Toddler Lessons for Friday - Books

Today is snuggle-in-our-chair-with-our-book-bear day and read some wonderful books.


Our books today are:

Albert's Thanksgiving by Leslie Tryon (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Simon & Schuster) - a great book all about how hard work pays off and helping each other has great rewards.

Clifford's First Autumn by Norman Bridwell (Scholastic) - features all the fun things about this time of year - pumpkins, autumn leaves, and football!

Toddler Lessons for Thursday - Music/Dance

Today is our wonderful Music/Dance day.

Kids love music and love to move and groove. I know my 3yr old is CRAZY about ballet at the moment - all day it's "look at this move Mom", "look at this twirl", so our first selection is for her!



And why not a sing-a-long with the Chipmunks!

Over the river and through the woods,
To grandmother's house we go;
The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh,
Through (the) white and drifted snow!

Over the river and through the woods,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes and bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.

Over the river and through the woods,
To have a first-rate play;
Oh, hear the bells ring, "Ting-a-ling-ling!"
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day!

Over the river and through the woods,
Trot fast, my dapple gray!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound!
For this is Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river and through the woods,
And straight through the barnyard gate.
We seem to go extremely slow
It is so hard to wait!

Over the river and through the woods,
Now Grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

Toddler Lessons for Wednesday - Video

Today is video day.

Toddlers and babies love visual aids. As long as you are not sitting your child in front of the TV for hours on end, the occasional video or movie is a great way to stimulate your kiddos! And it is best if you sit with them and explain what is going on, and interact with them.

First, we have a brief history video (the images are nice even if the kids don't really understand what's going on). Also a helpful reference to refresh your memory of the origin of Thanksgiving. Communicate to your child the reason why you do things - talking to them helps their vocabulary and opens the communication path that will be so important in the trying years ahead!

Some Thanksgiving history - no one is too young to learn a little history!


http://www.history.com/content/thanksgiving

And, of course, the good 'ole Charlie Brown:

Toddler Lessons for Tuesday - Art/Craft

Our Thanksgiving Art/Craft for kids today is a wonderful leaf picture!

Yesterday we collected some pretty Autumn leaves from our yard (we were lucky enough to have a huge collection to pick from LOL!). Today we are going to use the leaves in our Autumn picture.

We have some construction paper (yellow and orange), some leaves, a pen and a pair of scissors.



First we draw on our butterfly body.



Then we cut off the stems from the leaves.



Next we put some glue onto the paper where we want our "wings" to go.


And finally we stick on our leaf wings onto the picture.




Beautiful!


Our Autumn picture gets put up on our "drawing board" with our other Fall/Thanksgiving pictures. Here are some other great ideas - a Turkey picture using feathers (from WalMart in their craft section), a camp fire (using hand cut-outs as the flames), and coloring pages (ours was a turkey, but find others by google searching Thanksgiving coloring pages).





Have fun!

Toddler Lessons for Monday - Games/Activity

Today is Game/Activity day and we have two great Thanksgiving activities for kids. Our second activity will tie in to tomorrow's art/craft project.

Our first activity is to create "thankful" notes. We have some pretty autumn/thanksgiving themed paper and a comfortable spot to sit and talk about what Thanksgiving means and figure out what we are thankful for. We have cut our paper into 3" squares.


The idea for this activity is to encourage kids to realize and be grateful for what they have and to put it in writing. As a family we will be doing this exercise together. Everyone gets four pieces of paper. Their name is written at the top then "is thankful for..." (you fill in the blank). All the pieces will be collected and placed in a bowl for our Thanksgiving table.


At our Thanksgiving dinner we will draw out each "thankful" note and read them out aloud. Some are funny (my 3yr old is thankful for monsters! don't ask???) some are super sweet (she said to write one for her little sister that reads "thankful for her yummy milk and blankie"!), but all a good reminder that we are truly blessed.



Our second activity today, for the kids, is to go outside (and enjoy our beautiful weather) and collect some pretty autumn leaves for tomorrow's art/craft project. We look at the different shapes of the leaves, and the different colors. Talk to your child about the size, shape, color, and texture of the leaves.






Get the kids to scrunch up the leaves in their hands - what a great sound! Get them to help rack them up... OK, just dreaming!!

Leaves, leaves everywhere!

Weekly Bus Schedule - Theme: Thanksgiving

Weekly Bus Schedule

The theme for this week is Thanksgiving.

We will have great games/activities for active toddlers on Monday.
Artistic art and craft projects for crazy kids on Tuesday.
A vibrant video for tots to view on Wednesday.
We'll be movin' n grovvin' with music/dance for delightful little ones on Thursday.
And on Friday we will snuggle in our chair with our book bear and read some wonderful books.

Have a great week!