We prepared for Valentine's Day and the Lenten season this week as we learned about love & mercy. I'm noticing more and more squabbles between the girls as Millie becomes more independent so learning about mercy is entirely appropriate right now. Add to it that Pope Francis has designated this year as the year of mercy and he wants us to focus on it during Lent (which started Wednesday), and I'd say the timing was down right perfect. We talked about what mercy is (in simple terms: not punishing someone even though they deserve it) and how we can show it to little sisters that knock down block towers and run off with our cheese snacks. And as an extension, we started picking one person to pray for as a family before dinner each night. We're planning on carrying that exercise out all through Lent. Interestingly, we learned about the difference between grace and mercy one night because we couldn't think of a person to list in our prayer for mercy (Millie was really good that day and I must have been on top of my mom game. Ha!). Grace is receiving a blessing even though we don't deserve it. We all need grace so that opened up a lot of people to pray for!
We read the Parable of the Prodigal Son as an example of mercy & love and that got Mia thinking about taking care of someone/thing. She has been really into nurturing her stuffed animals the last few months. She calls them her babies and always makes sure they are swaddled & warm. To capitalize on this, I took her shopping for her very own plant to care for and love. She picked out a succulent and we planted it in a tiny pot deemed "cute" enough. I showed her how plants have to be cared for and shown love daily so they can grow. She started showing an interest in helping with all of my other plants too, so I got her a special spray bottle to water them each day. This was a bonus because not only is she learning about nurturing, consistent love but also honing fine motor skills. Using a spray bottle builds dexterity that will help with handwriting later on. As an easy themed way to practice sight words this week, I filled a bowl with candy conversation hearts. I wrote a few of the phrases largely on some sheets of paper and let her find the candy heart matches. We also pulled out a few high powered magnets and learned about magnetic attraction.
This week's big activity, though, was creating Valentine's for friends...of course! Mia wanted to make necklaces for her girlfriends so we found some letter charms and glow-in-the-dark beads at Hobby Lobby. After we had her list of recipients, we came up with words to spell out for each necklace. Mia found all the letters and laced them in a pattern -- letter bead, glow-in the-dark bead, repeat. I made a simple little card for her to decorate and attach the necklaces to. It says, "You're charming, Valentine." You can download the card printable here if you want to make your own charm necklace Valentine's.
For the special guys in her life, Mia selected little notebooks and we attached a card that says, "It's been noted, you're one cool Valentine." And for all of our new neighbors, we potted succulents with cards that read, "Our street would succ without you." We're punny, we know! Ha!
If you need something last minute or for a younger child, you can check out last year's Valentine's Day theme week for our really simple art-themed valentine. My super easy homemade pop-tart recipe is in that post, too! Happy Valentine's Day!
A summary of all Valentine's week activities with links:
ACTIVITIES: Potted succulents and learned how to take care of something, Explored magnet attraction and repulsion, Practiced sight words by matching written phrases to ones on candy hearts
ART PROJECTS: Practiced the alphabet and made letter charm necklace Valentine's for friends (download the 4" x 6" card printable here)
BOOKS: Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, One Love by Cedella Marley, All My Kisses by Kerry Brown
BIBLE STORY: The Parable of the Prodigal Son, Learned about mercy and grace...practiced both throughout the week
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).
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