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: London Calling

This is the first of many "Children of the World" toddler theme weeks.  Toddlers live a very ME-centric life but I wanted to start planting the seed of diversity early.  I'll stay really superficial and high-level with these particular theme weeks, because toddlers.  But, in general, you can expect a little exposure to language (if applicable), snacks & food, childhood games & activities, weather, and other country identifiers like flag, currency, etc.  And this is the really cool part...I've made several mama friends all over the world on Instagram and some have graciously agreed to help me with these themes.  For this particular week, Laura-Jane Mcdonnell (check out her IG here) provided all kinds of great ideas.  She even mailed out a postcard from London to Mia.  Thanks friend!

We started this week by checking out the United Kingdom page in the book Maps.  We learned about a few native animals, famous personalities, traditions, and some pastimes.  This book is a true treasure and we spend many rainy mornings looking through it, so it's worth checking out if you don't already own it.  I traveled to the UK several times while I was pregnant with Mia and I picked up a copy of The Paddington Treasury by Michael Bond.   It was fun to finally read through it with her all this time later.  Plus, she was pretty excited to see a picture of me I had taken at the actual Paddington Station.  She was there, too -- in my belly!  Laura-Jane also recommends Julie Donaldson books (like The Gruffalo) and Roald Dahl books as favorites.  

One afternoon, we pulled up a picture of the flag on the iPad and painted a watercolor version.  We also talked about the weather in London as compared to ours here in Denver - much more rain and cooler temperatures year round.  I showed Mia how you would dress appropriately for the rain -- wellies & an umbrella.  And they may speak the same language we do but we were able to explore the idea of accents.  A tad hard to explain but we watched the movie Mary Poppins so that she could hear the difference.  But mostly, I've just been eager to watch that movie again -- one of my childhood favorites!  I also taught Mia the song "London Bridge is Falling Down" and we had fun catching little sis Millie under the bridge.  To explore currency, I pulled out a few British pounds I had from my travels and we compared them to ours.  We discussed the physical similarities and differences between the pound and a US quarter.  And then I very vaguely introduced the concept of currency conversion by letting her count out the number of quarters it would take to equal the pound (Note: at the time of this post, GBP = $1.49US).  Since you may not have foreign currency lying around, I created this printable you could use to explore the same with your child.   

And since the real way to a toddler's heart/brain is through their stomach, we made a special meal -- bangers & mash -- to learn what a kid in the UK might have for dinner.  I prepared mash (similar to mashed potatoes and you could also stir in a soft cheese), baked beans, and sausages.  Laura-Jane said that many moms spread the mash on the plate and make a face on top of it with the beans and sausages.  Part of the fun is seeing what face you get.  She also said it's common to have tea and biscuits as a snack.  The tea is just warm milk with a couple of dunks of the tea bag to make it more official.  And biscuits are similar to cookies here in the US.  She specifically mentioned McVitie's Digestives biscuits and I was able to find those at World Market along with a pack of Walkers shortbread fingers.  Plus a tub of ABC cookies from Trader Joe's.  Never can have too many cookies, I always say!

What do you think about this "Children of the World" series?  Do you have any countries you'd like to see explored?  Do you want to provide input for a future one (I promise it's minimal effort)?  Please comment below or email me.

A summary of all London Calling week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Sorted British currency and compared to US currency (or use this fun printable), Played/Sang "London Bridge is Falling Down," Learned about typical weather in the UK and how to dress for it, Watched the movie Mary Poppins and noted the different accent

ART PROJECTS: Watercolored the flag of the UK

SNACK: Made bangers & mash for lunch, Had afternoon tea

BOOKS: The Paddington Treasury by Michael Bond, This is London by Miroslav Sasek, Maps by Aleksandra Mizielinska & Daniel Mizielinski, Any Julie Donaldson books but most notably The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom, and Stick Man

BABY BONUS: Read BabyLit boards books -- Alice in Wonderland and Pride & Prejudice -- by Jennifer Adams & Alice Oliver

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).

Toddler Theme: Art

Those of you that know me personally, know that I like making things.  All kinds of things -- sewing, paper art, digital art, photography, cooking.  I'm probably more of a crafter but I appreciate art & creativity, so Art week is fun for me.  We do art projects all the time, but during this theme week, I focus on some classic art & artists.  A very, very early intro into art appreciation.  The first thing we did this week was look at some famous art examples on the iPad.  Mia decided to stop napping so during afternoon cuddle time one day, we Googled artists like Picasso, Seurat, Mondrian, and Elliot Erwitt and looked through their work.  Mia liked Elliot's photos of dogs a lot.  Like a lot a lot!  Check him out.

Our first art project was a Mondrian-inspired collage.  Squeezing glue is a fine-motor skill that I've been working on with Mia and she surprised me how well she could do this on her own.  All I did was pre-cut squares & rectangles of varying sizes from red, blue, yellow, and white paper.  I did help her place the first piece in a corner so that she would get the idea of what we were doing, but that's it. You can see her finished work in the header picture.

This next art project was perfect as a "here, do this while I make dinner" project.  I made a couple of big open scribbles on plain paper then challenged her to tell me what they were.  My mom used to do this with us in church so that we'd be quiet (I'm on to you, mom!), but it's a really great creativity exercise.  And I always think the results look like Picasso's surrealist works (check out some examples of his work here).  That one on the left, I thought for sure Mia was going to think it looked like a snake but she flipped it over and said it was a mouse.  I added the eye and paw details while she colored it in.  If you want to learn more about Picasso (and other artists too!), check out his page on Artsy.  There you can read a biography, view his works, and also check to see if any of his work is on exhibit near you.  Neat!

We did a little q-tip pointillism for our last masterpiece.  I printed out a couple of artwork coloring sheets (I linked the website below).  The first one was A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges-Pierre Seurat.  I gave her an assortment of paints and a handful of q-tips and showed her how to make dots on a little section.  She worked very meticulously for about 20 minutes and required a second handful of q-tips.

I've been wanting to give Mia a camera for a long time and decided to go for it this week.  I had an old point and shoot laying around so I locked down all of the settings and made sure that the shutter sound effect was turned on.  You gotta have the sound.  Ca-chick!  She took about 200 pictures of her fingers over the lens but surprisingly, she captured some neat ones.  There were a couple of me taking pictures of her little sister.  And my favorite was a picture of her toes and Mater the Tow Truck.  We did also make a trip to one of our local art museums, The Denver Art Museum.  I have to caution that art museums are real tough for toddlers so only do this if yours has lots of fun interactive areas.  The DAM does have plenty, but I got this pouty face every time we had to walk through a gallery to get to the next interactive exhibit.  Sculpture gardens would be a great alternative.

And if your toddler has a little sibling, then you might like this baby "art" project.  Put a few blobs of paint (in our case, glitter paint) in a food storage bag and seal it.  That's it.  Let them squish it around for as long as you can get away with it. 

A summary of all Art week activities with links:

ART PROJECTS: Created a Mondrian-inspired paper collage, Practiced q-tip pointillism (Seurat printable coloring sheet here), Played with a camera, Used our creativity to turn scribbles into Picasso-inspired profiles, Colored masterpiece coloring sheets (check them out here), Made an art gallery installation with all of these art projects

OUTINGS: Visited the Denver Art Museum, Took camera on a nature walk

BOOKS: My Mom Snaps by Kari McGrath, Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, Andy Warhol's Colors by Susan Goldman Rubin, Counting with Wayne Thiebaud also by Susan Goldman Rubin, The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt

BABY BONUS: Made a food storage bag "painting"

So I was thinking...I really loved seeing the Valentine's week photos many of you posted to my Facebook page.  I'd love to periodically post a Follower Feature with photos of you & your kids doing the toddler themes.  If you'd like to share a photo, 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 (just make sure I'm following you or tag me in the photo).

Toddler Theme: Love & Valentine's Day

This week, our theme centered around Love as we prepared for Valentine's day.  Mia enjoys having  time to color & draw everyday so I created a minimalist Valentine's card with that in mind.  I printed them out on blank 4x6 index cards.  Did you get some of those yet?  I linked the printable in the summary list below.  Each day I gave her a few to color and by the end of the week, I had a nice big stack.  Since she's still working on some of her fine motor skills, we also made a paper heart chain.  I prepped a stack of paper strips the night before, but I let her help with the folding and creasing.  You'll have to help your kid with the assembly part because it's tricky to fold over the ends of one strip while also lining up the next strip, but stapling is fun!  And fine motor skill building.  Bonus!

Mia's not really one for obvious signs of affection so I made up a game to help illustrate the concept of physical love -- Animal Kisses.  It's simple, all you do is come up with an animal and a sign of affection for your child to act out.  How does a monkey give kisses?  What would a snake hug be like?  Show me how a Tyrannosaurus rex blows kisses.  It's pretty hysterical and you can play this game anywhere.  Another simple activity we did is create a We Love/I Love chart together (I linked a printable below).  This could be a good one for one parent to do with your kid while the other is preparing dinner.  Get the whole family involved in this similar/dissimilar exercise.  I asked Mia what things she loves and then I talked about whether or not it was on my list of loves.  We agree on our love for cheddar garlic grits and daddy, but she's on her own with the bug love!  Oh, and if your kid is into letter recognition, then you might like these Brach's alphabet candy hearts I found in the seasonal aisle at Target.  

Love week wouldn't be complete if we didn't practice showing love by doing nice things for people.  The way to Mia's heart is through her stomach so it resonated with her to take a surprise lunch to dad at work.  She also enjoyed helping me make homemade pop-tarts for friends.

Wanna try?  They're really easy to make.  All you need is ready-made pie crust, jam, an egg (optional), powdered sugar, lemon (optional), milk, food coloring & sprinkles (also optional).  Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.  Unroll your pie crusts (KISS Tip: put down parchment paper first for easy counter & pan cleanup).  Using a sharp knife cut the 2 circles down to rectangles.  Give the side scraps to your kid and let them make worms or whatever (i.e. keep them occupied while you assemble).  I can usually cut the 2 larger rectangles into about 16 smaller rectangles.  This will then yield 8 small pop-tarts.  Put a spoonful of jam in the middle of half of the rectangles, then brush the edges with the egg.  The egg isn't totally necessary since you're pressing the edges later but I like to do it.  Old habits.  Place another rectangle over top and then use a fork to press the edges.  Poke a few holes in the tops, too.  Transfer them to your cookie sheet and bake for about 12-15 minutes.  The glaze is just a mixture of powdered sugar, a touch of lemon juice, and enough milk to get a slightly runny consistency.  You can add food coloring if you'd like.  Let the pop-tarts cool completely before glazing but add sprinkles right away before the glaze hardens.  Enjoy!  I mean, give them to your friends to show them how much you care.

A summary of all Love week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Played the animal signs of affection game, Made a We Love/I Love chart (here's a printable), Practiced letter recognition with Brach's alphabet candy hearts, Did something nice for someone else (check out this great list of ideas!)

ART PROJECTS: Colored "i heART you" valentines (get the 4x6 printable here) for friends & family, Made a paper heart chain

OUTINGS: Took a surprise lunch to Dad at work, Heart scavenger hunt around the house or neighborhood

SNACK: Made homemade pop-tart treats for a friend

BOOKS: Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

BIBLE STORY: Jesus loves the little children (the song, too!)

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!

Toddler Theme: Detective

We spent the past week doing a fun exploration into the world of mysteries, clues and detectives.  Mia has always been a big fan of scavenger hunt activities and looking for "treasures" so I thought she'd especially like to solve a mock crime.  Our whole week centered around this one activity and it involved more parental prep than most theme weeks.  It is not difficult prep but I wanted to give you an idea just how simple these toddler themes can be, even at their hardest. 

I did all of the prep Sunday evening and it took me about 20 minutes.  It should take you around 10 minutes because I've linked all the resources here and included the fingerprint cards that I created.  First, I determined what item would go missing.  Kitty is Mia's buddy so she'd care to find him but she's not so attached to him that she'd be upset at his cat-napping.  I made a ransom note on a blank 4x6 index card with magazine letter cutouts and one fingerprint.  Then I took a few more blank index cards and wrote out the words (one word each card) -- LOOK, UNDER, YOUR, BED -- in white crayon.  I happened to have a very official detective-looking envelope (thank you Anthropologie.com!), so I tucked the clues inside.  I also created and printed out several copies of a suspect fingerprint card.  And lastly, I printed out the blank faces drawing page from DabblesandBabbles.com and the FBI Agent ID card from ItsyBitsyFun.com.  All are linked at the bottom of this post.  

While Mia was eating breakfast one morning, I hid Kitty under her bed and taped the ransom note to her door.  Once she discovered the note, it was a whirlwind of clue-seeking art projects all day.  We started with fingerprinting.  She fingerprinted me, attempted to fingerprint a dog, but mostly she liked fingerprinting herself.  

Next, we got out the watercolors and went to work on the folio of invisible clues.  She's really into letter recognition right now and got really excited to see letters magically appear on each card.  As those dried, we used the blank faces printable to make police sketches of the suspect.  Once the clue cards dried, we circled back to them to figure out what they said and rushed off to rescue Kitty.  Case closed!     

A summary of all Detective Week activities with links:

ACTIVITY: Pretend play with magnifying glass, cape and FBI Agent ID card from ItsyBitsyFun.com

ART PROJECT: Watercolored clues to find Kitty, Made police sketches of the suspect using the blank faces drawing page from DabblesandBabbles.com, Fingerprinted persons of interest using the suspect fingerprint cards (printed on 4x6 index cards) I created

OUTING: Nature scavenger hunt around the neighborhood to find clues of spring

BOOKS: I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen, Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems, Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard

What are your favorite mystery-themed books for toddlers?