Toddler Theme: Easter

This week we prepared for Easter and in the spirit of the holiday, I'm keeping the post to a minimum.  Here's last year's Easter theme week...you'll want to check out our Last Supper-inspired afternoon snack idea.

Happy Easter!

Toddler Theme: Trains

Trains have played an integral role in the history of Colorado.  Abandoned train tracks up in the mountains tell the story of past mining booms and the new construction of light rail lines highlight Denver's population growth.  Mia has always shown a big interest in trains and with Millie getting a little older, we decided it was time to do Train week again.  The girls like to do physical activities in the late afternoon before dinner so one day I pulled out the wooden train whistle and we made a human train (hands on the shoulders of the person ahead).  Two toots of the train whistle meant "go" and one long toot meant "stop."  Being the little sis, Millie loved her time as the engine in charge.  She also seems to be very auditory-driven so she wanted to learn how to use the train whistle herself. In the last few weeks, I've taught her how to use the kazoo and the harmonica so she picked this one up really fast.  The whole week, my house sounded like a busy train station...except for that one afternoon I hid the train whistle.  Ha!  Another train activity I set up was like a connect the dots game but with train tracks.  I made a few numbered circles on the computer and printed them out.  At first I laid out circles 1, 2, and 3 to explain the game.  They had to create a track that started at 1 and went through 2 and then on to 3.  Once they got the hang of that, I added more numbered circles and put them in funny places that required more creative track laying.  We also worked on patterns with the train cars...green car, green car, blue car, green car, green car, what comes next?  For an extra challenge, I had her create the correct patterns using the train tracks & interchanges to get them in the right order (i.e. not lifting the train cars off the tracks).  More of a brain teaser.

Nana bought the girls a cool sandwich cutter that not only de-crusts the sandwich but also cuts it into 2 pieces -- an engine and a car.  All week, we had train sandwiches for lunch.  Huge hit! 

Our art project this week was the creation of a name train.  I cut out rectangles in various colors and drew letters on each one, making sure I had the letters required for each girls' name plus a few extra to increase the challenge.  I also googled "train engine outline" and printed out 2 of those.  For Mia, we just reviewed how to spell her name and she found the letters and put them in the proper order before gluing them down.  Millie required a little help from both of us, so I wrote her name on the easel and Mia helped her pick out the corresponding train cars.  Millie did the gluing.

There are many, many cool train field trips you could do in Colorado.  Riding the light rail, for instance.  Or seeing the old Denver South Park railroad tracks up at Kenosha Pass.  Another fun one is riding the Georgetown Loop Railroad.  We did this a couple of months ago and the girls still talk about it.  Their 2016 season opens in April but they'll start booking rides at the end of March, if you are interested.  We also love going to Union Station to see the big passenger trains.  The California Zephyr stops in town regularly and we daydream about the day we can take a long train ride.  This week, we also chose to visit the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden.  I was really surprised by the amount of trains they had on exhibit.  There's even a roundhouse and a turntable.  The best part is that the museum is mostly outdoors so it's perfect for hands-on active learners that need to burn off a little energy as they explore.  Naturally, Mia & Millie found a way to get really dirty at a museum...there's just something about a dirt pile, I guess.

A summary of all Train week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Played connect the dots with train tracks, Played with the train whistle and made our own human train (1 toot means stop, 2 toots mean go)

ART PROJECTS: Created a name train with lettered cars

OUTINGS: Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Took a ride on the Georgetown Loop Railroad, Visited Union Station to see the big passenger trains

BOOKS: The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg, Locomotive by Brian Flocka, The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper, The Little Red Caboose by Marian Potter

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: Animals

We learned about Animals this week, and we have a wonderful book Animalium that nicely facilitated a lot of our discussions.  Mostly we discovered that there are some different classifications of animals.  Reptiles is one of them, for instance.  We also learned that some have bones, others don't.  Some have live births, others lay eggs.  And a fun way to put all this information to good use is animal dress up, of course!  I've been working on building the girls' dress up bin this last year (Tip: check out all the holiday clearance bins for things like clip-on bunny tails, headbands with ears, etc).  One special purchase I made was this adorable Opposite of Far felt mask (This is not a sponsored post, we just really love these masks).  We also found fun eagle wings and a bug hat at IKEA.  To enrich the girls' pretend play, I asked questions like, "What would your home/habitat be like." "What do <fill in the blank animal> eat for lunch, do you think?"  One afternoon, they imagined our basement was a ground hog hole and I wasn't allowed down there.  Because I'm a mom, not a ground hog.  Haha!

Another fun game we played is the Animal Emotions Dice game from Feelings theme week.  There's a free printable on that post so you can make your own dice set.  Mia is three and Millie is one and kids these ages struggle with the whole emotions thing so anytime we can make a fun game out of it, we do.  We kept the emotions simple for Millie but I also introduced some more complex ones for Mia like proud peacock, stubborn mule, etc.  

We made a trip to the Denver Zoo on one of our nicer weather days, but our more fun outing was out to a nature preserve.  I've been showing Mia field guides and explaining how they are used.  Ours even shows pictures of scat so you can learn what animals are in the area when you come across poop.  And seriously, what kid doesn't want to talk about poop?!  We indulged it a bit this week for the sake of learning.  We only found one pile of scat and one type of tracks.  After looking it all up, we were pretty sure we were in the same space a mule deer had been earlier.  And then we actually ran across a mama mule deer and her baby.  Confirmed!

For a fun art project, I picked up this unfinished wooden slithering snake at Hobby Lobby.  The toy design actually does a good job illustrating a snake's bone structure and how they are able to slither.  Beyond that, I used Mia's painting time to talk about snake safety.  We just moved to an area where rattlesnake encounters are not that uncommon, but Mia only knows the "cute" (her word, definitely not mine) little garter snake Stevie we used to see by the creek at our old place.  And when she did see him, her first instinct was to try and catch him.  Not good.  I try really hard not to pass my fears onto her or even to fill her with fear at all, but instead empower her with information.  We talked about how we need to back away when we see a snake.  We even talked about places snakes are likely to hang out.  And when we were at the zoo earlier in the week, we spent some time at the rattlesnake exhibit so that she could see what they look like, too.   

A summary of all Animal week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Played animal dress-up and practiced animal sounds, Also played the animal emotions dice game (free printable in the Feelings week post), Learned how to use field guides and looked for signs of animals on our nature walk

ART PROJECTS: Made paper plate animal masks, Painted a wooden snake

OUTINGS: Went to the Denver Zoo and did an animal scavenger hunt

BOOKS: Animalium by Jenny Broom, Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi, For Just One Day by Laura Leuck, Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown, Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle, Sleep Like a Tiger by Mary Logue

BIBLE STORY: Noah's Ark

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).