Weekly Learning Theme: Body Parts

I'm posting this early because I have birthday letter posts planned for next week since it's the week leading up to Carter's birthday on Sunday!  Eeek, how is he already almost 2 years old?!!?  Going into this week Carter already knew all of his facial features and his major body parts such as legs, hands, head, arms, feet, fingers, toes, tummy, and bottom or hiney as he likes to call it.  I had planned out a body parts week when I first came up with ideas for weekly learning themes and I wanted to go ahead and use what I'd come up with.  I decided to go ahead with the week to reinforce what he already knows about body parts and to really work on some of the parts he isn't as quick with pointing out such as shoulders, knees, and elbows.  During the week one of his favorite body parts to check out during bath time and diaper changes was his belly button.  He'd ask to see mine and then he'd call for daddy if daddy was home so he could also see his.  I'm interested to see if he does the same to his Gma and Gpa while we're visiting this weekend. 

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:

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:

• I had a Mrs. Potato Head doll I used in class to help students learn facial features in Spanish.  I pulled the doll out and we practiced body parts.  Carter would pick up a body part, I would ask him what it was and then ask him where it went.  He put the body parts on the Mrs. Potato Head.  After practicing a few times I let him stick the body parts wherever he wanted.  He put an arm on the head and then after that fixed it and wanted all the parts where they belonged.  That bit of mommy's OCD he inherited coming out there!

Putting Mrs. Potato Head's arm on.

• I tickled Carter in different places and asked him where I was tickling him.  Then I'd ask him if his arm (for example) was ticklish.  It didn't work out as well as I thought it would because he was ticklish pretty much everywhere and rolled on the ground laughing so hard he couldn't answer me very well.
• During baths and diaper changes we talked about his body parts.  When I was washing him I'd ask him to show me a certain body part so I could wash it.  I do that every night so he's really good at it.  We also talked about what that body part's purpose is and what it helps us do.  One of the books that really helped with this was All of Me! A Book of Thanks by Molly Bang.
• When we talked about different body parts I'd ask him to point to that body part on Harper.  We talked about how she has most of the same body parts we do and then talked about how she's different.  He loved pointing at her nose although she didn't enjoy it!
• Simon Says was a fun game to play.  I'd have Carter point to different body parts or do something with a body part I named.  He was hilarious because obviously he didn't understand the whole you only do something when I say "Simon Says" first so he did everything I said.  Eventually I just said Simon Says in front of everything I said.  
• I planned to use bubbles for an activity, but the day I wanted to do it was cold and rainy.  I needed to mop the entryway anyway so I just pulled the rug out and we did the bubbles in the entryway.  I would blow bubbles and tell Carter to pop them with different body parts.  He did really well with hand and foot, but everything else he'd show me the body part I'd asked him to pop them with and then pop them with his hand.  This would be such a fun activity to do when he's older and can pop bubbles with his nose and other random body parts.  I can picture how hysterical that would be!

Popping bubbles with his hand.

Popping bubbles with his foot.

Taking his turn blowing bubbles.

Craft:

• I drew a picture of a boy on a piece of paper and then drew his facial features, hair, and ears off to the side.  I cut him out and cut the pieces apart.  I told Carter we were going to do a puzzle to put the boy together.  I first asked Carter to find the tummy and helped him glue it on so we could arrange the rest of the body parts around the tummy.  I was impressed with how well he did.  I didn't even tell him what body parts to get next, he just started grabbing body parts and gluing them down where they went.  I did help him get them right where they went so it didn't look like we had a disjointed zombie doll.  When we got ready to glue the facial features on I helped him a bit more.  Honestly some of the parts were drawn so poorly it was hard to tell what they were.  I'm not much of an artist!  So with the nose, I handed it to him, told him it was the nose, and asked him to glue it where the nose went.  If he started to glue something in a place where it didn't go, I'd have him look at my face, point to that feature on my face, and then glue it.  If I were to do the activity again I'd have a mirror ready so he could look at his face to find the feature.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much Carter enjoyed this activity and how well he did with minimal help!  When we first sat down to work on the boy puzzle Carter saw the markers and got really excited, wanting nothing to do with the glue.  I let him color on the paper until he was ready to switch to the puzzle and then I just turned the paper over to the backside to glue down our puzzle.

Coloring on the paper before we glued his puzzle together.

Grabbing the tummy to place it on the paper.

Gluing the arm next to the tummy/chest.

Ready to glue the legs down.

Ready to color his fully put together boy.

• An idea I had that we didn't get around to doing was making a body part book.  I planned to outline his hand and foot, my hand and foot, and Ty's hand and foot.  Then I'd turn it into a book with very simple sentences to go along with it such as "This is Carter's foot."  I'm thinking I may postpone that activity until family week and we'll talk about the different sizes of our hands and feet.

Special Snack:

• Our special snack this week also worked well with the season.  We made gingerbread cookies.  As we cut the cookies out we talked about their body parts.  Carter would point out their arms, legs, head, and tummy.  Then we added the red hots and talked about how they were eyes.  Every once in a while Carter would just give the gingerbread person one eye and I'd ask him how many eyes it should have.  He'd look at me and then say, "two!" while adding another red hot.  I was shocked when Carter dumped out the red hots, ate one, and enjoyed it.  I'm not a big fan of them and HATED them as a kid!  I couldn't believe he ate it and said, "mmmm" when he was done!

Mixing the dough for the gingerbread cookies.

Adding eyes to the gingerbread cookie.

Poking an eye down on the cookie.

Excited to eat his first gingerbread cookie!

Make Believe:

• We didn't do anything that fits into make believe.

Songs:

• Carter had a blast with a body parts song I found online here.  It is sung to Where Is Thumbkin.  He really enjoyed pointing to his body parts as I sang the song.

Body Parts Song

Where is your _____?  Where is your _____?
Here it is.  Here it is.
Touch it with your finger.  Touch it with your finger.
Just like me.  Just like me. 

• We also sang Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.  I didn't like any of the videos on youtube so I just sang it myself and then we listened to it on a CD we have called 100 Sing-Along-Songs.  After listening to it a few times Carter started actually dancing along to the song with me.  He was so cute and I planned to get a video when Ty was home because he would always stop dancing when I tried to get a video, but we never had the chance.
• We listened to My Hands on My Head by Dr. Jean & Friends from a CD I own.  I liked that it practiced the body parts both in English and Spanish.

One Little Finger

Field Trip/Interactive Experience:

• I couldn't come up with a field trip to go along with body parts and to be honest I didn't try all that hard to wrack my brain.  We ended up going to the aquarium and we talked about some of the animals' body parts and pointed them out while we were there.

Books:

• The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss
• Eyes, Nose, Fingers, and Toes by Sesame Beginnings
• Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox
• My Nose, Your Nose by Melanie Walsh
• Hands Can by Cheryl Hudson
• Toes, Ears, and Nose! by Marion Dane Bauer
• Amazing You! by Gail Saltz- this book would be great to read with your child when they start asking about private parts and why they're different, it was a bit advanced for Carter right now.
• Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes by Annie Kubler
• Here Are My Hands by Bill Martin Jr.
• Eyes, Nose, Fingers, and Toes by Judy Hindley
• Dem Bones by Bob Barner
• From Head to Toe by Eric Carle
• Why Do I Have Bones? by Joann Cleland
• Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley
• All of Me! A Book of Thanks by Molly Bang- Carter's favorite
• Horns to Toes and In Between by Sandra Boynton