Weekly Learning Theme: Traveling

This week we focused on traveling because we will be leaving for our family vacation with Ty's parents, brother, and sister-in-law on Tuesday.  My main goal was to prepare Carter for flying as well as to familiarize him with and get him excited about airplanes.  I'm going to share the activities we did throughout the week, highlighting what area they fit into: field trip/interactive experience, crafts, songs, make believe, movement, and special snack.  I will also share our book list for themed-related reading throughout the week. Carter loved all the activities we did. 

Listed below are the objectives I am focusing on for the themed weeks.  The highlighted objectives are ones Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:

1. Know the names of and be able to point out body parts.
2. Know names of objects and be able to point to them when asked.
3. Sort objects based on size or color/Match like objects together, for example match a circle with a circle. 
4. Play make believe.
5. Speak in short phrases and 2-4 word sentences. (He's done some 2 word sentences already!)
6. Follow simple instructions.

Activities/Movement:

• Before we packed Carter's suitcase I pulled out shirts and shorts that needed to be packed.  I laid a pair of shorts down and told him they were shorts.  Then I laid down a shirt and told him it was a shirt.  I handed him a pair of shorts that were to be packed and asked him to put them with the shorts.  He set them on the pile.  We did it with 2 pairs of shorts and 2 shirts and then he just started throwing clothing into a suitcase.  I was impressed he was able to sort his clothes, especially because we've only focused on color sorting so far.
• After sorting clothes I let Carter help me put his clothes in the suitcase which he actually enjoyed quite a bit.  While we packed I told him why we were packing, where we were going, what we would get to do and who we would get to see on our trip.

 

• I let Carter practice rolling his suitcase on our laminate flooring.  He got frustrated at first, but once he figured it out, he really enjoyed it.  My thought is letting him wheel his suitcase around during our layover may be a fun way for him to burn some energy.  I'm also prepared to allow him to roll it himself for a while at the airport because he's starting that stage where he wants to do things for himself with NO help from mommy!

• We watched a video that showed what it's like to fly on a plane.  I was shocked that Carter actually sat and watched the video for an entire minute before taking off to do something else

• I talked to Carter about how we would have to check in at the airport and practiced patting him down.  I don't know if they'll even do that, but I thought it was worth practicing.  He just stood and looked at me like I was being weird, but I'm his mommy.  A stranger patting him down will likely be a different story.  Hopefully if they do pat him down, they let me hold him.

• I pulled out pipe cleaners to see if they would be something he would enjoy playing with.  I was thinking about packing them in our carry on, but didn't want to waste the space if he didn't even like playing with them.  He loved them and even just pulling the pipe cleaners out of the bag was a game to him.  When I was getting the pipe cleaners out of the garage I saw a small container of stuff from school that never got packed away anywhere.  We brought it inside and looked through it for anything Carter could play with on the plane.  We ended up pulling out finger puppets, sunglasses, and a pincher toy to pack.  Carter was very upset when I took them away to pack, but it was lunchtime and I didn't want the newness of the toys to wear off before the plane.

 

• We made homemade silly putty to play with on the plane.  I was worried Carter would try to put it in his mouth since he's been cooking lately.  So I told him, "We are not making food to eat, we are making a toy to play with.  You can't put this in your mouth."  I didn't think it would actually work, but he didn't attempt to put it in his mouth at all.  The recipe we used was: dissolve 1/2 teaspoon Borax in 1/4 cup warm water.  Mix together the Borax/water mixture with 1/4 cup cornstarch and 2-3 ounces of glue (or 1/4 cup which I converted it to because that was confusing to me).  I found the recipe here.  She said to keep working it for a while after mixing it up and I worked it in my hands for quite a while before it became a nice consistency.  Carter picked to make it green and his favorite part of making it was adding the food coloring.  He also enjoyed playing with it, but now I'm wondering whether we will be able to take it on the plane or not with the liquid rules.  It's really not a liquid though, so I hope it's okay! 

 

 

 

Craft:

• Since we will be flying through clouds, we created clouds out of card stock and cotton balls.  Carter started off doing really well making his clouds and then he decided it was more fun to throw the cotton balls into the yard and watch them blow around.  My plan was to hang the clouds from the ceiling with yarn and fly toy planes through the clouds as a make believe activity, but I realized we didn't have any toy planes and I didn't feel like making a paper airplane.  So we just made the clouds and hung them in his room.

 

 

 

 

 

Special Snack:

• Carter will get a special snack on the plane tomorrow.  He loves his special Cheerio's container he got from grammy and grampy as a baby shower gift.  We will fill it with Cheerio's and I'm also packing 2 Cheerio's play books I got at a garage sale before he was born.  Since I'm so OCD I cleaned the pages again so they will be ready for the trip tomorrow.  I know he will love playing with the books and eating the Cheerio's.  Better yet, it will kill some time!

 Make Believe:

• We planned to fly a toy plane through clouds, but didn't have one so we scratched that idea.  
• We did pretend Carter was an airplane and I flew him through the air on my feet.  We used flying specific words while we played such as take off, turbulence, captain, clouds, landing, and boarding.  He had a lot of fun as we played.

Songs:

Ten Little Aeroplanes:

We All Go Traveling By:

I'm a Little Airplane:

Barney Flying on an Airplane:

Field Trip/Interactive Experience:

• Our field trip will be flying in an airplane tomorrow as we travel to Florida!  I hope we've packed plenty of stuff to occupy Carter during the trip and I'm also crossing my fingers he may nap for part of the trip.  I'll add pictures of our field trip later.

Books:

I was actually quite surprised by all the books we found about traveling and flying.  Some were a bit of a loose connection and just had planes in them or involved someone traveling, but we enjoyed reading all of them.  Carter's favorites were All Aboard! and Flying.

• The Trip by Ezra Jack Keats
• I Love Vacations by Anna Walker
• Loula is Leaving for Africa by Anne Villeneuve
• All Aboard! by Mary Lyn Ray
• Duck, Duck, Moose by Dave Horowitz
• Toot & Puddle by Holly Hobbie
• It's Vacation Time by Lerryn Korda
• If You Decide to Go to the Moon by Faith McNutty
• All the World by Liz Garton Scanton
• Knuffle Bunny Free by Mo Willems
• Mirror by Jeannie Baker
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendack
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
• An Extraordinary Egg by Leo Lionni
• Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
• Flying by Donald Crews
• My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohman
• The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore by William Joyce
• Corduroy by Don Freeman
• Wave by Suzy Lee