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.

T Week!

October 6, 2016Leave a comment

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Letter T stands for so many things that Travis loves anyway that we barely had time to touch upon all the words I hoped during this week. I’ve listed highlights below, but further suggestions at the bottom of the post may suit your child’s interest more. Either way, T week was Terrific!

Trains: We play with train sets all the time, so to keep things fresh, I pulled out old toys that had been relegated to the “baby bin.” It had been long enough that he was delighted with an old plastic train, Thomas the Train “rail rollers” and more. We live in a town with a real train station, so took a stroll by the platform (and got to see a freight train pass!). You might consider a field trip to your local station or even a short ride from station to station if you have time.

Telephone: Much as with old trains, a few baby toy phones had been put away, but he showed renewed interest when I pulled them out early in the week. Aside from just letting your child press buttons and dials, phones make for great games. Bring a toy phone in the car and ask your child to call the place you’re going, or ask them to “call” a family member and see what he or she says!

Teddy Bears/Tea Parties: I’m listing these two together because how could we not have a t-errific teddy bear tea party and listen to the song Teddy Bear’s Picnic? Travis adores the song, which I’ve played a few times in the past, so we recreated the fun with our own picnic. He played games of Ring Around the Rosie with teddy…

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…And we even crafted teddy bear ears for him to wear, a simple craft of crayons, paper, yarn, and a stapler.

Tree: Our T week overlaps with the beginning of autumn and fall foliage in our area, a nice coincidence! We attended a beautiful program for toddlers on Monday morning featuring a nature walk through the trees. Travis was fascinated that he could step on trees in places where the roots poked through the ground. Look for similar nature programs in your area, or just head outdoors for a walk and talk about the trees!

Trucks: Another everyday favorite that we paid a little extra attention to this week. To keep things novel, I pulled out bubble wrap and taped it to the kitchen floor so our trucks could pop and vroom over the bubbles. Don’t be surprised if your child wants to then jump on the bubbles with bare toes! And of course trucks were great for loading up and carting toy tools.

Tent: There’s lots you could do with this word, depending on your child’s age. Preschoolers may enjoy an overnight “camping” out in the living room with a toy tent (or makeshift tent of blankets), but Travis is too young for that. He did love helping me construct a tent using old baby blankets. We even had a handy campfire set (thanks to Koala Crate!) to play with underneath.

Tennis: For gross motor play, introduce the idea of this racquet sport, using toddler-friendly paddles. Attach a wooden stick to a paper plate, then have a rally with balloons! I wish I could have gotten some action shots, as this was the most magical moment of our week, but Travis was moving too fast!

A few final ideas:

Fine art: We put together a double-T project: tissue paper triangles! This was a little advanced for Travis, but I’m glad we stuck with it. After originally wanting to smear glue everywhere, he got the concept of spreading glue only inside the triangle. You can stick on the tissue paper with a neat trick: wrap around the end of a pencil, then stick the pencil on the glue and pull up, leaving the tissue paper behind. After watching my example, he tried it himself and got quite good at it! Our final creation wasn’t perfect, but perfection was not the point of course.

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Food: We enjoyed a few T-treats: tangerines at breakfast one morning, tomato toast for a snack, and a tofu taco at dinner one night!

Books: I used very few books from the library this week, as favorites like Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle and train books live at home already. Travis also enjoyed Trucks by Anne Rockwell and The Tree by Dana Lyons.

Songs: Aside from the aforementioned “Teddy Bear’s Picnic,” Travis loved watching Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. He has a toy star that he “twinkled” along as we watched. “I’m a Little Teapot” was fun to sing during our tea party, teaching him the actions for handle and spout.

Math: Triangles of course! We did so many triangle activities that I compiled them into a separate blog.

As mentioned, there are many great T words we couldn’t get to. You might also want to play with any toys/books you have featuring tigers or turkeys, or play a Turtle game!

We’ll S-see you for S week…

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!

Z Week!

September 1, 2016December 1, 20163 Comments

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I’m embarking on a project, following letter-themed weeks that I’ve adapted somewhat from the thorough website Letter of the Week. My intention is to use each week to spark ideas and introduce new concepts through play, rather than to follow the “curriculum,” which is really geared for kids ages 3 and older.

I decided to work my way backwards, because the front of the alphabet always gets all the love! I’m glad I did, because having Z as a guiding theme gave fantastic novelty to our play all week. I can’t wait to see what comes next for Y!

So to begin the week, I hung a big poster of the letter Z. Travis noticed it right away. “What’s the letter of the week?” I asked him, pointing. “Z!” he read. Below is a sample of how we played along with our theme. Whenever a game or toy started with “Z” I’d direct Travis’s attention back to the poster and he was always thrilled to find out we were exploring a new Z word.

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Zipper: Pull out anything you have that makes for fun practice; zippers are great for fine motor skill development. Travis loves zippering and unzipping my suitcase, as well as the vests he wore last fall. Make a game of it by trying on favorite jackets, or letting teddy bears and dolls model the clothes.

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Zig zag: This vocab word lends itself perfectly to games that develop gross motor skills. Set up an obstacle course and have your toddler run through it in a zig zag order. Travis loved the word; later on as we colored he told me he was making “a zig and a zag” with a crayon by changing the direction he drew.

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Zoom: The possibilities here are almost endless! Get out those toy cars, of course. We had gales of laughter zooming his cars through a tube, especially watching battery-operated cars zoom through at twice the speed.

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Later in the week, we made a rocketship from a cardboard box, perfect for “zooming” through the air.

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Zest: This was unexpectedly one of my favorites! Not only was it a new vocab word and a mini cooking lesson, but Travis was very intrigued by the zester (use close supervision, as the holes of a zester are sharp). He loved seeing what happened when I ran a lemon and orange over the grater, and wanted to play with the zest I left out on paper plates.

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“I can eat it?” he asked. I warned him it would be bitter, but he very impishly took not one but three taste tests before declaring it “salty” and asking for milk!

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Zoo/Zebra: No doubt you have animal or safari-themed toys that fit this category at home. Because I never plan to take Travis to the real zoo, I like introducing him to these magnificent animals through toys like our zoo Playmobil set. Make sure you pull out all your animal puzzles, too… bonus points for any featuring zebras!

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Those Z words provided a nice guiding theme to our games all week, but we didn’t stop there.

Fine art: Practice with a glue stick by letting your toddler glue black stripes onto white paper. We did this free form (because I can’t draw zebras!), but Travis loved that we were making a “zebra.”

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Food: Make sure to dine on zucchini one day this week. Even better, prepare zoodles! Our Z theme finally motivated me to try my spiralizer, which Travis loved watching, in order to make zucchini noodles (aka zoodles). Toss with a little marinara and you have an easy veggie hit for the 3-and-under set.

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Books: Pick a few books with Z in the title. We selected the following four from the local library: Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell, Zoom Zoom Zoom! I’m Off to the Moon by Dan Yaccarino, Zorro Gets an Outfit by Carter Goodrich, and Zoom! by Diane Adams. Dear Zoo was the clear favorite, so we continued to read it each night this week.

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Song: Listen to Zip a Dee Doo Dah! The video of the original feels outdated to me, but Travis was grinning for the cartoon animals and the silliness of the words. Make it your theme song for the week, to sing on repeat during car trips or diaper changes.

Math: Inroduce the concept of zero, of course! See my blog post for a thorough breakdown of the fun games we played.

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We’ll see you next week for week Y!

joyful parenting

Tag: Letter of the Week