I was so excited when I first sat down to list ideas for weekly learning themes because I thought of the week before Carter's birthday. I knew I wanted to make his birthday special and figured there was no better way than to focus on his birthday for the entire week leading up to the actual day. I had so much fun planning the week and coming up with ways to celebrate Carter while incorporating our learning objectives.
Listed below are the objectives I am
focusing on for the themed weeks. I will be updating these soon as Carter has mastered most of the skills listed below and I feel like we are ready to move on to a new set of skills. The highlighted objectives are ones
Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:
Know the names of and be able to point out body parts.
Know names of objects and be able to point to them when asked.
Sort objects based on size or color/Match like objects together, for example match a circle with a circle.
Play make believe.
Speak in short phrases and 2-4 word sentences. (He's done some 2 word sentences already!)
Follow simple instructions.
Activities/Movement:
During a garage sale this summer I found anadorable wooden birthday cake for just a couple dollars. I felt like it was a little bit overpriced for a garage sale but I got so excited picturing Carter playing with it during the week leading up to his birthday that I bought it anyway. On Monday I couldn't wait to pull it out of Carter's closet where I'd been storing it and surprise him with it. We played with it all morning and I used it as an opportunity to talk to Carter about birthday cakes, what we do with them, and how old he will be. He kept excitedly saying "birday cake" while we played. I showed him how to decorate the cake and how to serve the cake. I asked him how old he was going to be on Sunday and we counted out that many candles to put on his cake. Then I sang him Happy Birthday and told him to blow out his candles which he was happy to do. Carter would take the cake server and serve out the pieces of cake, telling me who got each piece. I showed him how to use the cake server to "cut" the pieces apart and he spent quite a while doing that too. It was great practice with fine motor skills. He was so adorable playing with it and would even take Harper a piece and try to get her to eat it!
Decorating his wooden birthday cake.
Trying to get Harper to eat a slice of cake.
When we were decorating the cake I saw the opportunity for sorting and I couldn't pass it up. I had Carter sort the items that could be used to decorate the cake: jelly beans, gumdrops, strawberries, and candles. He even said the names of the different items as he placed them in a group. It was adorable to hear him say jelly bean!
Putting the strawberries together.
Putting the candles together.
I had left over party hats and noisemakers from a wedding shower I hosted in the spring. I pulled those out to play with Carter. I told him at parties sometimes people wear special hats. Then we talked about what color the hats were and sorted the hats into stacks based on color.
After sorting the hats I showed Carter how we wear hats on our head. Then I told him you could put it anywhere you wanted. I handed him a hat and asked him to put it on different body parts. He thought it was hilarious and it was good practice with the body parts we worked on last week.
Putting the hat on his ear.
Putting the hat on his nose.
Putting the hat on his foot.
While Carter was sleeping I blew up balloons to surprise him when he woke up. He was still tired enough when we went out into the hall that he wasn't interested in playing with them right away. Once he woke up more, he kept exclaiming "boons!" and wanted to play with them. He used his birthday cake server as a paddle to hit them with, threw them in the air, and stomped on them.
Checking out all the balloons.
Throwing a "lellow boon".
Dropping a red balloon.
Earlier in the day we had gone Christmas shopping and I found some awesome color sign decorations meant for a classroom at Dollar Tree. I cut the colors apart from each other. We went through each color sign and I asked Carter if we had any balloons that color. Once we had found the color signs for each color of balloon I set them out on the floor for Carter to see. I didn't even suggest sorting the balloons based on color, he just started doing it on his own. I guess we've practiced it enough he knew what I was getting at.Each color of balloon I blew up 3 balloons of different sizes: small, medium, and large. I used the pink balloons to show Carter how to order them based on size, but he wasn't interested and started stomping them so we went back to playing with the balloons.
Sorting the balloons based on color with Harper's supervision.
Ty and I greeted Carter right when he woke up on his birthday morning with a marshmallow with a lit candle in it. He blew out the candle and then sat in bed eating his marshmallow. When he got up he got to walk through streamers my dad and I had hung from his door frame the night before.
Eating his special birthday marshmallow.
Carter got lots of practice blowing out candles throughout the week through playing with his wooden birthday cake and then his marshmallow on his birthday.
I planned to make homemade playdoh for Carter to make a birthday cake with and give him candles to stick in the cake, but we didn't end up doing it.
On Carter's birthday Ty measured Carter's height against the wall and then we recorded it on his height chart. We are using a height chart Ty and his brother, Paul, used as kids. We were surprised to see that Carter measured the exact same height Ty did when he was 2 years old!
Craft:
My idea was to have Carter decorate a shirt for his birthday as well as his birthday party. I wanted to spend as little money as possible so I pulled out a plain gray onesie he already had. Then I used painter's tape to make a big number 2 on the tummy section. I had leftover fabric paint from making 4th of July shirts and planned to use that to allow Carter to paint his shirt. Unfortunately I searched all over and couldn't find the blue paint anywhere. All I could find was acrylic paint and I didn't want to go buy new paint so I decided to use the acrylic paint and just not wash the shirt in case the acrylic paint washed out. Carter got a little wild with the blue paint, painting his arms and my leg so I got out his shape sponges to use when we did the orange paint and he made much less of a mess.
Ready to decorate his shirt.
Looking like he belonged in the Blue Man Group. He was more interested in painting his arm than the shirt!
Showing off the finished product.
Carter also colored pieces of paper which I cut into smaller postcard sized pieces to write thank you notes on for his birthday presents.
Special Snack:
Thursday while shopping I had Carter pick out a birthday cake (he very excitedly chose a zebra cake) along with frosting and decorations. On his birthday he helped make the birthday cake and then got to decorate it. It was so cute to watch him put the decorations on his cake and he made a train out of Kit Kats around the outside of the cake. I knew he'd love cutting and serving his birthday cake with how much he enjoyed cutting and serving his wooden cake and he absolutely loved it!
Baking the chocolate batter.
Mixing the vanilla batter.
Adding the batter to make zebra stripes.
Making his Kit Kat train.
The finished product!
Serving cake to Oma.
Make Believe:
Using the party hats and noisemakers along with his wooden birthday cake we had a pretend birthday party. All of his stuffed animals came: Elmo, Buddy, Big Al, Reindeer (Rudolph), and Baby. They all wore party hats and he decided Harper needed one as well. At first she kept pushing it off, but I told her "No, stay. You get a treat if you leave it." and she sat with it on until I told her to come get her treat. She has amazing self control when she needs it! During the party Carter would set up and decorate the cake. Then he would hold it and tell me, "Birday ceek, mommy." until I started singing him Happy Birthday. Then he would clap, set the cake down, and blow out his candles. He then served cake to all of his guests. I was amazed that he served himself last every single time! Then he wanted to "dins" or dance so I turned on music and he took turns dancing with each of his party guests. He even requested Harper dance so I grabbed her front paws and made it look like she was dancing. That may have been the highlight of his pretend party for him!
Putting Harper's party hat on.
Songs:
Obviously we sang "Happy Birthday" a few times during the week. Whenever Carter played with his wooden birthday cake he would pick it up and tell me to sing. I'd start singing him "Happy Birthday" and then he'd say "yay!!!" and start clapping. If I continued to sing after he started clapping he'd get upset with me. It was so funny!
We also sang Tom Chapin's Birthday Song my parents sang to us when we were kids. To hear the song, click on the first video when you follow the link here. The lyrics are very simple:
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, we love you.
Happy Birthday
And may all your dreams come true.
When you blow out the candles
One light stays aglow.
It's the lovelight in your eyes where'er you go!
Field Trip/Interactive Experience:
We took Carter out for a special birthday lunch at a pizza buffet.
Carter's birthday party will be the big experience for his birthday week, but it isn't until next week so it's a little late.
Books:
Carl's BirthdaybyAlexandra Day
Carter is...1 Year Oldby
If You Give a Pig a PartybyLaura Numeroff
Happy Birthday, Moon!by Frank Asch
Go, Dog, Go by P.D. Eastman
The Birthday Queenby Audrey and Don Wood
Touch and Feel Birthday by DK Kids
Birthday by Rosemary Wells
Happy Birthday! A Spot It Challenge by Sarah Schuette
Happy Birthday by Sarah Powell
My Lucky Birthday by Keiko Kasza
Scaredy Squirrel Has a Birthday Party by Melanie Watt
The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Birthday by Stan Berenstain
The Birthday Surpriseby Ann Lootens
Happy Birthday, Mouse by Laura Numeroff
Happy Birthday, Tacky by Helen Lester
Bear's Birthday by Stella Blackstone
How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Birthday? by Jane Yolen
Very good. And how cute Harper looks with her party hat on!!
ReplyDeleteShe was such a good girl during the party!
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