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).

Toddler Theme: Calendar

There were a couple of unique calendar-related events this week so we decided to devote the entire week to learning about calendars and days of the week.  The first event was the snow moon, February's full moon, on Monday.  I like to play around with backyard night photography and Mia is always right beside me.  The trick to night photography is knowing how bright the moon is going to be and I like to use the Moon Connection website to help me keep track.  They also have some great diagrams of the lunar cycle.  This week, Mia and I took a closer look at the moon each night and observed the cycle with our own eyes.  For instance, we realized that after Monday's snow moon, the moon began to wane each night.  It will continue to do so until the new moon or dark moon, and then it will become a waxing moon until it's full again.  That's one full cycle.  We decided that both the waxing and waning crescent moons look like the Cheshire Cat's smile.

Speaking of the Cheshire Cat, Mia and I have started reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  She's seen the Disney animated version and loves the story.  Her favorite part is the Mad Hatter's unbirthday party.  I've been toying with the idea of throwing an unbirthday party for quite awhile now.  You see, there is a bit of a birthday drought in our family.  We're talking nearly 9 months (three whole seasons!) without a birthday to celebrate, and no birthday means no birthday cake.  How terrible!  And then I realized that we have a whole extra day this year because of leap year.  Seemed a pity to waste it, so Mia and I designated Leap Day our official 2016 unbirthday.  As a little exercise in time management, I walked her through planning her unbirthday party.  One day, we brainstormed what things she would need for her party: decorations, tea, cupcakes.  Then we made some doodles of what her decorations and cupcakes would look like so that we could plan the shopping list.  She decided that she'd rather model her cupcakes than doodle and pulled out her Duplo blocks.  She has a set that includes ice cream cones and "scoops" of ice cream.  She had it in her head that she wanted to do ice cream cone cakes and made mock-ups all week.  Like every single day "Here mommy, I made this for you."  I must have been gifted over 20 unique Duplo ice cream cone cakes.  I loved how she took our original idea and ran her own direction with it and then ended up being consumed by it all week.  I remembered one of my childhood friend's mom making cupcakes in ice cream cones when we were younger, so I figured out how to make them, too.  On leap day -- the day our party planning calendar said it was time to make the cupcakes -- we mixed up cupcake batter and filled ice cream cones.  After baked & cooled, we topped them with ice cream-looking dollops of white frosting and then drizzled with melted chocolate chips & sprinkles.  The resulting sundae cone cupcakes blew her mind.  She could not wait for daddy to get home to show him her design come to life.  

"A very merry unbirthday to me.
To who?
To me.
Oh you! A very merry unbirthday to you!"

Some other activities we did this week include making our own monthly calendar with the free printable from A Little Pinch of Perfect blog and learning this simple days of the week song (link here).  And lastly, we read Matthew 4:1-11, the temptation of Christ, together.  The scriptures say that Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights so we pulled out a big calendar and counted off 40 days.  That is a long time to go without food, we decided.  Mia tried to see how long she could go without food that afternoon and didn't quite make it 40 minutes.  Must have been all that talk about ice cream cone cupcakes. ;)

A summary of all Calendar week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Celebrated Leap Day with an "unbirthday" party, learned about the lunar cycle and observed the snow moon, Learned a days of the week song (link here), 

ART PROJECTS: Created our own monthly calendar with a free printable from A Little Pinch of Perfect blog (link here)

BIBLE STORY: Mapped out on a calendar how long Jesus fasted in the wilderness (40 days & nights)

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: Tropical

I credit my mother for instilling such a strong desire to learn within me at a very young age.  That desire has fueled me well beyond my school years and even inspired these toddler theme weeks.   I can only hope that I am able to create the same fascination with learning and exploration in my own two girls.  When Adam & I asked her to watch Mia & Millie while we went to Hawaii for a week, I should not have been surprised that she wanted to do her own toddler theme while we were gone -- Tropical week.  

Of course, Colorado had a blizzard right after we left but Nana & the girls were all comfy inside pretending they were on an island.  They dressed up in grass skirts, leis and sunglasses and danced to traditional Hawaiian music on Pandora.  We sent back lots of tropical animal photos & video clips to support Nana's efforts, and they researched them further in books.  Mia specifically enjoyed researching whales, the largest mammal in the world, and the life cycle of the sea turtle.  On the days that Adam & I visited Volcanoes National Park (and sent back photos like the one below from Kilauea's crater), the girls were learning about mountains and how some were formed by volcanoes.  They also watched the Lava animated short film that is included with the movie Inside Out to get a better visual before creating their own volcano with baking soda & vinegar.

Nana made the girls super special tropical juice drinks with paper umbrellas and she created a palm tree island made with kiwi, banana, and orange slices.  One afternoon, they cut up a pineapple and talked about how it's suited to grow in tropical environments.  They also did two fun art projects together.  The first was a puffer fish painting using a fork to make the spines.

The second project was a rainbow fish mosaic created by gluing together lots of paper scraps.

When we got home, I let Mia look through all of the rest of my photos and she was an excited wealth of information about lava, craters, and how volcanoes form.  She even taught me a few things.  Hopefully she stays curious and finds herself driving all over the Big Island one day in search of her beloved volcanoes, too.  And in that moment, Nana's legacy will have passed on to yet another generation.  We love you Nana!

A summary of all Tropical week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Learned about lava & volcanoes and then crafted a baking soda & vinegar volcano, Researched the tropical animals Mom & Dad saw on their trip, Played dress up with grass skirts and flower leis

ART PROJECTS: Made a fork-painting puffer fish, Created a mosaic rainbow fish collage

SNACK: Tropical mocktails garnished with Swedish fish and paper umbrellas, Celery sticks with peanut butter and goldfish crackers

BOOKS: The Magic School Bus Presents Volcanoes and Earthquakes by Tom Jackson, How Mountains are Made by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld, Blue Whale Babies by Matt Reher, Sharks by Gina Cline, This is an Ocean by Gina Cline, The Life of a Sea Turtle by Gina Cline, National Geographic Kids United States Atlas

BIBLE STORY: Jonah & the whale

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: Valentine's Day

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).

Toddler Theme: Science

NOTE: The move into our new home seemed to have knocked me out of my orbit.  I've moved many, many times before but for some reason (cough, the 2 young kids), this one was the most difficult.  Our weekly toddler themes were placed on the back burner as I worked to attain our new sense of normal.  I am forever grateful to my friend Ruth for offering to lead a Science toddler theme this week so that I could ease back into the whole process.  Without her help, I'm not sure how much longer it would have taken me to get back at this.  So thank you Ruth!  

If you are on Instagram, check out her feed here.  She takes the most wonderful photos of her children and I look forward to her posts every day.

-Gina

I had so much fun trying to decide on a theme for this week! After picking through our favorites, we decided on Science! How better to explain Science than with experiments! Noah is just turning three, so when I asked him what an experiment was, he shrugged his shoulders. I told him some experiments can be like magic, we can make something change from one thing into another. Some experiments we just try things to see what happens. Experimenting with your toddler can be so simple, and can cover so many different fields of science.

 First we experimented with magnets. I laid out a tray with magnetic and non-magnetic toys to sort. I gave him a magnetic toy to hold and to try to connect with the items on the tray. I placed a jar on either side of the tray so he could place non-magnetic items into one jar and magnetic items into the other jar. I made him a little booklet with paper I cut and stapled together, I called this book Noah's Experiments. I did this so we could log in what happened during our experiments. I drew two jars in the log book, and we recorded how many items were in each. This is also a great experiment to do if you have a baby; I have always found mine have always loved action and reaction.

My daughter who is 8 years old had to get in on this one too. I think she might be a bit of a science geek! She has a pre-made volcano mold from a science kit, but you can use a cup or anything that can contain liquid. You could even shape a small volcano using aluminum foil. Depending on the size of your container or volcano mold, I would start with using about 1/4 cup of white vinegar and a teaspoon of baking soda. And what you get is a volcanic eruption! They spent a lot of time doing this over and over again! We didn't use food coloring, but you could put in a few drops of red to make it feel more realistic! In our log book we drew a volcano, a box for the baking soda, and a jug of vinegar.

Another fan favorite was an experiment with gummy bears. We used four ramekins, but you can use any small bowl or container. We filled each with different solutions. The first had only water, the second had salt water, the third had vinegar and the fourth had water with baking soda. In each ramekin, we added 50 mL of water, except for the one with just vinegar, where we added...... 50 mL of vinegar! We added 1 tablespoon of table salt to one water ramekin and 1 tablespoon of baking soda to another. Make sure not to add the baking soda to the vinegar!! See previous experiment. My daughter and son drew a chart so we wouldn't forget which had which solution. We placed a gummy bear in each and left them in overnight. When we woke up we found some big changes! These were fun observational changes for us to make comparisons with. In our log book we drew a big gummy bear and a regular one.

A summary of all Science week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Did several science experiments including vinegar volcanoes, magnetic sorting, gummy bears in solution, and sundial creation

ART PROJECTS: We decorated our paper plate sundial before bringing it outside.  Crayon rubbing to experiment different patterns and textures in objects around the house, or even collecting leaves from different trees to compare patterns

OUTINGS: Our science centre in Toronto is an all-day outing with many exciting attractions, from an aging machine to making an impression of your body on a pin wall to making your own bottle garden. Going on nature walks and observing seasonal changes. Outdoor play at a park or in your yard can produce a lot of opportunities for experimentation. Discussing motion and force, placing a small car on the ground, you have to push the car to make it go, when the car is placed on a slide, it moves on its own. Is it as easy to move the car back up the slide as it is to move down?

BOOKS: The Magic School Bus books by Joanna Cole

BABY BONUS: Magnetic play, as long as the magnets aren’t too small! Playing while bathing the baby is a chance to try out some experiments like will the toy sink or float?

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).