Toddler Theme: Valentine's Day

We prepared for Valentine's Day and the Lenten season this week as we learned about love & mercy.  I'm noticing more and more squabbles between the girls as Millie becomes more independent so learning about mercy is entirely appropriate right now.  Add to it that Pope Francis has designated this year as the year of mercy and he wants us to focus on it during Lent (which started Wednesday), and I'd say the timing was down right perfect.  We talked about what mercy is (in simple terms: not punishing someone even though they deserve it) and how we can show it to little sisters that knock down block towers and run off with our cheese snacks.  And as an extension, we started picking one person to pray for as a family before dinner each night.  We're planning on carrying that exercise out all through Lent.  Interestingly, we learned about the difference between grace and mercy one night because we couldn't think of a person to list in our prayer for mercy (Millie was really good that day and I must have been on top of my mom game. Ha!).  Grace is receiving a blessing even though we don't deserve it.  We all need grace so that opened up a lot of people to pray for!

We read the Parable of the Prodigal Son as an example of mercy & love and that got Mia thinking about taking care of someone/thing.  She has been really into nurturing her stuffed animals the last few months.  She calls them her babies and always makes sure they are swaddled & warm.  To capitalize on this, I took her shopping for her very own plant to care for and love.  She picked out a succulent and we planted it in a tiny pot deemed "cute" enough.  I showed her how plants have to be cared for and shown love daily so they can grow.  She started showing an interest in helping with all of my other plants too, so I got her a special spray bottle to water them each day.  This was a bonus because not only is she learning about nurturing, consistent love but also honing fine motor skills.  Using a spray bottle builds dexterity that will help with handwriting later on.  As an easy themed way to practice sight words this week, I filled a bowl with candy conversation hearts.  I wrote a few of the phrases largely on some sheets of paper and let her find the candy heart matches.  We also pulled out a few high powered magnets and learned about magnetic attraction. 

This week's big activity, though, was creating Valentine's for friends...of course!  Mia wanted to make necklaces for her girlfriends so we found some letter charms and glow-in-the-dark beads at Hobby Lobby.  After we had her list of recipients, we came up with words to spell out for each necklace.  Mia found all the letters and laced them in a pattern -- letter bead, glow-in the-dark bead, repeat.  I made a simple little card for her to decorate and attach the necklaces to.  It says, "You're charming, Valentine."  You can download the card printable here if you want to make your own charm necklace Valentine's. 

For the special guys in her life, Mia selected little notebooks and we attached a card that says, "It's been noted, you're one cool Valentine."  And for all of our new neighbors, we potted succulents with cards that read, "Our street would succ without you."  We're punny, we know!  Ha!  

If you need something last minute or for a younger child, you can check out last year's Valentine's Day theme week for our really simple art-themed valentine.  My super easy homemade pop-tart recipe is in that post, too!  Happy Valentine's Day!

A summary of all Valentine's week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Potted succulents and learned how to take care of something,  Explored magnet attraction and repulsion, Practiced sight words by matching written phrases to ones on candy hearts

ART PROJECTS: Practiced the alphabet and made letter charm necklace Valentine's for friends (download the 4" x 6" card printable here)

BOOKS: Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, One Love by Cedella Marley, All My Kisses by Kerry Brown

BIBLE STORY: The Parable of the Prodigal Son, Learned about mercy and grace...practiced both throughout the week

If you'd like to share a photo of your kid doing theme week activities, you can email it to me (email button in the left menu) or tag me on your Facebook photo or use the hashtag #weeklytoddlerthemes on Instagram (if you are private, just make sure I'm following you or tag me in the photo).

Toddler Theme: Science

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

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

-Gina

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

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

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

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

A summary of all Science week activities with links:

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

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

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

BOOKS: The Magic School Bus books by Joanna Cole

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

If you'd like to share a photo of your kid doing theme week activities, you can email it to me (email button in the left menu) or tag me on your Facebook photo or use the hashtag #weeklytoddlerthemes on Instagram (if you are private, just make sure I'm following you or tag me in the photo).

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).