Daylight savings time was observed over the weekend and now nighttime descends on us well before bedtime. Mia noticed the change right away so we spent the week focused on Night. I haven't really seen Mia show signs of a fear of the dark yet but I did put an emphasis on celebrating night this week. Talking up the positives to make it less scary. If you have a child that does show some fear then it might be fun to make a Monster Spray together. I've seen many recipes on Pinterest but I can imagine it's as simple as distilled water and some lavender essential oil. Or even play up the silliness and figment of imagination that monsters are by setting up a Build-Your-Own Monster station with play dough and pipe cleaners, googly eyes, etc. We made dreamcatchers with paper plates, paint, string and feathers. Last year, we made dreamcatchers using an embroidery hoop instead of a paper plate and actually used it as decor for her room. Put it right above her bed and it worked like a charm. Another fun evening activity was a glow stick bubble bath. I picked up a bunch of glow sticks from the Target Dollar Spot -- all leftover from Halloween -- and threw them in the bottom of the bathtub. Both girls really enjoyed this special bath and it made something routine a little more special. Another fun evening activity we did was make shadow puppets on the wall. I discovered that the iPhone flashlight is perfect for this. Just prop your phone up on its side with a pillow or something similar.
All Souls' Day fell during this week and even though we touched on it a little bit last week as we learned about Dia de los Muertos, we did a special activity that paired nicely with our night theme. I found paper sky lanterns online and ordered a few. I let Mia color them with pictures for our deceased relatives and then one evening after dinner we went across the street to the park and sent them off towards heaven. There's a little science lesson in this whole activity and Mia was able to see how hot air rises. She even equated the floating lanterns to the hot air balloon show she went to during Up in the Air week. She's learning & retaining stuff from these theme weeks! Eeeeeeee! (NOTE: We did not in fact release these off towards heaven, but simulated it. Colorado already has enough issues with wildfires and I didn't feel good about sending flaming lanterns off into space. So to improvise, I tied a few pieces of fishing line to the bottom of each lantern and then the other ends to a 5 pound dumbbell I brought over with us. The balloons hovered for a little bit -- 10 minutes max -- and then they came back down.)
We're hoping that Santa brings a teepee this year because Mia is really into pretend camping. She just roasted marshmallows over a campfire for the first time last week and is still talking about it. So when she's really into something, I try to exploit that interest a little. All in the name of learning, of course. My idea was to figure out a way to make a pretend campfire for our possible new teepee so we went to Joann's to scout supplies. While we were there, Mia said a lantern would be more fun because she could carry it. I like how she thinks. We walked up and down the aisles looking for potential vessels & light. We ended up finding plastic mason jars and they sell wire handles, too! Mia wanted to use a candle for the light but we decided that we should avoid the whole flame thing. Ha! We did, however, find a cool battery-powered flickering votive candle. We were able to make two lanterns for under $10. Another fun spin on this project would be to somehow tint the jar a blue color and then use one of those battery-powered LED strands to simulate fireflies. We're going to be watching the holiday clearance bins for one of those! Here are the supplies we used in case my descriptions above didn't make sense.
Mia has been very fascinated by the moon and the stars this last year. We have a telescope on our wish list, but in the meantime, I use my DSLR camera and zoom lens to create a simple telescope of sorts. If you have these items, it's pretty easy to set up. I just put my camera with zoom lens on a tripod. My Canon camera has a Live View mode so I switch to that and this mode lets you use the back screen as the viewfinder. The Live View mode allows you to do a preview zoom (it won't take the picture that zoomed in but it allows you to fix your focus if you were using it the traditional way) and it's in that zooming that we can see details like craters on the moon. One of Mia's favorite iPad apps is Star Walk Kids (find it in the app store) and many evenings, she and I can be found out on our balcony with our iPad & camera telescope watching the sky. We took this photo of the full moon the other day.
And this is a picture we took of the Milky Way earlier this summer. We saw lots of shooting stars (Perseid meteors) and even captured two in this photo!
Buzz Aldrin was in town a few weeks ago and I was able to get an autographed copy of his new book Welcome to Mars. She enjoys looking through it and reminding me that a guy from outer space signed it. Ha! And to wrap up the week, we made a trip to our local science museum and watched the space show in the planetarium. It mesmerized us all -- baby, toddler & mom!
A summary of all Night week activities with links:
ACTIVITIES: Watched the night sky and looked for constellations using the StarWalk Kids app (find it in the app store), Made monster spray with lavender essential oils, Took a bath in the dark with glow sticks, Crafted our own Mason jar lanterns, Made shadow puppets on the wall before bedtime
ART PROJECTS: Created dreamcatchers out of a paper plates and embroidery hoops, Built our own monsters with a play dough monster creation station, Colored paper lanterns to release at night
OUTINGS: Visited the planetarium at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science
BOOKS: Welcome to Mars by Buzz Aldrin, Sleep Like a Tiger by Mary Logue, The Cat at Night by Dahlov Ipcar
BIBLE STORY: The star guiding the 3 Wise Men to baby Jesus, The Creation story (night and day created)
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).
