Toddler Theme: Easter

This is one of those holiday toddler themes that you can explode into a whole week long exploration.  And that's just what we did!  One afternoon, we went down to the creek across the street from our building and fed bread to the ducks & new ducklings.  And on another, we did an egg hunt at a local park.  We're not big candy eaters in this family (we all prefer ice cream, donuts & cookies) so I filled Mia's eggs with assorted polished rocks, an adjustable dinosaur ring, and hair clips.  Just little trinkets that I knew she'd appreciate.  An annual egg hunt is a big tradition in Adam's family so he got the all-important job of hiding the eggs.  Can't fool Mia, though.  She found them quickly but spent much more time going through all her spoils.

It wouldn't be Easter week without egg dying.  I made my own egg dye by mixing food coloring with boiling water and a splash of vinegar.  Mia picked 3 colors this year -- pink, orange, purple.  I put her in charge of color saturation timing.  If she said an egg was done, then we pulled it out.  She very quickly noticed that the longer she left the egg in, the darker the color got.  The next day, I gave her some egg stickers I found at Target to embellish her dyed eggs.  A little KISS Tip: cut a little ring from a toilet paper tube to rest the eggs on.  This easy, non-messy art project kept her busy for quite some time and the results were pretty fantastic.  Don't you think?  

We happened to have some fresh flowers in the house, so I proposed an experiment.  What would happen if we put some of the dye we used to color eggs in the vase water?  She didn't know but was eager to find out.  This time, she chose the blue dye and we added a few drops into the vase.  Within merely hours, we could see blue striations in the white flower petals.  The next day it was even darker.  This made it easy for her to see that the flowers actually "drink" the water in the vase through their straw, the stem.

And lastly, we learned about Jesus and his death & resurrection, the Easter story.  For snack one afternoon, I prepared a mini Last Supper with naan (or you could use pitas) and grape juice.  I told her the story of how Jesus said goodbye and gave instructions to his disciples over a meal just like our snack.  I also made a construction paper scene with a cross on a hill and a tomb with a rock to cover it.  Some of these abstract religious topics are tough to impress on a child so young but I presented Jesus' resurrection as the best game of Peekaboo ever played.  He died and was placed in the tomb but when people went to visit his tomb, he had vanished!  If you have other ideas for presenting the Easter story to young children, please comment.  I'd love to hear it!

A summary of all Easter week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Did a little science experiment by putting food coloring in the vase water of a flower, Fed bread to the ducks swimming in the creek

ART PROJECTS: Dyed Easter eggs and decorated with stickers

OUTINGS: Went on an Easter egg hunt at the park

SNACK: Created a "Last Supper" with naan and grape juice

BOOKS: Wolfie the Bunny by Ame Dyckman, Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney, Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt, The Tale of Peter Rabbit and The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies by Beatrix Potter, Miffy by Dick Bruna, My World by Margaret Wise Brown, Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems

BIBLE STORY: The Easter story

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).

Happy Easter!

Toddler Theme: Family

This week, we focused on the theme Family.  And the great thing about this toddler theme is that it's very open-ended, so tailor it to fit your family's specific needs.  Last year, we used this week to talk a lot about welcoming a new baby into the family because I was pregnant with Mia's little sister.  We read books like Miffy & On the Day You Were Born and we also took a hospital tour to see where we would be picking up our new family member.  This year, though, we focused a lot on the sibling dynamic.  What it means to have a sibling, how to share, etc.

In my head (which is a scary place, I admit!), this week is divided into 4 sub-themes: Our Family, Your Role in Our Family, Your Parents, and Our Similarities/Dissimilarities.

Our Family.  Last year, we put an emphasis on our extended family because they all live out of town.  This year, however, we narrowed our focus to just our immediate family.  One of our big goals this year is to teach Mia the basics about her own identity for safety & in case of emergency.  Family week provides a great jumping off point for this and we started really simple -- our last name.  She's known our last name for awhile but I made an extra effort to drill it and test her.  And to also work on annunciation.  Schlosser...yikes!  We also looked through our family albums from the last few years and she enjoyed seeing her baby pictures.  I let her pull out a few of her favorite pictures and gave her one of those cheap Target Dollar Spot mini photo albums so that she could make her own album.  Similarly, I created a baby board book for little sister Millie that featured photos of different family members.  Check out Pinhole Press or Pint Sized Productions if you are interested in making your own (I've used both).  They end up being treasured mementos...Mia's book from a few years ago has been so loved and worn.  And lastly, we did a family tree art project.  I really like multi-step art projects because it allows Mia to try out different art techniques & create something bigger while also factoring in a short toddler attention span.  One afternoon, we painted the tree and then another, we layered on the leaves and pictures.  She put her dad & me next to each other.  Love!

Your Role in Our Family.  Over her life, she will have many roles in this family, but I started simply, with her role as a sister.  And not just any sister, but big sister.  Her little sister is sitting and crawling and grabbing things now.  Sharing is a hot topic, naturally, and sometimes that's hard.  But we focused a lot on the perks of being the big sis.  Mia spent a lot of the week showing Millie how to crawl and cheering her on as she rolled over.  And while Millie could help us paint little finger prints on our family tree art project, she couldn't doing any of the gluing.  You know, because babies don't know how to glue.  "I'll do it, Millie."  I also created a little chore chart so that Mia could see what things she was in charge of doing to make sure our house runs smoothly.  Right now, she's earning stickers for clearing her plate, putting her toys away, and wiping down the table.  I've just been drawing rough charts with colored pencil but Pinterest has a million and one free templates.

Your Parents.  The big message here is that she is unconditionally loved.  That we have her best interest at heart, even if it doesn't mean fun all the time.  And even when she does something bad.  Some books that help convey these themes are Dear Mili by Wilhelm Grimm (illustrated beautifully by Maurice Sendak) and The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  And here's another basic safety item we covered -- mom & dad's real names.   I hesitated on this one because, honestly, I don't want her running around calling me anything but Mommy at this point, but I think it is necessary in case of emergency.  A police officer would have a hard time locating "Mommy."

Our Similarities/Dissimilarities. What makes us similar?  What makes us different?  The word family can be used to group & describe so many things.  All Kinds of Families is a fun book to illustrate this idea.  To further solidify what we learned from that book, we played a similarity game.  I set out 4 items on the floor -- a blue car, a stuffed animal, a square block, and a kazoo -- and challenged her to find other similar objects to go with each of them.  The kazoo became a pile of noisy instruments.  The stuffed animal grew into a heap of plushies.  And I really thought she would make a pile of vehicles with the original blue car, but she went with all blue items.  Still a family, though!

A summary of all Family week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Looked through family albums and pointed out relatives, Played a "Families" sorting game to match up similar objects, Began teaching her more pieces of her identity as part of basic safety training, Created a chore chart to show how she can contribute to the family

ART PROJECTS: Made a hand print family tree collage

BOOKS: Miffy by Dick Bruna, When I Was Born by Isabel Minhos Martins, Where You Came From by Sara O' Leary, I'm a Big Sister by Joanna Cole, Sisters by David McPhail, Dear Mili by Wilhelm Grimm, Gaston by Kelly DiPucchio, All Kinds of Families by Mary Ann Hoberman

BIBLE STORIES: Abraham's family is as big as the number of stars in the sky; Who is Jesus' family?

BABY BONUS: Made a little family album board book to build facial recognition of long distance relatives

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: Body Parts

We had to take our dogs in for their annual check up and also little sister Millie in for her follow-up flu shot so it seemed like the perfect week to explore Body Parts.  That's the trick to easy theme weeks...match them up to things you are already doing.  Keep it simple, right?  I told both the veterinarian and the pediatric nurse that we were learning about body parts and they jumped right in to help.  The vet pointed out the different canine body parts she was checking and told Mia about the tools she was using.  The pediatric nurse gave Mia all kinds of goodies -- tongue depressors, swabs, masks, a specimen cup -- to play with at home.  While Mia was eating lunch one day, I set up a whole doctor pretend play area.  I've heard this technique called "an invitation to play" (you know, on Pinterest and stuff) but it's one of my favorite things to do for Mia.  After my initial setup & maybe a brief introduction, she'll go for hours (I did something similar for the Manners week teddy bear tea party).  I pulled together her doctor kit, the real items from the kind nurse, and a few goodies from our own first aid kit.  Oh, and you gotta lay down a piece of tissue paper because no doctor's office is complete without the noisy paper.  Here's what my setup looked like:

She immediately ran to find a patient, Froggy (yes, we're original with names around here).  Her favorite thing to do was take his temperature so she did that about 30 times.  She listened to his heart, checked his blood pressure, covered him with bandaids, gave him shots, and fed him vitamins.  And her bedside manner is pretty awesome...she gave him a kiss during his shot.  Does your kid need some x-rays for his doctor kit?  I found those pics during a google search and then printed & laminated.  Staples will print on transparencies for you, if you want to go the ultra authentic route.

We had a play date with Mia's pal Olivia at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science this week, so we made sure to check out the Expedition Health exhibit.  Everyone receives a card upon entry and you sign in with some basic info like your age, gender, and name.  Then you can record different health stats at stations as you learn about body parts and systems.  At the very end, they give you a printout with all your information.  Mia checked her heart rate and danced around in front of the x-ray simulator.  Olivia looked at her skin with an ultraviolet camera.  Then her mom gave her some sunblock and we got to see how that works to protect the skin.  Pretty cool!

There are so many easy activities you can do, too.  I pulled out Mrs. Potato Head & a magnetic face game for Mia to play with during the week.  We sang songs like "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes" and "The Hokey Pokey."  I cut out random body parts from magazines and let Mia make a body collage (I included a printable link below if you don't want to cut up magazines).  And this last activity is fun as a pre-bedtime family game.  Give your kid a sheet of stickers and challenge them to put a sticker on daddy's nose.  Put a sticker on baby brother's foot.  And on and on.

A summary of all  Body Parts week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Played Doctor with stuffed animals, Sang body parts songs like "Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes" and "The Hokey Pokey," Played with Mr. Potato Head and a magnetic faces game, Labeled body parts on family members with stickers

ART PROJECTS: Made a face collage with magazine cutouts and household items (string, pasta, beads, etc)...Here's a printable from Picklebums if you don't want to cut up magazines 

OUTINGS: Explored the Expedition Health exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Took the dogs to vet for their annual appointment, Supported little sister as she got her follow-up flu shot

BOOKS: When I Was Born and At Our House both by Isabel Minhos Martins, Tickle Monster by Josie Bissett

BIBLE STORY: Eve was made from Adam's rib

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: Manners

This week was all about manners.  Not that we don't talk about manners allllllll the time, it's just that this week was an extra concentrated dose of etiquette.  Teaching my children manners is very important to me.  Sure, I love that Mia's proficient use of please & thank you in public makes me look good, but that's not why manners matter.  It's critical that I arm my girls with the know-how and ability to navigate life's tricky social situations.  Whether they find themselves defusing a tense playground situation or taking a new client to lunch, they should be confident.  But most important of all is the underlying sense of personal & social awareness that good manners imply.  To say thank you means you feel gratitude.  To look someone in the eye and say hello means you acknowledge others.  To hold the door for someone means you feel compassion for others.  Gratitude, humility, compassion...those are the building blocks of genuine happiness.  I can't make my kids happy all the time, but I can guide them down the road to lifelong happiness.  And it starts with a simple "please."

It goes without saying that I should model any behavior I expect from my kids.  And with manners, this is especially powerful.  You want to know how my parents taught (and drilled) basic greetings and conversational manners?  They signed themselves up as greeters at our church.  Every week, we arrived at church a few minutes early so they could open the door & welcome the families.  There was nothing else for us to do, so my siblings and I joined in.  As very young children, we just helped Mom hold the door and accepted praise and hair rufflings from the passersby.  With age and practice, we began locking eyes and offering our own greetings.  Maybe even a cool handshake like Dad.  Mia and I completed this same exercise in our high-rise this week.  We went down to the lobby one evening and held the door for our neighbors returning from work.  Naturally, we received a lot of attention so Mia was able to get in a lot of conversational practice.  Plus, the praise from others made her feel good and positively reinforced her behavior.  We did have a few neighbors who just rushed by without so much as a "hi" or even eye contact.  She was disappointed but it was an opportunity to show her how to respond and to teach her how important it is to acknowledge others.  It doesn't feel good to be ignored.    

Role-playing and pretend play are great ways to model & practice manners.  We dug out the play phones and role-played phone conversations.  This is an especially good way to practice if your little one freezes up during actual phone conversations.  Another afternoon, we threw a teddy bear tea party.  I was so surprised by how much Mia got into this one.  "This is a lovely tea party," she told her bear.  "And one for you," she said as she handed out the cookies (two for herself, of course).

This week, I also started teaching Mia how to set the table for meals.  I was originally planning on making a trip to IKEA to pick up a set of the KLISTRIG place mats, but we didn't make it.  They are really inexpensive ($3 for 4) and they illustrate an informal place-setting.  Instead I improvised and we made our own place-setting place mat with a piece of white card stock, glue, and this Martha Stewart printable.  With this, setting the table becomes a matching game.  And while we had the glue out, we did one more art project -- artwork thank you cards.  I've been saving a stack of Mia's more colorful doodles & artwork for just this project.  I cut her art into 2" squares and she glued those down on white paper.  I then cut those out again, leaving a thin border of the white paper.  She applied more glue and we pressed onto blank note cards.  Viola...kid art thank you cards!  If your child is a little younger or more into drawing, you could have them color this simple "thanks" card (get the 4x6 printable here).  KISS Tip: Keep a pre-printed stack of these handy for pre-dinner coloring and then you'll always have a thank you card when you need it...and maybe a few minutes of peace as you prepare dinner.  Or not.

A summary of all Manners week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Role-played phone conversations with toy phones, Practiced informal greetings by holding the door for others, Hosted a teddy bear tea party to practice table manners, Played the game "Mother, May I"

ART PROJECTS: Learned how to set the table by making a place-setting place mat (find the printable & instructions here), Re-purposed kid artwork into thank you cards (or you could print these simple "thanks" cards on 4x6 note cards)

BOOKS: Please, Mr. Panda by Steve Antony, Gaston by Kelly DiPucchio, What Do You Say, Dear? by Sesyle Joslin, Advice to Little Girls by Mark Twain, How to Behave and Why by Munro Leaf 

BIBLE STORY: Job's patience

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).

Follower Feature

I loved seeing all of the photos that have been posted to my Facebook page and you guys have some really great ideas that need to be shared!  Thought it might be fun to periodically feature your photos.

LOVE WEEK

Look at the Boddy kids' heart-shaped after school surprise pop tarts!  It (almost) makes me want to buy cookie-cutters.

 And little Elliot is in heaven with her homemade pop tarts.  She & her mom Leslie did a great job!

ART WEEK

Penelope worked on her own pointillism project this week.  And you've gotta see her Matisse-inspired collage.  Good idea, Meghan!

 

Lola's Mimi is an artist and she made up an art museum scavenger hunt by giving her artwork postcards to find during their visit.  And check out all of Lola's art-themed books!  Her mom Sarah has picked out some great titles (in case you are looking to add to your library list).    

 

If you have a photo you'd like to share, you can email it to me (email button in the left menu) or tag me on your Facebook photo or even use the hashtag #weeklytoddlerthemes on Instagram (if you are private, just make sure I'm following you or tag me in the photo).  I'll feature a few each month.

Toddler Theme: Bugs

It's Bug week!  While I don't necessarily love bugs, I do love Bug week.  It was last year's Bug week that made me realize the power of doing toddler themes and exploring new topics each week.  Mia was so intrigued by these little critters that it ended up being a year-long (and still counting) obsession.  I'm not so sure I would have learned this about her otherwise.    

Since we're still blanketed in snow, we had to seek out the bugs indoors.  Our first stop was the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.  They have a little alcove dedicated to native Colorado bugs, but Mia's favorite was the tank filled with Madagascar hissing cockroaches located in the Discovery Zone.  There are magnifying glasses and picture cards showing the different stages of the cockroach life cycle.  We were able to identify larva, pupa, and mature adults in the tank.  Another day, we went to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster.  There are so many cool things for toddlers to explore here but our highlights were listening to the buzzing bees in a hive, getting up close & personal with Rosie the tarantula (Note: you must be 3 or older to hold Rosie), touching a starfish & horseshoe crab, and of course, seeing all of the butterflies in the rainforest.  We bought a butterfly field guide at the ticket desk and Mia tried matching up the butterflies she saw.  Personally, I enjoyed the warmth & humidity of the rainforest on a cold day so we found a quiet corner and sat for over an hour watching the butterflies flutter all around us.

 

I'll admit, we got a little carried away with bug art projects this week.  I think Mia is still riding an Art week high because every afternoon, she wanted to paint.  I used a white crayon to draw a spider web on white card stock and then let Mia watercolor it to reveal the surprise picture (this is very similar to the clue cards I made for Detective week).  She got a little carried away with the water so it's not pictured below, but it was a fun & easy project.  We also made butterflies with water colored coffee filters, clothespins, pipe cleaners, and beads.  We'll be using coffee filters for another art project in a few weeks so it might be worth picking up at the store, but mostly, I'll be sticking to the items listed on the Supplies page and other basic household items.  Household items like egg cartons, for instance.  Google "egg carton bugs" and you'll get so many ideas.  I jumped the gun and cut our egg carton into 12 singles, but you could use multi-segments to make ants and caterpillars.  Mia painted them and after they dried, I gave her googly eyes and glue.  I had to help cut the holes for the pipe cleaner wings and draw spots with permanent marker (I let her use a Sharpie once...it wasn't pretty).  Our last project was a paper relief bug with painted wings and marker body.

I may be a little late to this game, but have you heard of Hex Bugs?  They sell them at Target for under $10.  Hex Bugs are little robot bugs.  We bought the Nano ones and they vibrate when you turn them on, eerily mimicking real bug movements.  There are larger ones with articulated legs, too.  When we first pulled our Hex Bugs out of the package, we just let 'em go along the floor.  Their movements were a little too life-like for Mia and she hid behind me as I kept them contained in a small area with my hands.  I got out the bag of wooden blocks and we made little mazes and obstacles for the bugs.  Those bugs are sneaky, though, and could escape between the blocks...and then they were off!  Tearing across the living room, dogs barking & Mia shrieking behind them.  So next we pulled out the Duplos and made a bug stadium with one entrance/exit.  Mia made a game of letting 2 bugs loose at the same time and the winner was the bug who escaped the stadium first.  I made a little score chart so we could keep track of the results.  In the science world, this is known as making and documenting observations.  There we go, learning by playing again!

 

A summary of all Bug week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Played with bug finger puppets, Constructed block mazes & obstacles for Hex Bugs, Made bug tracks in play dough with little plastic bug figures

ART PROJECTS: Water colored a spiderweb color resist, Made butterflies with coffee filters & clothespins, Created little egg carton bugs with pipe cleaners and googly eyes, Made a paper relief beetle 

OUTINGS: Went to the Butterfly Pavilion and also the Denver Museum of Nature & Science

SNACK: Made "ants on a log" with celery, peanut butter & sunflower seeds

BOOKS: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears by Verna Aardema, The Illustrated Anansi by Philip Sherlock, The Snail's Spell by Joanne Ryder, The Best Book of Bugs by Claire Llewellyn, Fireflies in the Night by Judy Hawes, From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman

BIBLE STORY: The bug plagues (gnats, flies, locusts) that God sent down on the Egyptians (3 of the 10 total plagues)

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).