, and kraft paper. I like to draw a wavy border and then cut out the map. Next, I draw a compass rose and then pictures to depict where I want Mia to go. Things like blocks to signify the toy storage area or lakes to represent the bath tub. Then I connect it all with dotted lines and an X for the treasure. X marks the spot! The last step is the most important...you must crinkle it all up. So ball it up like you would to throw away paper and then un-ball it and then re-ball it up and repeat until you get it looking really old. I rolled my map up and tied it with a ribbon before I presented it to Mia. Below is a picture of a map I made for a treasure hunt last year. Mia loves rocks so I used those for the treasure. So Goonies, right?
On our hike this week, I put Mia in charge of the map. All that really meant was that she had to pick which direction we were going to go when we came to a split but it did give us more chances to talk about the environmental direction cues. And just to reinforce that spatial awareness, we collaborated on a map drawing of the living room. At first she was a bit confused by the top down view we were trying to capture, but she quickly got the hang of it.
Another fun activity is setting up a make-your-own trail mix station for your toddler. We did this last year and Mia really enjoyed making her own combinations and saving them in little personal bags.
A summary of all Treasure Hunt & Maps week activities with links:
ACTIVITIES: Learned about compasses and how to use them, Went on a treasure hunt
ART PROJECTS: Created maps of our living room
OUTINGS: Went on a hike and followed the trail map
SNACK: Made our own special Trail Mix with components from the bulk bins
BOOKS: We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen & Helen Oxenbury, Maps by Daniel Mizielinski & Aleksandra Mizielinska
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).
