Hellobee

Luigi is almost two months old! I’m finally feeling comfortable as a mom of two. We still have bad days, but he’s a super easy baby, so things are starting to settle down. Now that I’m actually in a groove and have a few functioning brain cells to spare, I need to find ways to occupy myself and the Trikester — after all, we can’t spend every morning shopping at Target and eating lunch at Panera.

So, a la Mrs. Train, I came up with toddler theme weeks. These are a collection of super simple daily activities for two and three-year-olds, all based around a common idea. They give us something to talk about during the day, a little learning, and most importantly, they add variety to the daily monotony that is the plight of the stay at home mom.

For each day I identified learning goals (sorry, that’s totally the teacher in me — but I find they help guide our conversations and give our activities a purpose beyond simply “making something”), a YouTube video, a book, a craft project or activity, a special food, and a song. I wasn’t trying to kill myself, or do anything complicated – I just wanted to have a plan of things we can do while Daddy is at work (we OD’ed on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse over the last two months, so I also need to prevent complete brain rot).

I’ve tried to make it a really easy “lesson plan” to follow, formatting each day the same way. At the end of the post is a list of materials you’ll need for a whole week’s worth of lessons. And let’s be honest — if I was working, or had a fussier baby, I’d never have time for any of this. If you’re a full time working Mama, you could totally pick one of these daily lessons and have fun on a Saturday – no need for it to be all or nothing.

Day One: Turtles

Learning Goals — the Trikester will:

• Know the following vocabulary words: flippers, shell, and hibernate
• Understand that turtles swim in the water
• Understand that turtles hibernate, or sleep, during the winter
• Learn how to use a glue stick

YouTube video to watch: Sea Turtles: Animals for Children

Book to read: I’ll Follow the Moon by Stephanie Lisa Tara

Activity: Make a paper plate turtle. See photo above for an example. Use a paper plate as a shell. From green construction paper, cut four flippers (legs), a head, a tail, and circles to decorate the shell. From black construction paper, cut two small circles for eyes. Using a glue stick, attach the turtle parts. We also used a green marker and practiced “staying in the lines” by coloring in each circle on the turtle’s shell.

Food: Cucumber turtles. See photo above. I just cut cucumber rounds into turtle shaped parts and placed them on a plate with a dollop of hummus. Fancy? No. Easy? Yes. The Trikester loved it, even if it’s pretty simple.

Song to sing: “Down in the Meadow” – the first verse is below. Change the verb to different turtle actions, like splash, dive, float, etc.

Down in the meadow in a little bitty pool
Swam ten little turtles and a mama turtle too
Swim said the mama turtle
Swim like I do
So they swam and they swam all over the pool

Day Two: Owls

Learning Goals – the Trikester will:

• Know the following vocabulary words: wings, beak, and nocturnal
• Understand that owls play and eat at night
• Understand that owls eat mice
• Recognize the letter O and the sound it makes

YouTube video to watch: True Facts About the Owl (turn the volume off – you don’t want to listen to the narrator – and talk with your toddler about what you see)

Book to read: Owl Babies by Martin Waddel or Owls by Gail Gibbons for an older audience

Activity: Make paper owls. See photos above and below. Using brown construction paper, cut out a large letter O. Also cut out wings and a head. Using yellow construction paper, cut out circles for eyes, and then use black construction paper to cut out smaller circles for pupils. Have your toddler identify the letter, then glue the owl together using a glue stick. Decorate the owl by gluing Cheerios onto its wings with a hot glue gun. Talk about how the Cheerios also looks like an O. We also used a marker to write a few words on the owl that start with the letter O.

It’s only 8:30 a.m. and his shirt is already dirty from breakfast – but at least he’s proud of his owl!

Food: Eat an owl sandwich. Cut off two triangle shaped wedges from the side of the sandwich and turn at an angle to make wings. Use cucumber rounds and sliced olives for eyes, and a triangle of red pepper, orange cheese, or strawberry as a beak.

Song to sing: “Little Owl” by Jean Warren  (to the tune of “This Old Man”)

Little Owl, in the tree,
He is hooting down at me.
With a hoot, hoot, hoot, hoot,
All through the night,
Little Owl is quite a site!

Day Three: Spiders

Learning goals – the Trikester will:

• Know the following vocabulary words: web, insects, and spin
• Know that spiders have eight legs
• Practice counting to eight
• Understand how spiders capture insects using a web

YouTube video to watch: Spiders: Animals for Children The Trikester struggled with the concept of a web, so we also watched this time lapse video

Book to read: The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle or Miss Spider’s Tea Party by David Kirk for older kids

Activity: We made a spider by hot-gluing pipe cleaners and paper eyes onto a section of egg carton (see photo above). I did most of the work on this one, so it wasn’t as much fun for the Trikester. If I were to do it again, I’d use a paper egg carton, instead of styrofoam, so he could paint it first. Also, the styrofoam kind of melted when I applied the hot glue, so paper would definitely work better. Once our spider was made, I glued a magnet to it. Then on our magnet board (or your fridge), I made a web out of tape, and glued a few paper circles to other magnets – these were our “bugs,” which I added to the web. For play time, we used the spider we made and pretended to eat the bugs, talking about webs and spiders’ dietary habits.

The masking tape spider web on our magnet board

Food: I made a spider out of guacamole and added cut-up cucumbers for legs (see above photo). The final touch were cut up cherry tomatoes – which I told him were the bugs. There are lots of cute spider foods on Pinterest – most of them use pretzel sticks for legs, which I didn’t have on hand, so we improvised.

Song to sing: We sang “The Itsy- Bitsy Spider.” He loooved this song because I used my fingers to run the spider up and down his arm as I sang, which totally tickled. Lyrics below if you need a refresher.

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

Day Four: Fish

Learning goals – the Trikester will:

• Know the following vocabulary words: fins, swim, and scales
• Understand that fish live in the water
• Understand that fish are covered with scales instead of skin or fur
• Practice using a large paintbrush

YouTube video to watch: How Do Fish Breathe in Water

Book to read:  The Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen or Fish Had a Wish by Michael Garland

Activity: Using a paper plate (gotta love paper plates!) we made a fish bowl. I gave the Trikester a plate with the top cut off, and helped him paint it blue with a foam brush, added green plants with our fingers, and then used the handle of the brush to make “rocks” in the bottom. We then used the foam brush again to paint the stand brown. Once it was dry, we glued goldfish crackers on to the plate.

I still don’t really love painting with the Trikester, but I’ve found it’s way more tolerable when we’re painting to accomplish a specific goal rather than just “free-styling.” Having a task holds his attention longer and creates less mess, as we don’t have all the paint colors out at once.

Food:  I created fish by slicing a kiwi into ovals to form the  body, and then using sliced strawberries to make a tail and fins. Blueberries formed the bubbles.

Song to Sing: “I’m a Little Fishy” (sung to the tune of “I’m a Little Tea Pot”)

I’m a little fishy
Watch me swim
Here is my tail
Here is my fin
When its time to play with  friends
I wiggle my tail and dive right in

Day Five: Sheep

Learning goals – the Trikester will:

• Know following vocabulary words: wool, lamb
• Understand that we use a sheep’s wool to make yarn
• Understand the baby sheep are called lambs
• Practice counting to 10
• Practice using tongs to transfer cotton balls from one surface to another

YouTube video to watch: Sheep Shearing: Children’s DVD (it’s rather long, so skip around, but it does a great job of showing how sheep provide wool)

Book to read: No Sleep for the Sheep by Karen Beaumont or Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw

Activity: For this activity, I cut out a sheep body out of white construction paper, and then a head and feet out of black construction paper. I also cut a hat shape out of orange construction paper. The Trikester used the glue stick to attach the parts of the sheep, and then we used it to stick cotton balls to the sheep’s body. A little later in the morning, we went back and “sheared” the sheep — the Trikester used tongs to pull off the cotton balls, and then re-stuck them onto the hat shape, as we talked about how we get wool from sheep to make things like hats and sweaters.

“Shearing” the sheep by removing the cotton balls with tongs

Food: I used bananas sliced in circles to form a fluffy sheep body, and then cut up red grapes to make its face and legs, and added green grapes at the bottom to make the grass. See photo above.

Song to Sing: What else other than “Baa Baa Black Sheep?”

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

One for my master,
One for my dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

Baa, baa, black sheep,

Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

One for my master,
One for my dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

.  .  .  .  .

If you want to plan ahead to do all the activities in a week, I’ve put together the supplies list for all five days. You probably have most of the activity stuff lying around, and the food list is really flexible – there are lots of substitutions if you don’t have these specific things. If you can’t find these specific books at the library – no worries — just pick ones you like that cover the animal.

Activity Supplies List:

• Paper plates
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Hot glue gun
• Washable markers
• Washable paint
• Foam brush
• Cardboard egg carton
• Pipe cleaners
• Masking tape or painter’s tape
• Double-sided tape
• Magnets (we used something like these)
• Cotton balls
• Salad tongs or big tweezers
• Cheerios
• Goldfish crackers

Food Supplies List:

• Kiwi fruit
• Cucumbers
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Bananas
• Green and red grapes
• Guacamole or hummus
• Cherry tomatoes
• Round crackers and peanut butter (I didn’t use them, but they’d make cool spiders)
• Pretzel sticks (I didn’t use them, but they’d make cool spiders)
• Goldfish bread (I didn’t know it existed, but it’s a fun treat for special fish themed sandwiches)

Library Book List:

• I’ll Follow the Moon by Stephanie Lisa Tara
• Owl Babies by Martin Waddel or Owls by Gail Gibbons for an older audience
• The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle or Miss Spider’s Tea Party by David Kirk for an older audience
• The Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen or Fish Had a Wish by Michael Garland
• No Sleep for the Sheep by Karen Beaumont or Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy Shaw

Do you ever plan activities or mini lessons for your kids? I’d love theme suggestions!