Toddler Theme: Halloween & Dia de los Muertos

This theme week took shape naturally because of the upcoming holiday.  There wasn't much extra effort required so it allowed us to focus more on having fun.  We've been watching Wizard of Oz a lot recently and Mia expressed interest in being Glinda the Good Witch for Trick-or-Treat night.  After some thought, it seemed like Millie would make a perfect lion since that is her favorite animal (although she's hardly cowardly...more like a courageous lion).  Our two Boston Terriers seemed like perfect Flying Monkey material and dad called dibs on the Scarecrow.  I decided to be Dorothy because you can't not have a Dorothy when you do group Wizard of Oz costumes!  And gosh, a Wizard of Oz -themed Halloween is pretty perfect for the family about to finally settle down in their new home.  There's no place like home, right?  The chaos of the upcoming move made me hesitant to create homemade costumes for everyone, so I outsourced the girls' costumes from Pottery Barn Kids.  Then Mia helped me make a long star wand from a dowel, wooden star cutout, and silver paint.  Another day, we drafted some patterns and created Flying Monkey vests & wings out of felt.  Mia glued all the black feathers on the wings for me while I sewed the vests together.  For dad's scarecrow costume, we kept it simple with a plaid shirt, jeans & a burlap hat, but we measured his wrists and created "straw" felt fringe cuffs for his sleeves.  And my Dorothy costume was easy to put together with a blue gingham shirt from H&M, white jeans, and red shoes.  We can't wait to Trick-or-Treat in our new neighborhood later this week.   

We carried our theme over into our pumpkins as well.  Dad carved a house on one and I carved a ruby slipper on another one.  Mia picked out the funniest looking green gourd at the pumpkin patch she said looked like the Wicked Witch's nose.  And Millie, well she kept herself busy playing with all the pumpkin guts while we worked.

I don't typically do a lot of kid-styled food but for this week, I made an exception.  We made mummy dogs out of crescent roll dough & hot dogs.  These are all over Pinterest but in a nutshell, you wrap the dogs with strips of crescent roll dough and bake 15 minutes at 375 degrees.  I used a toothpick to make mustard eyes.  Easy!

Our Halloween theme week also coincides with Dia de los Muertos, All Saint's Day, and All Soul's Day (Nov. 1 & 2).  As a nod to these holidays, we created our own painted rock sugar skulls and shared fond memories of our deceased relatives.  I pulled out several photo albums so we could show Mia pictures of these special people gone too soon.  An extension of this exercise would be to create a special altar (called an ofrenda) to welcome the souls back to visit.  The belief behind Dia de los Muertos is that if people are celebrated and remembered, they never truly die.  What a beautiful and hopeful thought.  

A summary of all Halloween week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Learned about Dia de los Muertos and told stories about deceased relatives, Carved and painted our pumpkins

ART PROJECTS: Painted found rocks like sugar skulls, Made color-resist watercolor spiderwebs

OUTINGS: Went trick-or-treating, Celebrated Dia de los Muertos at the Denver Botanic Gardens

SNACK: Made mummy dogs for dinner

BOOKS: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson

BABY BONUS: Pumpkin guts sensory bin

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: Fall & Trees

There's a change in the air.  The days are getting shorter, the air crisper, and the leaves crunchier.  Fall is here and it's brought pumpkin patches and corn mazes and leaf piles with it.  My Instagram friend Ruth (@just_the_kids_nextdoor) is doing these toddler themes with her son and she had a great idea -- why not use a Fall theme to focus on trees.  And that's just what we did!  Our first activity, I'm sure you guessed, was a Fall scavenger hunt.  We set out to find Fall treasures, and boy did we!  Mia had an eagle eye and found so many great items all within a block of our apartment building.  We laid them all out and took a few pictures so we could research some items further.  I've been wanting to start nature journaling with the girls and this seemed like as good as time as any.  I made a little on-the-go-kit with a Moleskin blank notebook, colored pencils, and some compact field guides in a little pouch.  We also recently purchased a flower/leaf press on Amazon.  Once we got a good picture of our treasures for the journal, we picked out a few flowers and leaves to press for future art projects.  As we gathered some leaves, I pointed out the different kinds of trees we were seeing -- deciduous & coniferous.  While she had a hard time saying those words, she easily grasped the concept that some trees have leaves and some have needles.  We were even able to find one of the trees in our field guide.  We made a leaf rubbing in our nature journal to mark the occasion.  Before we headed back inside, we collected a few more pieces of the tall grasses so Mia could make a vase arrangement.  Ruth suggested making leaf collages as a simple but fun art project, too!

I admittedly didn't pick the best week for a Fall theme because the leaves are all still green in Denver.  However, the leaves higher up in altitude are already changing so I packed the girls up one morning for a leaf drive.  My original plan was to scope out all the brilliant, golden aspens up at Kenosha Pass but as I pulled into the trailhead parking lot, I realized that we were a few days too late.  Most of the leaves had already dropped.  So it seems that late September is probably the best time to go; I've already made a note for next year.  Ha!  There's an old rail line from back in the mining days still visible right beside the trail, so the girls had some fun playing on the train tracks for a bit.  Mia burst into an impromptu Hokey Pokey on the trail.  Of course, I took a picture.

I backtracked east and took Guanella Pass towards Georgetown and finally found some golden aspens running up and down the mountainside.  Aspens stands are created by many aspens all networked together underground by their roots.  It makes them one of the largest (if not the largest) living organisms.  Tree fun fact for ya!  Mia and I collected some aspen leaves to compare to the ones we found closer to home.  We could see that there were a lot of brown spots on the yellow leaves and we later learned that the spots were caused by a fungus.  We had one of the wettest springs on record and it caused this fungus all these months later, dulling their fall colors.  

Our other big Fall week activity was picking out a pumpkin.  I took the girls to Anderson Farms in Erie one afternoon.  There's an entrance fee but the girls were both free.  Anderson has a huge corn maze with a smaller (simple looping) one for young kids.  We got a map and I let Mia lead us through the maze.  The maze always dumps you back out at the entrance but it still provided a little spatial awareness learning.  A short tractor ride took us to the pumpkin patch and we tried to pick out a few good pumpkins.  They grow white ones, pink ones, green ones, and, of course, orange ones at Anderson Farms.  A really good variety and I was pleased but I didn't really think out the logistics of two young kids and pumpkins that I needed to get back to the tractor.  Needless to say, we only ended up picking one from the actual patch...but it's the prettiest, most perfect, little white pumpkin and Millie picked it out (er, gave up right next to it).  Luckily, we were able to snag a few more at the farm store.  Two more white ones, a green gourd that looks like the "bad witch's" nose (The Wicked Witch of the West, of course), and a jar of pumpkin butter.  We showed off all of our farm spoils to my husband when he got home from work.  "Where's the orange one for carving?"  Sigh.  Sooooooo we decided to check out another pumpkin patch, this time Rock Creek Farm in Broomfield.  Get this, you can drive your car on the farms roads through their fields and park right next to the patch you choose.  Genius!  This time we were able to get a proper gigantic orange pumpkin and everyone is happy.  Ruth had a great idea for a Fall/Tree outing -- the apple orchard.  Our local orchards are in bad shape after the late frost so there were no U-pick options this year.  Hopefully, next year will be kinder to the farmers.

I was wracking my brain trying to think of a simple Fall-themed snack when Ruth mentioned syrup since it comes from trees.  And then I eyed up that jar of pumpkin butter I purchased from the farm store.  What about pumpkin hand pies with a maple glaze?!  These are essentially the exact same as the poptarts recipe in my Valentine's Day post except I used pumpkin butter instead of jam and I added a little maple syrup & cinnamon into the powdered sugar glaze.  So good! 

I really appreciated getting some ideas from another mama this week.  Thank you, Ruth!  If you ever have a theme suggestion or other ideas or want to collaborate on a week, please let me know.  I'm just working through a list of themes I created over 2 years ago so there's always room for improvement!

A summary of all Fall & Trees week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Went on a fall scavenger hunt, Navigated our way through a corn maze

ART PROJECTS: Pressed leaves we found on our fall scavenger hunt, Started our first nature journal and made leaf rubbings on paper

OUTINGS: Went to a few pumpkin patches and drove through the mountains to view the fall leaves

SNACK: Made pumpkin hand pies with a maple syrup glaze (find my basic poptart recipe here)

BOOKS: The Little Yellow Leaf by Carin Berger, Leaves by David Ezra Stein, Nature Anatomy by Julie Rothman

BIBLE STORY: Adam & Eve and the Tree of Life

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: Oktoberfest & Germany

This is one of those toddler themes that is made easier by exploiting community activities.  In this case, we leveraged local Oktoberfest celebrations as we learned about Germany.  Denver hosts Oktoberfest over two weekends in September each year.  We went late morning and it wasn't too crowded yet which made it easier for us to sample lots of traditional German foods -- wursts & kraut, spaetzle, boiled potato salad.  The German music intrigued Mia...or maybe it was the lederhosen the band was wearing.  Her curious stares as she tried to make sense of it all were pretty funny!  

Another great time of year to learn about Germany while utilizing community activities is near Christmas time.  Denver hosts a Christkindl Market downtown between Thanksgiving and Christmas and I'm sure other cities do as well.  I've been to a few of these famous markets in Frankfurt & Dusseldorf and one thing I particularly loved is the way people congregated and drank glühwein (mulled red wine) huddled together on a cold winter night.  Inspired by that, we made our own kid-friendly version of glühwein.  I picked up a huge jug of apple cider from the orchard last week and Colorado peaches are in their prime right now so we put those two items plus some cinnamon sticks in a heavy pot and let it simmer on low all afternoon.  It made our apartment smell so good!  The key to glühwein is serving it in festive ceramic mugs so I pulled out our pair usually reserved for hot cocoa and we enjoyed a nice warm pre-dinner treat.  Once the girls went to bed, my husband and I added a nip of bourbon and enjoyed a second mug.  Totally not German mulled red wine but we just couldn't let this mulled cider go to waste.  Just in case you needed some ideas for leftovers, too.  Wink, wink.

Another popular German street food is soft pretzels.  They are very dense and chewy and delicious.  There are quite a few recipes available online for replicating these at home but you know how I like to keep things real simple...We just used a tube of Pillsbury pizza crust to create our own pretzels.  I divided the dough into 4 pieces -- two for Mia & two for me.  We worked on rolling them out into long snakes and then I showed her how to fold it up into a pretzel shape.  I dissolved about 2 tablespoons of baking soda in 2 cups of hot water and we gave the pretzel shapes a quick dunk and then laid out on a baking sheet.  We sprinkled them with some coarse salt and baked in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes.  Once they were done, I brushed them with some melted butter.  They were yummy!  Although, I'd say our pretzel rolling & twisting skills need some work!  Ha!

On one of my many visits to Germany, I picked up some traditional children's books for the baby growing in my belly (Mia!).  This week we pulled them out and read them together.  Mia's favorite is Der Struwwelpeter written by Heinrich Hoffman in 1845.  It's a collection of 10 short stories with morals, one being about the title character Der Struwwelpeter (or Shockheaded Peter) who doesn't keep himself groomed and gets teased.  I'll warn you that they are a tad morbid as was the style when it was originally written.  If you've read any of Grimm's Fairy Tales, then you won't be surprised by this style (the brothers Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm were German, too).  Since this book is so old, I was able to find it online with the original illustrations so you can check it out for yourself (find it here).    

Our own last name is German and after doing some research, we learned that a schlosser is a locksmith or one who works in a castle (a schloss).   Last year we made a lock & key charm necklace so this year we thought we'd try a castle art project.  My plan was to cut out various shapes and let Mia piece together her own castle but she wanted to draw with me so we ended up collaborating on a castle.  I drew it out under her very careful art direction and she watercolored it.  During the whole process, we were able to talk about shapes and different types of lines & patterns.  It was really nice to work on this so closely together and I think it turned out quite well.  You could do a German castle art project, too.  Did you know that the German castle Schloss Neuschwanstein (translated as New Swanstone Castle) was Walt Disney's inspiration for the design of Sleeping Beauty's castle?  And lastly, we did our usual Children of the World art project and watercolored the German flag (you can find country flag coloring sheets here).  

Until next week, tschüss! (said like juice with a ch- instead of j- and means bye!)

A summary of all Oktoberfest week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Learned a few German words and the translation of our own last name

ART PROJECTS: Drew & painted our own schloss (castle) by using different shapes, Painted the German flag (find the printable here), Made a schlussel (key) charm necklace after learning that our last name means locksmith

OUTINGS: Attended the Denver Oktoberfest and sampled different types of German food while listing to traditional music

SNACK: Made non-alcoholic glühwein with apple cider and soft pretzels

BOOKS: Der Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffman

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: Farms

Fall makes a wonderful time to learn about farms because it's harvest time (Spring is great for seeing baby animals, though).  Check out what's available in your area for berry picking or apple picking for a fun field trip.  Admittedly, we put all of our energy into farm visits this week so I'll share some highlights from our adventures.

Our first field trip was to Berry Patch Farms in Brighton.  They are open several days a week for U-pick berries, basil, flowers, and pickling cucumbers.  They also have a great farm store.  Check their website for specific operating hours and berry picking status.  Strawberries are not available for picking this year because of the rough spring weather, but we were able to pick raspberries.  Mia & I picked a couple of pints together.  I'm pretty sure Millie ate a third pint during this whole process.  Hey, whatever keeps her happy!  Then we picked several cucumbers for pickling and perhaps the best part, Mia was able to pick some flowers.  In the farm store, we purchased some zucchini bread (picking berries is hard work and requires snacks!), tomatoes, garlic, basil, kale, and okra.  

The second farm we visited is Ya Ya Farm & Orchard in Longmont.  Unfortunately, the wacky spring weather and late snow storm did damage here too so apple picking is not available this fall, but the farm is still very beautiful and worth a visit just to explore.  Plus, they sell the best apple cider donuts at the farm stand which is the ENTIRE reason I go anyways.  Ha!  I have so many great childhood memories of apple picking in the fall with my family and it's made me continue the tradition with my kids.  Those sensory memories tied to the taste of apple cider donuts & fresh apple pie and that crisp autumn morning smell on a farm really leave an imprint.  So even though we couldn't pick the apples ourselves, we had a good time making our own new memories at the orchard and we snagged a bushel of apples from the farm stand and the girls were none the wiser.  Plus, local farmers need our support even more during the bad seasons.

We've visited both of these farms numerous times but this was the first time I felt Mia really made the connection with food and where it comes from.  To further this understanding, we made some of her favorite foods with our farm goodies.  Her current favorite meal is spaghetti and meatballs so we took all of our tomatoes and made a roasted tomato sauce.  To do this, I cut all the tomatoes in half and put them cut side down on a rimmed baking sheet coated with olive oil.  While I was doing that, Mia separated out the cloves of a whole head of garlic and we added those to the pan.  All of it roasted at 450 degrees for about 35 minutes (right before the skins blacken).  Once everything was cool enough to touch, we squeezed the tomato pulps into a saucepan, discarding the skins.  Then I fork mashed the garlic and added that to the pan.  You could blend the sauce at this point if you like it smoother.  Lastly, we added a quick pour of olive oil (around 1 tablespoon) and salt to taste and brought the heat up for simmering meatballs.  We also made pickles with her cucumbers using this recipe.  And all those raspberries? ...We turned them into a simple jam with this recipe from Martha Stewart.  Towards the end of the week, we made an apple pie with our orchard haul and surprised daddy returning home from business travel.

I've mentioned Sunflower Farm in a few other posts but all for good reason -- this place is pure magic.  From 9:00-1:00 Monday - Friday, they open up their farm to children & their parents to play and explore as they wish.  All seasons, all types of weather.  There are rope swings & ziplines, hammocks & porch swings, treehouses & rope bridges, and hay bale mazes & sand pits.  Horses, goats, chickens, turkeys, peacocks, cows, llamas, sheep, and many more animals.  Even old tractors and a bulldozer and an airplane to climb all over.  Every time we go there, we discover more things to love about this place.  And we always come home exhausted and dirty and happy.  This time around, Mia rode a horse, explored a teepee, played house with a few friends, and climbed in the treehouse.  We also got to see a baby calf born just this week.  A little tip if you plan on visiting: you need to purchase tickets ahead of time on their website (the day of is okay as long as it's not already sold out).

Some other central Colorado farms that we didn't visit this week but we love are Four Mile Historic Park, Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield, and Littleton Museum.  

A summary of all Farms week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Played farm with plastic animals and farm set

OUTINGS: Visited 3 local farms: Berry Patch Farms to pick raspberries & veggies, Ya Ya Orchard to pick apples, and Sunflower Farm to see the animals

SNACK: Made apple pie, raspberry jam, roasted tomato sauce, and refrigerator pickles

BOOKS: Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies by Beatrix Potter, The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf, Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

BIBLE STORY: The Parable of the Sower

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: 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!