L Week!

December 8, 2016December 8, 20161 Comment

We had lots to do in L week! As with our M Week exploration, there were definite hits and definite misses this week, based on Travis’ current preferences. Below is everything we played and learned, from which you can pick and choose.

Lighthouse: To kick off the week, I recycled an old activity we did when Travis was much younger. Set up pillows so they spiral up to a chair or stool, and give your child a flashlight. He or she is the beacon at the top of the lighthouse, guiding boats to safety! This is fun to do with lights dimmed before bedtime stories (particularly if you read about a lighthouse). Supervise closely, of course! I also pulled out an old lighthouse bath toy we have for tub time.

Leap frog/Lily pad: We set out lace doilies as “lily pads” but anything flat would work fine – carpet squares, colored mats etc. Then it was time to leap among them like frogs. Travis wasn’t interested until I pulled out frog stuffed animals, and then he hopped them around the lily pads and got more into it himself. Pardon the blurry action shot!

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Don’t forget to ribbit!

Lion: Because Travis is a Leo, we have an over-abundance of lion toys, from stuffed animals and plastic figures…

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…to a giant rocking lion. I left them out all week for solo play. We also acted out the hilarious book Lion Lessons, by Jon Agee. Definitely not bedtime reading, this one is sure to incite giggles, with lion yoga, pouncing, and prowling!

Love: We love the Daniel Tiger episode in which “making something is one way to say ‘I love you.'” While we discussed how hearts symbolize love, Travis and I made at-home puffy paint for a heart craft.

Leaves: Enlist your child to help you “rake” any last fall leaves on the ground (or just shuffle through the piles!) for some good gross motor activity. All we have left here are brown leaves, but I used those to fashion a simple crown for Travis. He was so proud to wear it, parading around as king of the forest.

Library: We go to our local library every week, so perhaps it didn’t occur to Travis that this field trip was part of L week. But whether you go often or never, head over to your library. Many have toys in the children’s section, and of course you can cuddle up and read a book you love!

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Logs: We made paper logs simply by rolling newspaper and taping, then pulled out our toy campfire food for indoor camping. I admit, Travis was much more into the food than the logs!

Lacing: Excellent fine motor skills practice for little hands, I recommend investing in a set of simple lacing cards. Ours feature fun shapes and pictures, and I left them out all week so Travis could pick up at his l-l-leisure.

Lights: Thanks to Christmas, lights abound this week! We took an outing one night after dark to find the prettiest twinkling lights in the neighborhood.

Little: One idea for this word is to have a little/big hunt around the house. Find a little version of an item, and then go hunting for the big version! L week is also the perfect chance to give a lap ride while singing Lttle Red Wagon. With your child on your lap, sing the following three verses:

[bounce child up and down] Bumping along in my little red wagon x3

Oh [name] aren’t you tried?

[lift one knee and then the other] The wheel is broken and the ride is bumpy x3

Oh [name] aren’t you tried?

[rock child back and forth] Try not to let the wagon tip over x3

Oh [name] aren’t you tried?

Travis then wanted to play with his own little wagon, which we hadn’t pulled out in ages!

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And our weekly extras:

Fine art: Although a project we’ve done before, we’re always up for leaf rubbing. He’s older than the last time we did this activity, so really understood holding the crayons sideways to expose the leaf underneath.

Food: Travis sampled his first glass of lemonade as a special treat for the week. After describing it as sort of sour, he turned with a smile and said, “I like lemonade!”

Books: Some cute reads included Little Tug by Stephen Savage, Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle, The Grouchy Ladybug Eric Carle, and anything in the Llama Llama series by Anna Dewdney,

Songs: As mentioned above, watch Season 1, Episode 8 of Daniel Tiger, featuring the song “Making Something is One Way to Say I Love You”

Math: I hoped Travis could practice drawing lines – some straight, some wavy – and prompted him with talk about how some lines run next to each other and some cross each other, but he was uninterested. You’ll notice that he decided to make a line with some ketchup from lunch instead!

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Lots more to come next week, so we’ll see you soon!

M Week!

December 2, 2016December 2, 20161 Comment

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We’re in M week on our Letter of the Week journey, but I’ll be honest: Travis was barely into anything I planned for the week. Not sure if it’s just that the words based around M fell flat, or because he’s a budding two-nager… But your child may love the activities we tried, so I’m including the hits and the misses below.

Music/Maracas: This was by far the highlight of the week, as Travis loves music. March with maracas in hand and you’ll have a merry good time! We wore ourselves out with high-knee marching and added in silly “mouth music” – what sounds could we make using just our mouths? We pretended to be trombones, clarinets, flutes, and more. Several great children’s songs play with this concept, using the mouth as an instrument; check out Fireworks from Music Together.

Mirror: There are many great mirror games you can play, including just pointing out body parts or trying on silly hats. I thought for sure Travis would love the taboo sensation of drawing on a mirror with a special dry-erase marker, tracing his “portrait,” but he lost interest very quickly.

Mittens: Teach the song The Three Little Kittens if your child doesn’t already know it. You can also squeeze in a little learning by attaching three kitten pictures to poster board, and making six cut-out mittens. Your child needs to assign two mittens to each cat to help the kittens find them again!

Museum: This word was the inspiration for our field trip of the week, taking Travis not to a children’s museum, but to a small local art museum. As we walked the gallery, I prompted him to guess what was happening in each painting. This game works especially well when people or animals are depicted. His favorite was a painting of waffles covered in jelly, which he thought some birds were going to come and eat. Even better, many museums often feature interactive exhibits. Travis spent 45 minutes painting at this digital paintbrush station!

Magnets: I left out all the toys we own that have magnets in any form – magnet blocks, magnetized puzzles, dinosaur magnets. It was a reminder to focus on some old favorites, but again Travis lost interest after a bit of play with each.

Moon: Cut three moons from craft foam – one crescent moon, one half moon, and one full moon – and attach to craft sticks. This is a fun way to talk about the phases of the moon, or to use as props while reading stories about the moon.

And our weekly extras…

Fine art: Aside from helping to color in monkey and mouse mask templates with crayons, Travis wasn’t into the art project I came up with for the week. I thought it would be fun to glue additional elements like whiskers to the masks, and then we glued them to popsicle sticks.

Food: We had yummy stuff to choose from this week – muffins and mangoes at breakfast, mushrooms with lunch (Travis’s favorite vegetable), and mac n cheese.

Books: Travis enjoyed Maisy Goes to the Museum by Lucy Cousins, the perfect read before our outing described above. We also read some classics: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and If you Give a Mouse a Cookie/ If you Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff.

Songs: A good children’s song to play is The Bear Went Over the Mountain. (Take advantage of a mountain field trip if you live in a mountainous region!) Better yet, I left Mozart playing in the background most of the week! More on that below…

Math: Very briefly, I introduced Travis to the concept that a year has twelve months, by flipping through a calendar with him (Admittedly, he was more into the pictures of the dogs and cats).

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You could also focus on the word match by having your child match up socks or winter gloves, but Travis lost interest in that task quickly.

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What did Travis prefer to all these games I had planned? Well, he discovered my case of 170 Mozart CDs, and took them out and sorted them by color endlessly. So there you have it, we spent M week matching Mozart CDs… I guess it wasn’t a miss after all!

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N Week!

November 25, 2016August 14, 2017Leave a comment

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Even with the Thanksgiving holiday, we squeezed in games and crafts with a letter N theme this week, as we continue on our Letter of the Week journey. Highlights included…

Nature/natural: This was really our key theme of the week, and we kicked things off with a gorgeous fall walk through a nature preserve before the weather turned very windy. With the collection of nature items we found, we came home and arranged them on contact paper. Simply fold the sticky paper in half when you’re finished and voila – a nature collage!

We also saved some of the leaves and flowers for a natural dye collage (and added a few store-bought berries because I knew their colors would be vibrant). We used cheesecloth, since I knew we wouldn’t be keeping this project, but make your dye collage on muslin or other cloth if you want to save it for doll’s clothing or another project. Once arranged, Travis loved pounding on the items with a mallet, and seeing the beautiful colors that (naturally) resulted.

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Finally, for all those events out in nature, we needed a trail walking stick.

Nest: This word was closely linked to the nature ideas above. We used our air-dry clay to shape a nest, and pressed in more great finds from our nature walk – pine needles, grasses, and leaves. The process was so fun I devoted a separate blog post to it.

Noise: Make some of course! Pull out whatever instruments you have in the house, or use items around the house to create instruments, or simply bang on pots and pans. However you make noise, Raffi’s “Let’s Make Some Noise” is the perfect song to do it to.

Net: To play with a random butterfly net we own, I fashioned “butterflies” from construction paper and we set them aflutter for Travis to chase around. It was so windy that we were able to do this right at our windowsill, though we briefly tried outside as well. Nets are also great for bathtub “fishing” or just for letting your toddler collect little items.

Newspaper: Old newspapers are the gift that keeps on giving. You can wad them up and use an old baby tub as target practice…

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…or roll into a “golf club” and aim golf balls at a target (such as an empty shoebox on its side). We also made newspaper hats, and Travis was so proud wearing his!

And our weekly extras:

Fine art: My intended project was a bit of a fail. I hoped to encourage Travis to make a necklace by threading o-shaped cereal (we used Freedom O’s) onto licorice (yes, Twizzlers are vegan) but he decided it would be much more fun just to eat the cereal and watch me work. Win some, lose some!

Food: We had noodles for dinner one evening. Travis has also gotten a kick out of belly buttons lately, so what better snack than a navel orange?

Books: Library picks this week included Jan Brett’s Noah’s Ark, The Napping House by Audrey Wood, and Dog’s Noisy Day by Emma Dodd.

Songs: Give a listen to “These are the People in the Neighborhood.” Then follow it up with a walk or drive around your neighborhood!

Math: Nickles are an obvious choice. Travis knows quarters and pennies, so this week I taught him to recognize nickles as well, tough because they are the “medium-sized” ones!

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I also simply left out all his toys and books that feature numbers, so he could return to them throughout the week.

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One neat way to visually depict how numbers increase is to build increasingly tall towers (Duplo blocks are perfect) on a corresponding number mat or puzzle.

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O Week!

November 17, 2016November 17, 2016Leave a comment

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Oh what a week we had (sorry, couldn’t resist!). Many O words are very common and simple ones (e.g. on/off, open, old), so it was challenging but rewarding as a parent to devise ways to turn everyday words into games. Here’s what we fit in this week:

Olympics: Too big a word to pass up, even if the time of year doesn’t correspond to the actual Olympic games. Stage a toddler mini Olympics with “javelin” and “discus” throws, bean bag races, and more.

Octopus/Ocean: I made Travis an octopus to swim around the apartment (which, admittedly, looked more like a jelly fish) by wrapping a Styrofoam ball in fabric and tying on 8 ribbons as legs.

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We then staged an “ocean dive” for the octopus and other ocean-y creatures, and Travis loved filling up a bucket with treasures from the “ocean.”

Opposites: You can use pretty much any toy and a building block to demonstrate great opposites, such as on/off, up/down, or behind/in front of, but I highly recommend Bunny Boo, which is a great toy for spatial relationships. It fit my agenda perfectly for O week!

Aside from demonstrating opposites with a toy, quiz your toddler on what opposites he or she knows. Travis impressed me getting left/right and more. For preschoolers, consider turning it into a board game or card game of some sort.

Oak: This word made for my favorite moment of the week. We started off reading As An Oak Tree Grows, by G. Brian Karas, and the next day we took a walk among oak trees. Travis loved connecting it to our story from the night before, and we crunched through all the acorns on the ground this time of year.

Open: Simply set out collection of all the things around the house that your toddler can open and close (hey, more opposites!), including some that are a challenge for his or her fine motor skills, like bottle and jar lids. Some favorites were his jack-in-the-box, turtle treasure box, and the mailbox we created back in X week!

Obstacle course: We created such an intricate obstacle course that I devoted a separate blog post to it, but needless to say, this word is the perfect prompt for gross motor skills of the week.

Then we moved on to…

Fine art: Make Olympic rings (perfectly shaped like Os!) of course. See my Toddler Olympics post for more details.

Food: Oatmeal raisin cookies got a happy yes. Olives got a very confused no.

Books: A few titles from the library that fit our themes and games perfectly: Thank you Octopus, by Darren Farrell and Inside Outside by Lizi Boyd (another opposite!). We also read Old Bear and His Cub by Olivier Dunrea.

Songs: On a whim, I played a download of an oboe sonata; who knew Travis would be so fascinated by the instrument? If you’re feeling ambitious, you might introduce your child to a YouTube clip of opera singers. More toddler-friendly, Travis loved watching My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean and Old Macdonald Had a Farm and we sang lots of rounds of Open, Shut Them (more opposites!)

Math: Ovals and octagons are the shapes we focused on this week. I made a simplified outline match – another convenient O word – tracing octagons and ovals in various colors and sizes. Travis nailed the game on the first try, and then wanted to try tracing on his own!

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We’re headed into N week next, so stay tuned.

P Week!

November 10, 2016Leave a comment

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This week was all about the letter P, as Travis and I continue our journey through the Letter of the Week curriculum. The timing was perfect for fall-themed favorites like pumpkin pie, so consider holding your P week in the autumn, too, if you can!

Puppets: We had so much fun making various puppets that I devoted a separate blog post to it. Whether you make puppets or use those you already own, pull them all out for a great big puppet show. Travis especially loved returning to our penguin puppet all week – another perfect P word.

Pigs/Ponies: I combined these two animal words for fun with our Little People barn set, giving Travis only the pigs and ponies to play with. To take things a step further, we set up a great farm sensory bin, filled with yellow split peas (a.k.a. “corn”), tractors, pigs, and ponies. Travis loved “feeding” corn to the animals and raking through the box with a fork. Great for sensory play and imagination!

Parade: Put Sousa marches on your computer, line up all your stuffed animals, give them each an instrument, and have a parade! If stuffed animals aren’t your child’s thing, line up cars or trucks instead.

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We added a policeman as parade marshal.

Picnic: Far and away the most magical moment of our week, we took advantage of the warmest day to head to the park. A picnic basket, blanket, and beach ball are the only ingredients you need for a beautiful picnic. Travis loved having a snack outside before playing in the fall leaves!

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Pumpkin: Halloween is past but fall is still pumpkin season! We baked mini pumpkin pies early in the week, a great hands-on experience. We also made a pumpkin patch: Stuff brown paper sandwich bags with crumpled newspaper, leaving a little room. Tie off the end with ribbon to be the stem, and then use orange paint to cover your pumpkins. We ran out of orange midway, which was the perfect opportunity to show Travis how red and yellow combine to make orange. Once the paint dries, play with your pumpkin patch!

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(Hint: Add your pigs and ponies here, too).

Puzzle: An obvious one: Pull out all your puzzles and leave them out all week so your child has ample time to puzzle over them.

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Piano: Whether you have toy pianos or a real one at home, this is likewise a great opportunity to leave it out so your child can return to it over the course of the week.

After those theme words, here are a few more ideas:

Fine art: Work those fine motor skills by crafting toy food from playdough. But not just any playdough… Pumpkin Pie Playdough! To make this easy at-home batch, combine the following in a saucepan over low heat:

2 and 3/4 cups flour

1 cup salt

4 teaspoons cream of tartar

2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 cups water

Orange food coloring

Cook until the mixture thickens and looks like mashed potatoes. Let cool before kneading and giving to your child for play.

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The dough smells fantastic, and is technically edible, but you’ll want to discourage any salty bites! Travis made mini pumpkin pies and cookies for his toy oven.

Food: We had to start one morning with pumpkin pie-spiced pancakes of course! There are so many P foods you could probably eat P items and nothing else all week if you wanted to. In addition to pancakes we had: peaches, pickles (which got a surprised and firm “no!”, pretzels, parsnips, pizza, pudding, pears, and pineapple.

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Books: The clear favorite from the library this week was The Perfect Pony, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley. Travis also enjoyed Clifford and the Big Parade, by Norman Bridwell, Penguin Says Please, by Michael Dahl, and The New Puppy, by Laurence Anholt. And of course, read any potty books you have!

Song: A cute one to listen to is Way Down Yonder in the Paw Paw Patch. I also set Pachabel’s Canon to play in the background while we were home one afternoon; Travis barely noticed, but it’s one of my all time favorites and osmosis can’t hurt!

Math: Introduce patterns. Children’s peg boards with pattern cards are a great skill-builder. Your child can copy the pattern cards that come with the peg board, or you can demonstrate something simpler, like a row of red-green-red-green. These toys are fantastic to have around anyway, so consider investing in one.

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That’s all for this week!

Q Week!

November 4, 2016November 4, 20161 Comment

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Admittedly, there aren’t as many words that begin with Q, but we still had quite a week! Consider holding Q week when you know you have an otherwise busy schedule, or – in my case – a broken computer that leaves you scrambling most of the week!

Quilt: If you have special family quilts at home, you might take a nice moment to discuss them with your child. Then, for some good old-fashioned fun, turn those quilts into a fort! Travis had great solo play crawling through the structure we made, and hiding toys among the folds of the quilts.

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Queen: Have a royally good time building castles of course! We pulled out our castle blocks and a little toy set of king, queen, and knights for building and making believe.

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Next up was the dress up box to be kings and queens in crowns and capes!

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Quick: We tested out which toys were the quickest in the house, having car races on our town mat. Travis also experimented with other items that moved quickly, like marbles through a tube. As you drive or walk around this week, look for what is moving quick and what is moving slow.

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You can also try this neat painting game: Select music that varies between quick and slow, and have your child paint along to the tempo!

After those Q key words, we did the following:

Fine art: It was time to make our own quilt! This cute introduction to patchwork is simple; cut squares from fabric (or wrapping paper and tissue paper will work, in a pinch), and make a grid on poster board. Have your child squeeze glue onto the poster board and then arrange the scraps in the grid in any pattern he or she likes.

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Food: If you can find quince at the market, make quince jam! Alas, my store did not have them in stock, so we divided lots of foods into quarters this week – sandwiches and quesadillas to name a few.

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Books: Quiet is a great word to focus on for books this week, as in Quiet, Loud by Leslie Patricelli and The Very Quiet Cricket, by Eric Carle. Travis loved the latter so much it became a nightly read all week.

Song: Rather than a song title, I showed Travis YouTube clips of string quartets, but he wasn’t much interested. For something more toddler-friendly, the chorus of Five Little Ducks (quack quack quack!) lends itself nicely to Q week.

Math: Give a gentle introduction to different denominations of coins, including of course, the quarter! Travis loves putting coins into and out of his piggy bank, so this week I challenged him to sort out the quarters first. For older preschoolers, you can also discuss how quarters are one-fourth of a dollar.

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We’ll be much busier next week for P – stay tuned!

R Week!

October 28, 2016October 28, 20161 Comment

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I took a week off from our Letter of the Week theme to focus on fall and Halloween crafts, but here we are in R week, having lots of fun discovering what words fit our letter.

Rings: Stacking rings are an oldie but goodie, and you’ll probably find that your toddler will play with them in novel ways if they’ve been banished to the “baby bin”. We had fun stacking them in reverse-size order, rainbow order etc.

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Then we played a version of toddler ring-toss, using all my bangles! Travis loved it so much that I kept the post and bangles out all week so he could play again.

Ribbon: We pulled out another old game, great for fine motor skills, adding varying lengths of ribbon into a bottle. Even more fun, cut strands of ribbon long enough for movement fun, dancing and running around the house. The running is the perfect gross motor activity of the week of course!

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Do always be sure to supervise ribbon play closely, if lengths are long enough to wrap around your child’s neck.

Register/restaurant: One of the joys of this age is watching games become ever-more imaginative, instead of just about manipulating objects or buttons. So while we played with his toy register, we invented games of “restaurant,” with paper-plate meals.

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We finished with a real trip to a restaurant for vegan smoothies; Travis was very proud to connect the dots to it as our R week field trip.

Rain(bow): We’ve done so many rainbow crafts that I more wanted to focus on rain itself. Luckily the weather cooperated! A dreary drizzly day was made much brighter with the help of some “rainy paintings.” Squirt food coloring onto paper plates, then take outside and let the rain finish the painting for you.

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Don’t forget to puddle stomp while you’re out in the rain, of course!

Radio: Here’s a word I would never have turned to if it wasn’t R week, but it was a fantastic prompt! I sat Travis on my lap in the car (parked, of course) and let him explore radio buttons. He was absolutely fascinated, and loved being able to switch between songs and turn dials. If you still have an old radio at home, now is the time to play with it.

Reptile: What perfect timing for the arrival or our reptile-themed Koala Crate! In addition to the crafts in our crate, we acted our reptile charades, painted clay turtles, and had fun making play dough reptiles, adding craft store beads for the scales.

Rough: Not all words need to be nouns; we focused on the adjective “rough,” doing a texture walk around the house to discover what was rough and what was smooth. Then we made “rough art” – seeing how chalk felt on various grades of sandpaper.

And for our weekly extras:

Fine art: A simple task but a real milestone; I wanted to see how well Travis could color inside the lines these days. I outlined a rainbow for him, and then had him fill in each color only in the designated area. Not bad for two and a quarter!

Food: Travis met his first radish!

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To make this slightly-peppery veggie toddler-friendly, roast in the oven with a little bit of olive oil, salt, and thyme for about 20 minutes. We also snacked on raspberries and raisins. And then of course we had to have rainbow toast.

Books: Travis’s stuffed rabbits joined us for a delightful read of Little White Rabbit by Kevin Henkes. Read any other rabbit books you have at home, or try Round Robin by Jack Kent (sure to elicit laughter), or Raindrops Roll, by April Pulley Sayre.

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Songs: Row Row Your Boat is an old favorite, with a few cute versions available to watch online. We also sang many a refrain of I’ve Been Working on the Railroad while strumming the guitar here at home!

Math: We focused on rectangles this week, of course. Travis knows the shape but it was nice to concentrate on it. First we separated out all his Duplo and only kept the rectangles, to build into houses and cars.

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We also had a rectangle hunt around the house before going to bed one night. Travis couldn’t believe how many we found: “The door is a rectangle! The fridge is a rectangle!”

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You can also introduce a rectangle “character” like we did recently with Tommy Triangle. Try something like this:

Robbie Rectangle is my name,

I have four sides, but they’re not the same.

S Week!

October 14, 2016October 14, 20161 Comment

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Welcome to our S week of play! As always, thanks to Letter of the Week for some of the ideas below. Travis was funny about the letter, since my prompts that a word began with a “sss” sound made him think we were in C-week for soft c words. It turned into a joke, me pointing to our S poster, and him still saying “C!” Confusion aside, here’s some of the fun we had.

Shadows: We kicked off the week with shadow dancing! It was such a magical moment that it merited a blog post all its own, so please check out the link above. Shadows are also great for making animal shapes against the wall, or just observing as you walk outside in autumn sunlight.

Sun/Sail/Sand: A few Summer-y words made it a beach-y week here in the fall. Cute sun projects included making a sun on a stick (a yellow painted paper plate with orange construction paper for the center)…

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… and magic sun prints.The result was cool even for me as a grown-up!

We then set up an indoor beach day with blankets for water and sand (with our sun on a stick of course!) and pulled out sand toys for make believe inside. To add to the s-themed fun, we turned one of his blankets into a “sailboat” and sailed around the room.

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Meanwhile, there was so much to do with sand that I devoted a blog post to it. For simple sand play, just fill an indoor bin with a layer of sand and set out cars and street signs, then have your child draw roads through the sand with a stick or spatula.

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Soccer: This word was perfect for our gross motor play of the week. Get outside and kick around a ball!

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Shaving cream: As simple as can be; have some good old goopy fun and finger paint with shaving cream. Your toddler will thank you.

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Stars: We had fun making a starry starry night painting, using both cookie cutters and sponges in the shape of stars to stamp onto construction paper. Travis added moons too, making for a very creative night sky! To continue the star fun, put together a toddler-sized pair of binoculars and head outside to spot the real thing before bed.

A few other things we did this week:

Fine art: Make a sand anthill! You could do this by sprinkling sand onto glue and pressing down, but we used sandpaper for our hill, and added thumbprint ants. Travis had so much fun that our anthill was soon teeming with denizens.

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Food: Lots to choose from… we enjoyed both whole strawberries and strawberry pancakes for breakfast, and had soup one afternoon for lunch.

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Books: It wasn’t the right time of year to play games in the snow, but we talked about the word with the help of two books: The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and Cat and Mouse in the Snow by Tomek Bogacki. Travis also enjoyed Sea, Sand, Me! by Patricia Hubbell and No Sleep for the Sheep! by Karen Beaumont.

Song: It was a no-brainer to introduce Travis to the Snowman, one of the most magical videos from my own childhood! More properly an instrumental video than a song, this classic hasn’t lost any of its beauty. Travis’s smile when the snowman came to life was priceless.

Math: I gently introduced the concept of subtraction with the help of a few more stars. Cut out paper stars and have your child make “shooting stars” flutter away one by one, counting how many remain. I promise it’s a coincidence that Travis was in his star pajamas!

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There’s always lots we can’t get to of course. You might also want to play with snakes or go on a safari, or have soapy fun with dish soap. Please add your other S ideas in the comments!

U Week!

September 29, 2016September 29, 20161 Comment

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Welcome to U week! Wait, you might ask, if you’ve been following along… What happened to V? I skipped it on purpose, since so many V suggestions relate to Valentine’s Day; we’ll revisit the letter in February. In the meantime, we had lots of fun finding out what begins with U.

Up/Under: We started our week on an UP note discovering things we could go up and under. That meant setting up a big pile of pillows in the living room for climbing of course! We followed that with tunnels, and looking for other places in the apartment that Travis could go either up or under.

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A parachute is another obvious choice for up and under play. If you don’t have a parachute, a beach towel or sheet makes an easy substitute. Travis loves to help shake while we sing parachute songs with “up” and “under” in the lyrics. Might I suggest the following?

The Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed UP the water spout

Down came the rain and washed the spider out

Out came the sun and dried UP all the rain

And the Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed UP the spout again

and

Come UNDER my UMBRELLLA umbrella umbrella

Come under my umbrella it’s starting to storm

There’s thunder and lightning

The weather is frightening

But UNDER my UMBRELLA it’s cozy and warm.

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There’s lots more you can do with UP of course. Pull out all of your airplane or helicopter toys and see what flies up up up!

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Or bring out block sets to see who can build the tallest tower up up up!

Uniform: I hid a new toy UNDER the couch early in the week to help Travis with this new vocabulary word, introducing the idea that policemen and firemen (among others) wear a special outfit called a uniform. The Melissa & Doug Joey doll was a big hit, and Travis liked dressing him in various combinations. If you have dress up clothes at home, dress up in uniform!

United States: I intended just to gently introduce the name of our country this week, but Travis loved our puzzle of the U.S. so much that we dumped out the pieces and put it back together multiple times. He was very interested in hearing which states mommy and daddy have been to. And as a wonderful coincidence, one of the few states Travis has visited is U-u-utah!

Utensil: Your toddler may know the words knife, fork, and spoon, but here’s a great new word… All three together are utensils! For fun play, Travis helped me select food pictures from a magazine, and then we glued several “meals” to paper plates. I set him up with extra plastic utensils from the pantry to play restaurant and food games.

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If that’s too complicated, you can’t go wrong with a toddler, a pot, a lid, and plastic utensils.

Uncle: To talk about his uncles, Travis and I made a family tree! Because it’s U week, I only labeled his uncles, but I’ll fill in the names of the rest of the relatives later.

Universe: Travis loves learning about the planets, which okay, means we’re technically talking more about our “solar system,” but this week I used the bigger word universe. We had so many universe games that I put them into a separate blog post. You can have fun with planet books, planet toys, galaxy playdough, and more.

Umbrella: We got lucky! With a very rainy week, it was the perfect time to talk about umbrellas. That meant we strapped on our rain boots and went puddle stomping, and Travis was so proud to carry the umbrella while we were outside.

A few more suggestions…

Fine art: We continued the theme of umbrellas in our artwork. Travis was very intrigued when we glued down fabric scraps (from an old sack of mine) for umbrella tops. Then it was time to attach raindrops! Instead of using a glue stick, encourage your child to squeeze a glue bottle. Dotting glue is great practice for strengthening little hands. Each drop of glue got a sparkly sequin “rain drop” to complete the project.

Food: There were very few options for a snack beginning with U! (I tried and failed, alas, to find ugli fruit). So although not the kind of fare I normally buy, Utz chips it was. Travis’s delight both at the funny name and at the taste of his first potato chip was worth it.

Books: The clear favorite this week was a book I randomly pulled off the library shelf for its U title – The Bear Upstairs, by Shirley Mozelle. Other favorites included The Umbrella Day, by Nancy Evans Cooney and Uncle Chuck’s Truck, by Hope Norman Coulter. Look for “unicorn” books too if your child likes unicorns!

Song: You might play your child Under the Sea (the lyrics feature several U words!) but Travis wasn’t interested. A bigger hit by far was playing him songs featuring the ukelele. We also have a ukelele at home which is a perennial favorite, so needless to say it got a lot of strumming this week.

Math: There’s not much to work with for toddlers and U when it comes to math. I only briefly introduced the concept of “uniform,” which made for a cute game sorting buttons. Travis was very proud when he identified which buttons were out of place until he had piles that were “uniform” in color.

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Stay tuned for week T.

Y Week!

September 9, 2016September 9, 2016Leave a comment

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Week 2 of my modified Letter of the Week play with Travis was a huge success – I’m so glad I embarked on this project, as it gives me ideas for introducing new concepts and games each week, while promoting letter and sound recognition. Below is just some of the fun Travis and I had during Y week. If you missed it, don’t forget to checkout what we did in Z week!

Yarn: A fantastic material for play, including making yarn sculptures and yarn squiggles on sandpaper. Another neat idea is to loop a long piece of yarn (in yellow of course!) over and around furniture while your toddler naps, and then surprise them with a little snack or toy tied to the end when they wake. Be sure to supervise all yarn play closely, as the strings can be a choking hazard.

Yo-Yo: You’re never too young to enjoy this oldie but goodie! Travis loved watching my husband perform yo-yo tricks, and gave it a try himself a few times over the course of the week.

Yeast: One of my favorites from the week; I introduced the magic of “hungry” yeast, and it’s amazing ability to make things rise. I won’t go step-by-step through the baking project we did, as another blogger has already done so, but this easy bread recipe is a fantastic intro to yeast for toddlers, including “feeding” the yeast, letting it “sleep,” etc… and ending with yummy Y-shaped breadsticks! Travis was entranced.

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Another great yeast experiment is to inflate a balloon with nothing more than water, yeast, and sugar. You’ll notice though that Travis was equally interested in sweeping up some spilled yeast off the floor!

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I confess watching the balloon inflate was exciting, even as an adult!

Yacht: We took advantage of late summer weather to stroll the docks in a nearby town! Okay, maybe none of the boats we saw technically classified as a “yacht,” but Travis didn’t know the difference and was very excited we were seeing big boats.

You: This can be a tricky word for kids; I call you “you” but you are supposed to call yourself “me” – confusing, right? So it was nice to focus on the word here during Y week. One great “you” game is to take a large piece of butcher paper and trace your toddler – then say, “It’s you!”

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Label body parts, invite your child to color the outline in, then hang “you” on the wall. Travis was delighted with this game, and not only wanted me to trace him again the next day, but wanted a turn “tracing” me.

Yoga: A huge hit! I had hoped to find a Mommy & Me yoga class in the area, but failing that, I turned to a YouTube video. Travis loved it, mimicked all the poses (with varying degrees of success), and couldn’t get enough of child’s pose at the end. “Yoga” was a new word for him, and he quickly identified that it started with “Y” while looking at our week’s poster.

Beyond those games, here were a few more highlights from our week:

Fine art: Yellow is the name of the game, of course! First, we had fun with Travis’ crayons, exploring all the various shades of yellow from light to dark. Then, I suggested he add a little yellow paint. He had so much fun that the yellow crayon was soon covered.

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We finished with gluing practice, putting down pieces of yellow yarn.

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Food: Yogurt is an obvious choice of course, and we kicked off the whole week with a vanilla soy yogurt at dessert, while I showed him our Y poster. Later in the week, Yogurt-Cup Cake gave us a great baking project. He loved being in charge of his measuring cup, and needed to sample a piece as soon as the cake was out of the oven. For dinner one evening, I made sure our veggie of the night was yams.

Books: I checked several Y-titled books out of the library, but these three were the favorites, read on repeat all week: Yaks Yak by Linda Sue Park; Yawn by Sally Symes, and Yoohoo, Ladybug by Mem Fox.

Song: Yellow Submarine was the sleeper hit of the week! I played a clip once and Travis paraded around singing it the entire rest of the week.

Math: Two calindrical concepts begin with Y: Year and Yesterday. Magnet calendars are a great way to introduce both! I certainly didn’t expect Travis to perfect the concept of either at this age, but each morning we would set up the calendar, and emphasize what day was yesterday, and then talk about what we did yesterday. I was impressed with the way he latched on to the concept!

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Signing off until X week!

joyful parenting

Category: Theme day

L Week!

M Week!

N Week!

O Week!

P Week!

Q Week!

R Week!

S Week!

U Week!

Y Week!