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: Night

Daylight savings time was observed over the weekend and now nighttime descends on us well before bedtime.  Mia noticed the change right away so we spent the week focused on Night.  I haven't really seen Mia show signs of a fear of the dark yet but I did put an emphasis on celebrating night this week.  Talking up the positives to make it less scary.  If you have a child that does show some fear then it might be fun to make a Monster Spray together.  I've seen many recipes on Pinterest but I can imagine it's as simple as distilled water and some lavender essential oil.  Or even play up the silliness and figment of imagination that monsters are by setting up a Build-Your-Own Monster station with play dough and pipe cleaners, googly eyes, etc.   We made dreamcatchers with paper plates, paint, string and feathers.  Last year, we made dreamcatchers using an embroidery hoop instead of a paper plate and actually used it as decor for her room.  Put it right above her bed and it worked like a charm.  Another fun evening activity was a glow stick bubble bath.  I picked up a bunch of glow sticks from the Target Dollar Spot -- all leftover from Halloween -- and threw them in the bottom of the bathtub.  Both girls really enjoyed this special bath and it made something routine a little more special.  Another fun evening activity we did was make shadow puppets on the wall.  I discovered that the iPhone flashlight is perfect for this.  Just prop your phone up on its side with a pillow or something similar.  

All Souls' Day fell during this week and even though we touched on it a little bit last week as we learned about Dia de los Muertos, we did a special activity that paired nicely with our night theme.  I found paper sky lanterns online and ordered a few.  I let Mia color them with pictures for our deceased relatives and then one evening after dinner we went across the street to the park and sent them off towards heaven.  There's a little science lesson in this whole activity and Mia was able to see how hot air rises.  She even equated the floating lanterns to the hot air balloon show she went to during Up in the Air week.  She's learning & retaining stuff from these theme weeks!  Eeeeeeee!  (NOTE: We did not in fact release these off towards heaven, but simulated it.  Colorado already has enough issues with wildfires and I didn't feel good about sending flaming lanterns off into space.  So to improvise, I tied a few pieces of fishing line to the bottom of each lantern and then the other ends to a 5 pound dumbbell I brought over with us.  The balloons hovered for a little bit -- 10 minutes max -- and then they came back down.)

We're hoping that Santa brings a teepee this year because Mia is really into pretend camping.  She just roasted marshmallows over a campfire for the first time last week and is still talking about it.  So when she's really into something, I try to exploit that interest a little.  All in the name of learning, of course.  My idea was to figure out a way to make a pretend campfire for our possible new teepee so we went to Joann's to scout supplies.  While we were there, Mia said a lantern would be more fun because she could carry it.  I like how she thinks.  We walked up and down the aisles looking for potential vessels & light.  We ended up finding plastic mason jars and they sell wire handles, too!  Mia wanted to use a candle for the light but we decided that we should avoid the whole flame thing.  Ha!  We did, however, find a cool battery-powered flickering votive candle.  We were able to make two lanterns for under $10.  Another fun spin on this project would be to somehow tint the jar a blue color and then use one of those battery-powered LED strands to simulate fireflies.  We're going to be watching the holiday clearance bins for one of those!  Here are the supplies we used in case my descriptions above didn't make sense. 

Mia has been very fascinated by the moon and the stars this last year.  We have a telescope on our wish list, but in the meantime, I use my DSLR camera and zoom lens to create a simple telescope of sorts.  If you have these items, it's pretty easy to set up.  I just put my camera with zoom lens on a tripod.  My Canon camera has a Live View mode so I switch to that and this mode lets you use the back screen as the viewfinder.  The Live View mode allows you to do a preview zoom (it won't take the picture that zoomed in but it allows you to fix your focus if you were using it the traditional way) and it's in that zooming that we can see details like craters on the moon.  One of Mia's favorite iPad apps is Star Walk Kids (find it in the app store) and many evenings, she and I can be found out on our balcony with our iPad & camera telescope watching the sky.  We took this photo of the full moon the other day.

And this is a picture we took of the Milky Way earlier this summer.  We saw lots of shooting stars (Perseid meteors) and even captured two in this photo!

Buzz Aldrin was in town a few weeks ago and I was able to get an autographed copy of his new book Welcome to Mars.  She enjoys looking through it and reminding me that a guy from outer space signed it.  Ha!  And to wrap up the week, we made a trip to our local science museum and watched the space show in the planetarium.  It mesmerized us all -- baby, toddler & mom!

A summary of all Night week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Watched the night sky and looked for constellations using the StarWalk Kids app (find it in the app store), Made monster spray with lavender essential oils, Took a bath in the dark with glow sticks, Crafted our own Mason jar lanterns, Made shadow puppets on the wall before bedtime

ART PROJECTS: Created dreamcatchers out of a paper plates and embroidery hoops, Built our own monsters with a play dough monster creation station, Colored paper lanterns to release at night

OUTINGS: Visited the planetarium at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science

BOOKS: Welcome to Mars by Buzz Aldrin, Sleep Like a Tiger by Mary Logue, The Cat at Night by Dahlov Ipcar

BIBLE STORY: The star guiding the 3 Wise Men to baby Jesus, The Creation story (night and day created)

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: Weather

Transition seasons like spring and fall usually usher in all kinds of wacky weather (or at least a little weather variety) and make it a perfect time to explore Weather further.  I recently learned that the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is located here in Boulder, Colorado.  A perfect field trip for us this week!  If you aren't local, don't despair; their website is chock-full of wonderful resources like videos, simulations, games & activity ideas (check out their Learning Zone here).  We spent a whole morning exploring their public exhibits.  Mia created her own microburst storms in a special tank, made lightening, watched tornadoes form, and even touched clouds.  If you diffuse essential oils at home with an ultrasonic diffuser, then you already have access to a cloud machine.  Open it up while it's running and check it out!  You can also look to see if your local science or children's museum has a weather exhibit.

We decided to do a bunch of weather science experiments at home this week.  One day, we placed a cup out on our balcony to measure rainfall.  Nada, dry as a bone here in Denver.  Another day, I pulled out a prism and we made rainbows on the walls.  And do you remember the old tornado in a soda bottle trick?  Yup, we did that, too.  Hobby Lobby sells both the prism and the tornado tube in the science aisle.  

As a special data collection & recording activity, we called up some of our family around the country and asked them what their weather was like that day.  I also reached out to my Instagram friends so we could get more data points.  Then we recorded it all on a blank map (find one here) and created our own weather map thanks to all of our friendly weather spotters around the world.  We also took a walk around a local pond one afternoon and I was able to show Mia the wind.  Back when I was learning how to sail, I realized that you can see the wind on the water before you can actually feel it, and I was excited to teach Mia the same thing.  Can you see the wind coming across the pond towards us?

After reading the book Windblown by Edouard Manceau, we did a little windblown collage creating of our own.  I cut out shapes just like the ones in the book and Mia created animals with them.  Here's the one from last year that I've kept all this time...makes me giggle.  Or maybe you could make a wind chime with found items as well.

I'm starting to get little sister Millie involved in these theme weeks a little more so I planned a very tactile weather art project.  The goal was to create skyscapes with finger paints but not just any old paints -- weather paints.  To prep, I stuck a tray of blue & purple glitter paints in the refrigerator and then a few tubes of red, yellow & orange paints in a pot of warm water.  I set out the cold, snowy paints with the warm, sunny paints and also some watercolors & straws and let the girls paint away.  You can use the straws to blow drops of watercolor paint on the paper almost like rain drops.  Last year, Mia did a very similar painting project and then while she was napping, I doodled all over her works of art and cut them up to create a weather station.  We still use this station to this day as we check out the weather each morning.  In fact, we did another little data gathering project this week.  As Mia updated the "today" arrow each day, we also recorded it in her notepad.  At the end of the week, we made a little bar graph to summarize the data.  A nice little counting activity and it's never to early to start learning how to make sense of lots of data!  

A summary of all Weather week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Created our own weather station, Did several simple weather science experiments, Watched The Wizard of Oz

ART PROJECTS: Created our own Windblown inspired animals with assorted paper shapes, Created sky paintings with various weather-inspired paints (warm red, yellow & orange finger paints and cold blue and purple glitter finger paints and watercolor "rain" droplets)

OUTINGS: Visited the Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder

SNACK: Made cloud sandwiches (fluffer nutters) for lunch

BOOKS: Windblown by Edouard Manceau, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, The Cloud Book by Tomie de Paolo

BIBLE STORY: Rainbows, a sign of God's promise

BABY BONUS: (see weather art projects above)

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: Colors

It's officially Fall and the leaves are starting to change colors here in Colorado.  It made me think that it was about time we did a whole Color theme week.  Mia knows her basic colors so we focused on some more advanced topics like lighter vs. darker, transparent vs. opaque, color mixing, and even a little about complimentary colors.

You've probably noticed by now that one of my favorite learning activities is the scavenger hunt.  Mia is an active kid so it's my way of tailoring her learning experiences to her personality.  A color scavenger hunt is particularly fun because you can create a rainbow with your findings.  Last year, we made this collage with all of Mia's colored findings.  This year, she's really into scribbling in her notepads so I made her a whole page list to check off instead.

For a little extra fun one day, we took a walk through the alleys of Denver's RiNo neighborhood.  Street artists have been covering buildings & walls with their beautiful murals.  So many colors!  This week there happened to be a whole street art event, Colorado Crush, and Mia actually got to see several artists in action.  

We had to have a little conversation on the way home about how those artists had permission to paint on the walls, but in general, we shouldn't paint on our walls.  Haha!  Instead, she and I rolled out a long piece of art paper and worked on a colorful mural collab.  I started with some overlapping abstract shapes as an invite to create with me.  One day we used markers, another day paint, and another chalk so we could talk about their color textures and also saturation.  There were some lessons in color mixing too -- "Look mom, brown!"  Last year's Color week project was the creation of this pretend makeup kit using little travel containers and a thin layer of nail polish (watch Target Dollar Spot for bags, brushes, and even travel containers).  This week, I picked up a few more travel containers so we could add to her "eyeshadow" collection.   

Have you heard of Mr. Printables?  It's a really great website with lots of free learning printables and they have a few that are perfect for Color week.  The first one is a color wheel.  You can print it in color or not for a bigger challenge and it's great to use for a little independent sorting activity.  I had our color wheel laminated so that I can use it over and over but especially so that I can use it during snack time.  I gave Mia a bowl of Fruity Cheerios and she sorted them into piles one afternoon.  Once she had them all sorted, I taught her a little about complimentary colors (the ones opposite on the color wheel).  We wondered if the Denver Broncos knew their blue & orange colors were complimentary.  Something tells me they do know...clever!  Mr. Printables also has these color overlay cards (shown below).  You can submit the printable file online to Staples.com and they will print them on transparencies & cut for you.  I like to outsource when I can.  Mia played with these on a white table top and I kept Millie simultaneously busy with a mess-free paint bag (poured red, blue & yellow paint into a food storage bag and sealed).  I chose the primary colors intentionally because as Millie mashed and squished the paint, she helped us see that red and yellow make orange, and so on.  

As a last special treat, I took Mia out on a very rare one-on-one date to the nail salon for pedicures.  Knowing how excited she gets about my nail colors naming each one of them off as she rifles through the little box, I just knew she'd love this experience.  They had a whole wall of nail colors -- "Wow, look at allllllllll the colors!"  And then she chose an iridescent white polish.  The irony!  

A summary of all Color week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Went on a colorful scavenger hunt, Played with Mr. Printables color mixing transparencies (find them here), Sorted cereal with the Mr. Printables Color Wheel (find it here)

ART PROJECTS: Made a colorful mixed media mural, Made a pretend makeup set with travel containers and nail polish

OUTINGS: Went to Colorado Crush in the RiNo neighborhood to see the street artists in action, Had colorful pedicures done at the local salon

BOOKS: Press Here by Herve Tullet, Pantone: Colors by Pantone, The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr

BIBLE STORY: Joseph and his colorful coat

BABY BONUS: Ziplock bag painting and color mixing, Read Alice in Wonderland: A BabyLit Colors Primer by Jennifer Adams & Andy Warhol's Colors by Susan Goldman Rubin

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: Up in the Air

This theme week is similar to Under the Sea week in that it allows us to make some scientific discoveries about life in these places versus our home, on the land.  And I tried to break this topic up into 2 parts: flying machines and flying animals.  You'll probably notice that we went a little heavy on the flying machines because both Mia and I are more mechanically-minded so it's just where our interests took us this week.  We started by pulling out our kite and flying it in the park one afternoon.  We have a delta kite which just refers to its triangular shape.  These kites are known for being easy to fly and its shape was a good conversation starter about wings and airplanes.  Before dinner one evening, Mia made some paper airplanes with her dad and we noticed that their pointed shape looked a lot like our kite.  Would they fly the same?  Whose airplane would go the farthest?  Why?  To take it a step farther, we built a balsa wood airplane with a rubber band "motor."  You can find really inexpensive kits for these at Hobby Lobby.  I showed her how we can store some energy in the rubber band and then we launched it around the park.  I made no mention of Newton's laws of motion or things like kinetic energy, but we covered all of it.  And maybe when she's sitting in science class one day, she'll think back on our fun afternoon in the park.    

Mia currently has a pretty big interest in outer space and I'm considering doing a whole Space theme week in the future, but we included a bit this week to hold her over.  If your kid is really into space too, check out the science aisle at Hobby Lobby.  They sell all kinds of model rocket kits and supplies.  For a fun space-themed snack, I gave Mia her first taste of astronaut ice cream.  Another cool Hobby Lobby find!  She was a little disappointed that it wasn't like Earth ice cream but we talked about gravity and why astronaut ice cream has to be different.  She has the movie Home and there is a part where the invading Boovs gather up all the humans and they temporarily suspend gravity.  That visual was helpful when talking about gravity together.  

Up in the Air week seemed like the perfect time to collaborate with the sun to create some art.  And we tried it a few different ways ranging from super simple & cheap to messy & more expensive.  The easiest way to make sun art is to use colored construction paper.  You know how that stuff fades so easily?  Well, we exploited that this week.  We each picked a piece of paper and set them out on a bright sun exposed window ledge.  We just arranged some small toys and blocks so their weight kept everything in place but if you use light objects like feathers and leaves, then you can lay an acrylic sheet overtop (Home Depot sells cheap precut sheets in the window aisle).  We left them out for a whole afternoon and they turned out pretty neat but we needed more.  Luckily, I also found sun print paper at Hobby Lobby and we arranged found leaves into patterns inspired by the sun.  We love how these turned out (pictured below)!  The third method we tried is with a relatively new product called Inkodye.  It's a light sensitive dye that you can use on pretty much any material.  We tested it out on some scrap fabric with a leaf design and it's very promising.  We're already making bigger plans to try it with a photo transparency design on a T-shirt. 

As a super special treat, I got Mia up really early over the weekend to drive down to Colorado Springs to see the sunrise hot air ballon ascension at the Labor Day Lift Off.  I went by myself last year and it was such a magical sight that I knew I had to return and bring her.  It was so special to not only have some alone time with her, but to also see her face as those balloons began lifting up off the ground.

And lastly, we spent some time exploring those animals in the sky -- birds.  I found a small wooden bird house in the unfinished wood section at the craft store (not Hobby Lobby this time, ha!) and Mia painted it entirely gold and hung it on our balcony.  A house fit for a queen bird!  We also made a special zoo trip with a focus on birds.  She fed sugar water to the lorikeets and we also watched the Wildlife Show featuring many different species of birds.  Her favorite was the black vulture Igor who swooped and flew over our heads.  I'm just thankful Igor didn't poop on us.  Can't say as much for the lorikeets.

A summary of all Up in the Air week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Flew a kite at the park, Made a rubber band-propelled balsa wood airplane, Learned how to fold paper airplanes, Talked about gravity

ART PROJECTS: Made sun art three ways, Painted a wooden bird house

OUTINGS: Went to the Labor Day Lift Off balloon festival in Colorado Springs to watch the balloons launch, Looked for flying animals at the zoo and fed the lorikeets

SNACK: Astronaut ice cream

BOOKS: The Cloud Book by Tomie de Paola, Hello, My Name is Ruby by Philip C. Stead, Looking Down by Steve Jenkins, Fireflies in the Night by Judy Hawes

BIBLE STORY: Ascension

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).