How to plan your Activity Time with your toddler or preschooler

Let me go ahead and answer one question I've heard a lot lately: 

How do you plan your activities?

It's taken some time, but I've found a good system that works for me and my kids. Even still, it changes. Some weeks we rock it and do lots of great activities and some weeks I check out and our Letter of the Week turns into Letter of the Month. I've accepted that. My goal is to have some solid one-on-one time with my kids once a day, and it has to happen in the morning. I try at least once a week, sometimes twice, to have an activity planned here at home where we study our Letter of the Week/Month and do a coinciding craft, read books, or a learning game. On the other days, we visit the library, our local children's museum, or (now that's it's spring) head to the park. 

Time spent together with no distractions = Activity Time.   

So here's my method:

Every Tuesday, we hit up the local library and attend their awesome Discovery Time. They even provide worksheets with all the finger plays and songs they teach each week so I can take it home and file it away for another day. Love the library. Then we head to the computers where my girls can hold their own (mostly) while Edison and I search around for books. I usually have a few topics in mind and watch for books that support my ideas for the current letter of the week. I also have great librarians! I usually pull some children's fiction, a fairy tale, a science topic (body parts, astronomy, etc.), and one or two animal biographies.

Then we base our activities around the topics I found at the library. So for the letter K, my book list might look something like this:

Plant a Kiss by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

(I'm a huge Rosenthal fan)
This book goes perfectly with our lipstick-kissed "K" activity above.

Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too? By Eric Carle

You could create a game of pretending to be kangaroos and make these cute kangaroo pouches.

Welcome to the World of Kangaroos

My library has a more toned down series of animal biographies that I love.

Curious George Flies a Kite

With this you could make paper kites to fly outside.

The King's Wish

For a fun snack, make King's "crowns" with apple halves and toothpicks with
mini marshmallows, craisins, and cut up cheese)

I always start our activity time with a review of the date, weather, the alphabet and sometimes one of our favorite songs or finger plays. Then we read our books followed up with a game or craft and of course, a snack. 

That's it! The goal of course is to be present. My best activities are not those that took the most preparation or thought, but rather the ones where we really connect and play together. Planning for an activity time almost every day, helps me to create those moments more often.

Toddler and Preschooler Activities for the Letter K

The letter of the week last week was the letter "K." We talked a lot about koalas and kangaroos, kisses and kids, and then made kites to fly outside. We made kites last year, but I have to admit that these are my new favorite. Apparently they were created by a kid in Hawaii who prided himself in getting 20 kids to make 20 kites in 20 minutes. Well, it took us about 20 minutes to make two kites, but they were quite easy and they fly!

Materials:
construction paper (8 1/2 x 11)
pencil
ruler
scissors
bamboo skewer
wire snips
masking tape
surveyor's tape or streamers
hole punch
string
piece of cardboard

Step One: Have your toddler decorate his paper to his heart's desire (we skipped this part and got straight to business, but it would be fun to color first). Fold the paper in half widthwise.


Step Two: Measure and mark 2 1/4 inches from the bottom and 1" on the top.





Step Three: Use your ruler (or a puzzle) to draw a straight line, connecting your marks. Crease the top layer of paper along the line.




Step Four: Once the top layer is folded back, tape along the fold and trim any excess tape.


Step Five: Trim the skewer to eight inches with the wire snips (or strong scissors) and tape it across the wide end of the top of the kite.


Step Six: Tape on your decorations (surveyor's tape, streamers, or curling ribbon, etc) along the bottom of the kite.


Step Seven: Flip the kite over and fold the flap back and forth until it stands straight up. Fold a small piece of tape over the flap about 3 inches from the top. Punch a hole and tie your string in the hole.

Tape the other end of your string to the piece of cardboard and wrap the rest of the string around it until it's a length your child can handle.



Go fly it! Make sure it's windy enough out there...my three year old had a small meltdown (that's weird...) because there was no wind the first time we tried to fly these kites. We took them to a park a few days later and they flew beautifully.

P.S.
Fun snacks for this letter: kiwi and Hershey's kisses.
YouTube videos: Cullen's ABC's and Sesame Street
Book: Kipper

Toddler and Preschooler Activities: Queen or King for a Day

We recently visited my mom's house and she pulled out this book, The Usborne Big Book of Fairy Things to Make and Do, which provided great entertainment for my girls. We opened up to the activity on making crowns so the girls could be Queens for a day. So for you mothers of boys, you could make more "masculine" crowns and they could be Kings for a day.

They could practice speaking politely, like royalty does, and use their magic words. They could help make important decisions that day such as what snacks and meals to eat, what clothes to wear, and what activities to do (within reason!). You could play "Follow the Leader" with them or "Simon Says," replacing their name for Simon.

It's fun to make them feel special on just an ordinary day.

Here's the book.

And the crowns...

Measure a strip a paper around your toddler's head and cut two lines halfway through the ends of the strip so they fit together.



Decorate the band to your liking with stickers or markers.

We rolled strips of foil to give our crowns a decorative flare.

And there you have it; Queen or King for a day.
(Maybe we should make these for ourselves whenever we feel the need for
a random "Mother's Day.")

Toddler Activities: Paper Bag Kites

This idea came from Trish Kuffner's The Preschooler's Busy Book,
a great reference book for activity time.
I invited my friend and her 2 1/2 year old over to join us,
which made this activity even more fun.

Materials:
Large paper bag
hole punch
paper ring reinforcements
scissors
string
markers, stickers, or sticky felt
stapler, glue, or tape
crepe paper streamers

First, we pulled out our Fancy Nancy box and started decorating.
I'm in love with my sticky felt. We had our girls pick two animals for each side of the kite and then cut them out of the sticky felt, the girls adding their finishing touch.

You can help your toddler write their name or the name of the animal they choose, or you could put letters all over for an alphabet kite. You could do the same with numbers.

We cut five strips of crepe paper and taped them onto the bottom of the bag
(the top of your kite) as streamers.



Punch a hole into each corner of your paper bag and place a paper ring reinforcement over each side of the hole for added strength. Cut two three-foot lengths of string and tie each end to a hole to create two loops. Cut out another three-foot length of string and tie it through the two loops, making a handle.



Even if it's not the windiest day, you can have fun running down the sidewalk with these colorful kites trailing behind.

Have fun and remember to send me pictures of your own creations so I can share your ideas!