Toddler Theme: Halloween & Dia de los Muertos

This theme week took shape naturally because of the upcoming holiday.  There wasn't much extra effort required so it allowed us to focus more on having fun.  We've been watching Wizard of Oz a lot recently and Mia expressed interest in being Glinda the Good Witch for Trick-or-Treat night.  After some thought, it seemed like Millie would make a perfect lion since that is her favorite animal (although she's hardly cowardly...more like a courageous lion).  Our two Boston Terriers seemed like perfect Flying Monkey material and dad called dibs on the Scarecrow.  I decided to be Dorothy because you can't not have a Dorothy when you do group Wizard of Oz costumes!  And gosh, a Wizard of Oz -themed Halloween is pretty perfect for the family about to finally settle down in their new home.  There's no place like home, right?  The chaos of the upcoming move made me hesitant to create homemade costumes for everyone, so I outsourced the girls' costumes from Pottery Barn Kids.  Then Mia helped me make a long star wand from a dowel, wooden star cutout, and silver paint.  Another day, we drafted some patterns and created Flying Monkey vests & wings out of felt.  Mia glued all the black feathers on the wings for me while I sewed the vests together.  For dad's scarecrow costume, we kept it simple with a plaid shirt, jeans & a burlap hat, but we measured his wrists and created "straw" felt fringe cuffs for his sleeves.  And my Dorothy costume was easy to put together with a blue gingham shirt from H&M, white jeans, and red shoes.  We can't wait to Trick-or-Treat in our new neighborhood later this week.   

We carried our theme over into our pumpkins as well.  Dad carved a house on one and I carved a ruby slipper on another one.  Mia picked out the funniest looking green gourd at the pumpkin patch she said looked like the Wicked Witch's nose.  And Millie, well she kept herself busy playing with all the pumpkin guts while we worked.

I don't typically do a lot of kid-styled food but for this week, I made an exception.  We made mummy dogs out of crescent roll dough & hot dogs.  These are all over Pinterest but in a nutshell, you wrap the dogs with strips of crescent roll dough and bake 15 minutes at 375 degrees.  I used a toothpick to make mustard eyes.  Easy!

Our Halloween theme week also coincides with Dia de los Muertos, All Saint's Day, and All Soul's Day (Nov. 1 & 2).  As a nod to these holidays, we created our own painted rock sugar skulls and shared fond memories of our deceased relatives.  I pulled out several photo albums so we could show Mia pictures of these special people gone too soon.  An extension of this exercise would be to create a special altar (called an ofrenda) to welcome the souls back to visit.  The belief behind Dia de los Muertos is that if people are celebrated and remembered, they never truly die.  What a beautiful and hopeful thought.  

A summary of all Halloween week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Learned about Dia de los Muertos and told stories about deceased relatives, Carved and painted our pumpkins

ART PROJECTS: Painted found rocks like sugar skulls, Made color-resist watercolor spiderwebs

OUTINGS: Went trick-or-treating, Celebrated Dia de los Muertos at the Denver Botanic Gardens

SNACK: Made mummy dogs for dinner

BOOKS: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

BABY BONUS: Pumpkin guts sensory bin

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: Weather

Transition seasons like spring and fall usually usher in all kinds of wacky weather (or at least a little weather variety) and make it a perfect time to explore Weather further.  I recently learned that the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is located here in Boulder, Colorado.  A perfect field trip for us this week!  If you aren't local, don't despair; their website is chock-full of wonderful resources like videos, simulations, games & activity ideas (check out their Learning Zone here).  We spent a whole morning exploring their public exhibits.  Mia created her own microburst storms in a special tank, made lightening, watched tornadoes form, and even touched clouds.  If you diffuse essential oils at home with an ultrasonic diffuser, then you already have access to a cloud machine.  Open it up while it's running and check it out!  You can also look to see if your local science or children's museum has a weather exhibit.

We decided to do a bunch of weather science experiments at home this week.  One day, we placed a cup out on our balcony to measure rainfall.  Nada, dry as a bone here in Denver.  Another day, I pulled out a prism and we made rainbows on the walls.  And do you remember the old tornado in a soda bottle trick?  Yup, we did that, too.  Hobby Lobby sells both the prism and the tornado tube in the science aisle.  

As a special data collection & recording activity, we called up some of our family around the country and asked them what their weather was like that day.  I also reached out to my Instagram friends so we could get more data points.  Then we recorded it all on a blank map (find one here) and created our own weather map thanks to all of our friendly weather spotters around the world.  We also took a walk around a local pond one afternoon and I was able to show Mia the wind.  Back when I was learning how to sail, I realized that you can see the wind on the water before you can actually feel it, and I was excited to teach Mia the same thing.  Can you see the wind coming across the pond towards us?

After reading the book Windblown by Edouard Manceau, we did a little windblown collage creating of our own.  I cut out shapes just like the ones in the book and Mia created animals with them.  Here's the one from last year that I've kept all this time...makes me giggle.  Or maybe you could make a wind chime with found items as well.

I'm starting to get little sister Millie involved in these theme weeks a little more so I planned a very tactile weather art project.  The goal was to create skyscapes with finger paints but not just any old paints -- weather paints.  To prep, I stuck a tray of blue & purple glitter paints in the refrigerator and then a few tubes of red, yellow & orange paints in a pot of warm water.  I set out the cold, snowy paints with the warm, sunny paints and also some watercolors & straws and let the girls paint away.  You can use the straws to blow drops of watercolor paint on the paper almost like rain drops.  Last year, Mia did a very similar painting project and then while she was napping, I doodled all over her works of art and cut them up to create a weather station.  We still use this station to this day as we check out the weather each morning.  In fact, we did another little data gathering project this week.  As Mia updated the "today" arrow each day, we also recorded it in her notepad.  At the end of the week, we made a little bar graph to summarize the data.  A nice little counting activity and it's never to early to start learning how to make sense of lots of data!  

A summary of all Weather week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Created our own weather station, Did several simple weather science experiments, Watched The Wizard of Oz

ART PROJECTS: Created our own Windblown inspired animals with assorted paper shapes, Created sky paintings with various weather-inspired paints (warm red, yellow & orange finger paints and cold blue and purple glitter finger paints and watercolor "rain" droplets)

OUTINGS: Visited the Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder

SNACK: Made cloud sandwiches (fluffer nutters) for lunch

BOOKS: Windblown by Edouard Manceau, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, The Cloud Book by Tomie de Paolo

BIBLE STORY: Rainbows, a sign of God's promise

BABY BONUS: (see weather art projects above)

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: Fall & Trees

There's a change in the air.  The days are getting shorter, the air crisper, and the leaves crunchier.  Fall is here and it's brought pumpkin patches and corn mazes and leaf piles with it.  My Instagram friend Ruth (@just_the_kids_nextdoor) is doing these toddler themes with her son and she had a great idea -- why not use a Fall theme to focus on trees.  And that's just what we did!  Our first activity, I'm sure you guessed, was a Fall scavenger hunt.  We set out to find Fall treasures, and boy did we!  Mia had an eagle eye and found so many great items all within a block of our apartment building.  We laid them all out and took a few pictures so we could research some items further.  I've been wanting to start nature journaling with the girls and this seemed like as good as time as any.  I made a little on-the-go-kit with a Moleskin blank notebook, colored pencils, and some compact field guides in a little pouch.  We also recently purchased a flower/leaf press on Amazon.  Once we got a good picture of our treasures for the journal, we picked out a few flowers and leaves to press for future art projects.  As we gathered some leaves, I pointed out the different kinds of trees we were seeing -- deciduous & coniferous.  While she had a hard time saying those words, she easily grasped the concept that some trees have leaves and some have needles.  We were even able to find one of the trees in our field guide.  We made a leaf rubbing in our nature journal to mark the occasion.  Before we headed back inside, we collected a few more pieces of the tall grasses so Mia could make a vase arrangement.  Ruth suggested making leaf collages as a simple but fun art project, too!

I admittedly didn't pick the best week for a Fall theme because the leaves are all still green in Denver.  However, the leaves higher up in altitude are already changing so I packed the girls up one morning for a leaf drive.  My original plan was to scope out all the brilliant, golden aspens up at Kenosha Pass but as I pulled into the trailhead parking lot, I realized that we were a few days too late.  Most of the leaves had already dropped.  So it seems that late September is probably the best time to go; I've already made a note for next year.  Ha!  There's an old rail line from back in the mining days still visible right beside the trail, so the girls had some fun playing on the train tracks for a bit.  Mia burst into an impromptu Hokey Pokey on the trail.  Of course, I took a picture.

I backtracked east and took Guanella Pass towards Georgetown and finally found some golden aspens running up and down the mountainside.  Aspens stands are created by many aspens all networked together underground by their roots.  It makes them one of the largest (if not the largest) living organisms.  Tree fun fact for ya!  Mia and I collected some aspen leaves to compare to the ones we found closer to home.  We could see that there were a lot of brown spots on the yellow leaves and we later learned that the spots were caused by a fungus.  We had one of the wettest springs on record and it caused this fungus all these months later, dulling their fall colors.  

Our other big Fall week activity was picking out a pumpkin.  I took the girls to Anderson Farms in Erie one afternoon.  There's an entrance fee but the girls were both free.  Anderson has a huge corn maze with a smaller (simple looping) one for young kids.  We got a map and I let Mia lead us through the maze.  The maze always dumps you back out at the entrance but it still provided a little spatial awareness learning.  A short tractor ride took us to the pumpkin patch and we tried to pick out a few good pumpkins.  They grow white ones, pink ones, green ones, and, of course, orange ones at Anderson Farms.  A really good variety and I was pleased but I didn't really think out the logistics of two young kids and pumpkins that I needed to get back to the tractor.  Needless to say, we only ended up picking one from the actual patch...but it's the prettiest, most perfect, little white pumpkin and Millie picked it out (er, gave up right next to it).  Luckily, we were able to snag a few more at the farm store.  Two more white ones, a green gourd that looks like the "bad witch's" nose (The Wicked Witch of the West, of course), and a jar of pumpkin butter.  We showed off all of our farm spoils to my husband when he got home from work.  "Where's the orange one for carving?"  Sigh.  Sooooooo we decided to check out another pumpkin patch, this time Rock Creek Farm in Broomfield.  Get this, you can drive your car on the farms roads through their fields and park right next to the patch you choose.  Genius!  This time we were able to get a proper gigantic orange pumpkin and everyone is happy.  Ruth had a great idea for a Fall/Tree outing -- the apple orchard.  Our local orchards are in bad shape after the late frost so there were no U-pick options this year.  Hopefully, next year will be kinder to the farmers.

I was wracking my brain trying to think of a simple Fall-themed snack when Ruth mentioned syrup since it comes from trees.  And then I eyed up that jar of pumpkin butter I purchased from the farm store.  What about pumpkin hand pies with a maple glaze?!  These are essentially the exact same as the poptarts recipe in my Valentine's Day post except I used pumpkin butter instead of jam and I added a little maple syrup & cinnamon into the powdered sugar glaze.  So good! 

I really appreciated getting some ideas from another mama this week.  Thank you, Ruth!  If you ever have a theme suggestion or other ideas or want to collaborate on a week, please let me know.  I'm just working through a list of themes I created over 2 years ago so there's always room for improvement!

A summary of all Fall & Trees week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Went on a fall scavenger hunt, Navigated our way through a corn maze

ART PROJECTS: Pressed leaves we found on our fall scavenger hunt, Started our first nature journal and made leaf rubbings on paper

OUTINGS: Went to a few pumpkin patches and drove through the mountains to view the fall leaves

SNACK: Made pumpkin hand pies with a maple syrup glaze (find my basic poptart recipe here)

BOOKS: The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger, Leaves by David Ezra Stein, Nature Anatomy by Julie Rothman

BIBLE STORY: Adam & Eve and the Tree of Life

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: Construction

Last Sunday evening, I was reviewing my calendar for the week and saw that we had a meeting with our landscape architect planned later in the week.  I'd been meaning to do a Construction theme week and this seemed like a perfect time since we could take advantage of existing activities.  This is one way I keep things simple but it's really effective because it's real life.  I let Mia tagalong to the landscape meeting and she sat on one side of the table with me reviewing the plans and looking over plant lists.  I wasn't totally sure how much she would take away from that encounter, but when we got back home she set up her little table and chairs and reenacted the whole thing with me.  She had her own scribbled "plan" and everything.  The imaginative play is my favorite part of these theme weeks and Mia is at the age where she immediately picks up on things we are doing/saying.  It was really neat to see her initiate this imaginative play all on her own.  When we did our weekly family drive out to check on our new house construction, Mia brought along her tape measure & note pad and walked around mimicking me by taking her own measurements and scribbling away.  I took a few minutes to show her exactly what I was doing and why I was doing it.  I have no idea if she really understands the concept of space planning or if she will remember any of this, but she did spend the rest of the week talking about her new room design.  Another little activity we did is walk around downtown where some big construction projects are happening.  There were all kinds of heavy construction equipment onsite so we talked about what each machine is called and what it does.  I've heard of some communities doing "Touch a Truck" events where kids can see similar big vehicles up close.  Might be a good construction week activity.

We did all sorts of indoor construction projects as well.  We built things with Legos and I put an emphasis on reading & interpreting Lego construction diagrams.  Just a little spatial awareness activity.  And you don't need to limit building activities to kids' toys.  If you happen to be assembling anything for your home (IKEA furniture, etc), let your kid help.  I was very mechanically driven early on in life and my parents always got me involved in these sorts of things.  I see similar abilities in Mia so I make sure I give her opportunities to explore further.  She's been involved with little projects like assembling her easel and her table & chair set but I've also included her as my little helper on household repair & DIY projects.  One afternoon, I set up an invitation to construct a blanket fort.  I laid out a few light blankets, some twine, a bowl of clothespins, and some chairs & stools in our living room. I found yellow caution tape in the Target Dollar Spot this week so I taped off the whole area as a construction site.  Then I told her that I was hoping we could make popcorn and watch a movie together but first we needed a fort.  She was really excited by this and figured out a decent design within minutes.  She did need a little help spreading out the large blanket, though.  Some other construction activities we did this week include playing with our construction vehicle toys in the sandbox at the playground (or you could make a sensory bin), role playing with our pretend tool kit, and spending some time playing the Little Builder app on the iPad.  And have you seen this reflective vest in the IKEA Family section?  It's only a couple of bucks and perfect for construction dress up.

Instead of doing an art project this week, we did a construction project.  Home Depot offers building workshops for children (check for them here) and if you are local to Denver, there is a really cool place called The Craftsman & Apprentice that offers them, too (offer listing here).  We did our own because I really wanted to impress upon Mia the ideas of project planning, sequential events, and order of operations.  I settled on a string art project because it's simple yet calls for some hammering and the finished project can be used in her room in the new house (the first rule of good design is usefulness!).  The first thing we did is look up string art projects on the internet so she could see what a finished project looked like, a goal to work towards.  Then I gave her a wooden star from the craft store and some blueprint paper.  Blueprint paper is THE most important part of this whole project.  Make your own with blue construction paper and a white crayon.  I drew a rectangle border and then a title box with "Mia's Plan" on a few sheets.  Then we traced her star and she planned where she wanted to put nails.  

After some careful consideration, we decided that it might be best to paint the star before hammering in the nails.  I gave her a paper towel tube to store her rolled up blueprints in while she painted.  Super official.  Once the paint was dry, she marked the spots for her nails and I showed her how to hammer them in.  This is tricky and we had to work together on this.  Watch your fingers!  Haha!  Lastly, we wrapped colored embroidery floss around the nails to create a fun pattern.  A really good fine motor exercise, too.  What do you think?

A summary of all Construction week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Played with building blocks, Also spent some time playing the Little Builder app, Construction vehicle sensory play in the sandbox, Built a blanket fort

ART PROJECTS: Made string art by hammering nails into a wood plaque and then wrapping string around all the nails

OUTINGS: Took a walk in heavy construction areas around town to scope out all the big equipment

BOOKS: Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker, Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty (or try Iggy Peck, Architect), That's How by Christoph Niemann, A Year at a Construction Site by Nicholas Harris

BIBLE STORY: Solomon building the temple

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).