October 8, 2019 by ppearls No CommentsLesson Plans

Fairy Tales/Fantasy: The Ultimate Activity Guide

Fine Motor: Build the Castle

Fairy princesses and brave knights need strong castles to defend. Or destroy. With a toddler its really either/or. This activity allows your toddler to exercise their little fingers in placing the cups just so. You can make a game of how high you can stack the wall before they fall or get destroyed.

This picture captured mid-destroy and I love it. Probably my favorite of the theme weeks. What does your toddler enjoy more? Building or destroying?

Small World:

Fairy House

How cute is this Oak Leaf Fairy House and Mat from Papoose Toys (via Danny & Luca of course!)? I had been researching Papoose Toys for a bit and was torn between this and another fairy house that was pink, but I’m oh so glad I settled on blue. Vicky’s room already has a lot of pink, so this complements, rather than adds to it. We added our Safari Ltd fairies from their amazing toobs and went to town. She loves opening the door and walking a fairy in, and even, in a crossover from farming a few months ago, brings some of her animals to graze on the mat. It’s crazy what kids remember! While this ties in to our fairy/fantasy theme, this is Vicky’s first toy house. Toy houses (I hesitate using doll house since this one doesn’t really correspond to a doll she has) teach organization, life skills, as well as fine motor skills. She manipulates the little door with her fingers, getting strength for pre-writing. She puts her fairies to sleep inside, reminding herself of the life skills involved in going to bed, tucking them in and whatnot. She organizes them outside. Perhaps not in an order I can identify, but this placement is exercising her skills at classification. And of course, we can never underestimate the benefits of pretend play! What do you think? What kind of toy houses do your children play with?

Fairies and Gnomes in the Garden

I loved setting up this tray for Vicky. Between the Grapat sticks and Chickadees’ mushrooms, I was so excited for her to get down to playing. She loved it and spent most of the morning at work. Here is where I found most pieces of the tray:

Grapat “Sticks” – Danny & Luca
Fairies – Amazon
Mushrooms – Chickadees Wooden Toys
Felt Balls – Cutest Little Garlands

Social/Emotional: Tea Party with our Woodland Girls

Having a tea party this past weekend with my best girl and her three friends. The power of make believe is wondrous in a child. It helps refine their social and emotional skills as they actively experiment with the social and emotional roles of life (Scholastic, 2019). Aside from that, listen close. You will find that your little one knows more words than you think. Often times they will mimic us in their inflection and word usage. That’s just a tiny fraction of why you should encourage your child’s imagination. So you may see a few toys on a table, but Vicky sees breakfast with her bestest of friends.

Speech/Language Development:

Princess and the LMNOP

The Princess and the Pea is one of my favorite fairy tales. This activity was found on an amazing site that I’ll link to in my blog from Super God Not Super Mom. Aside from serving as a great visual aid, I love that it also reinforces all the letter work we’ve been doing over the past few weeks. I changed a little bit of her activity, since it wasn’t appropriate in a one-on-one setting. I placed the pea on top of each letter and asked her to identify what letter it was in. She loved it, holding onto her little cardstock princess as we played. Try it out! Let me know how it goes!

Fantasy Words/Letters

The best laid plans, amirite? I had pinned a more official version of this activity to my Pinterest board, but when I eventually clicked through last week to prepare, I found myself in front of a very expensive paywall. I’m not about that life right now, so I decided to create my own version of this letter matching activity. I took six words from our fairy tales and designed our own posters using stock photos. I chose a font that was an outline instead of script so that she could try to put her letter magnets on them. Her magnets ended up being too big, but that’s just as well since she was more interested in reading the letters out to me. In the past week or two she’s taken a huge liking to trying to read the letters on the door. Whereas for awhile they were just colorful magnets, she finally started assigning value and meaning to each one. So far, we have all the vowels, Y, occasionally T and G. At this rate, I think we’ll have the alphabet by 3!

What We’re Reading Now!

I hit the jackpot at a discount store last week! We have an Ollie’s Bargain Outlet nearby. It’s like the knew we were going to be working on fairy tales this week. I picked up Snow White, Rapunzel, and Beauty and the Beast for under $5. However, I sprung for “The Root Children” board book on Amazon. The board book version is simplified, but it’s a lovely story with beautiful illustrations. You can almost picture the little root children among her peg dolls and fairy house. Check it out and tell me what you think!

Numeracy Skills: Jack and the Black Bean Stalk

I decided to tell the tale of Jack and his giant. After we were done stomping around and yelling “Fe! Fi! Fo! Fum!”, I took out Chickadees Wooden Toys’ number coins and went into the kitchen to look for dried beans. I didn’t have any green beans, but I did break into a bag of black beans. This is one of the first number activities I have tried with V. It was more a presentation than an activity, since she wasn’t really sure what I was getting at. No matter! Exposure to letters and numbers reap dividends. Vicky can identify over half a dozen letters now, so I’m sure numbers will be right behind!

Gross Motor: Fairy Tale Movement Cards

We continue our fairy tale exploration with these fairy tale themed movement cards I found on a public library’s website. We spent the day hopping, jumping, and prancing. The great part is that it is providing contextual clues to what these written words mean. It’s so important that you surround your little one with the written word! Adding in a physical activity to wear her out for bed time is icing on the cake! 😂

Miscellaneous: Celebrating Michaelmas

“The celebration of Michaelmas teaches the importance of overcoming fear and strengthening resolve. Michaelmas falls near the autumn equinox, when the weather is rapidly changing, the days are noticeably shorter, and we feel a natural instinct to prepare for the colder months ahead” – SGWS Blog Heady concepts for a two year old, but we plan on celebrating by hunting our dragon’s eggs and playing with a new autumn hand kite.