Summer Fun Mini Themes: Star Wars Jedi Training Camp

One of my favorite things about these [many] days at home is our ability to follow the kids' interests on a whim and dig deeper. It's kind of like emergent curriculum for play. And that's why last week, the Sprout Scouts took off on an intergalactic adventure and enlisted in Star Wars Jedi Training Camp! The experience was out of this world...

S in particular is very into Star Wars. It shows up in his play quite a bit and I loved the challenge of creating a play theme out of that interest. When I happened across some amazing (and free) printable Star Wars art and activities from Fiddlesticks Education, I decided to run--er, fly with it! I was introduced to Fiddlesticks Education resources through a large nature based summer curriculum bundle I purchased on my own whim (and on major discount). I love planning, curating and creating materials for play and learning but I also love the ease of "one stop shopping" and the ability to skip some of that time consuming searching--especially now! I also love to be able to support fellow like-minded educators. Her watercolor work is absolutely stunning and I was particularly inspired by her Curious Kids Club to create a way the kids can keep track of their summer activities and accomplishments. Everyone was very excited last Friday to earn two of their first "trophies" in their Curiosity Cabinets--one for their study in robotics and another for their successful completion of Jedi Training Camp!

So, what exactly did we do at Jedi Training Camp? Well, we started off the week by adopting an Ewok! The boys each got to color, cut and paste their own little paper doll to play with and care for. There is something so fun and quaint about paper dolls. I have such nostalgia whenever we use or make them and the graphics I collected printed onto cardstock were just perfect for that.

S and Y were each presented with their own Intergalactic Passports. They used watercolors to decorate the cover and I told them each day we would visit three planets for activities. Their mission each day was to find the 3 planet pictures I had sneakily tagged around the house and yard and to glue the corresponding picture into their passports. Finding the planets became a favorite activity in and of itself!

Of course the boys needed light sabers to train with. I created those with sculpting balloons, recycled toilet paper tubes and plenty of duct tape. As you can imagine, there were many replacement balloons throughout the week! S even asked for a double sided light saber like Darth Maul at one point, so why the heck not?

As you can see, S took his light saber Jedi training very seriously. One of our favorite (and most often repeated) activities last week was Jedi Training Light Saber Yoga. We used cards from Fiddlesticks Education and I highly recommend them, but you can just as easily make up your own moves and routines. The boys and I took turns pulling 3 cards from the deck at a time and holding each pose for about 10 seconds.

As you can see, this was really just a fun and playful mini theme. I think it made S feel particularly honored to see his interest taken into action last week. And the fun is continuing this week. We haven't quite returned to Earth yet, but we are back in our own galaxy as the Sprout Scouts enroll in Space Camp! But that's a post for another day--and until then...

Happy Playing!

A Camping We Will Go! And More Lag B'Omer Fun...

Lag B'Omer, literally translated as the 33rd day of the Omer count, marks the anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, author of the Zohar. This great mystic and sage instructed his disciples to mark the day of his death as a day of joy and celebration and indeed, to this day, the 18th day of the Jewish month of Iyar is a day of festivity in Jewish communities worldwide. This day also coincides with the end of a plague that struck Rabbi Akiva's disciples who were mysteriously passing away after quarreling and being disrespectful toward one another. On Lag B'Omer, they ceased to argue and so ended the terrible plague. On Lag B'Omer now, Jewish people celebrate with outings, bonfires, and community wide celebrations of Jewish unity. It is a wonderful time to teach our children about ahavas yisrael (loving their fellow Jew) and to play about the themes of this festive day.


There are many fun play and learning themes in Lag B'Omer. This year, I focused our experience on a camping theme and the idea of friendship/kindness. Join us for some fun dramatic play, a "fireside" singalong, a playful Yoga sequence and a cute craft!

 We began our day by pitching our play tent in the living room. Had we not been experiencing a few rainy, cool days outside, this lesson would have been a fabulous one to take to the yard! My little guy was super excited to play inside! He started by collecting some favorite books to read together inside and then it was time to build our campfire. There are many toys and props that can be used to build a play campfire and if you have a wooded area that is accessible, collecting sticks and twigs can be a lot of fun! It was rather soggy outside, so we used recycled cardboard tubes for logs and kindling and some tissue paper "fire." He had a lot of fun setting up and stacking the "wood" and even created his own little gross motor activity by using his feet to move them from place to place! We sat together around the "campfire" and sang some of our favorite Lag B'Omer and Camping themed songs and action rhymes:

We began with a couple of songs about friendship...
Amar Rabbi Akiva

Amar Rabbi Akiva, amar Rabbi Akiva
V'ahavta l'reacha kamocha (2x)

Shelli shelach, shelach shelach
Shelli shelach, shelach, shelach
Zeh klal gadol batorah!

Rabbi Akiva says, Rabbi Akiva says
To love your friend like yourself (2x)

What's mine is yours, I share with you
If you need me, I'll come through
This is the basis of our Torah!

Make New Friends

Make new friends, but keep the old
One is silver and the other gold!
A circle is round and has no end
That's how long I'd like to be your friend!

Next, we sang a fun little song about camping...

You can sing and adapt your own version of this song
to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell"

This was the perfect segue into our camping themed Yoga sequence. I incorporated some of our favorite Yoga poses into a camping themed story:

We begin in a boat pose [sit in a v-shape balancing on your sit bones with legs and arms raised] and row our boat across the lake. You can sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" as you paddle along. Soon we arrive at our campsite! There are lots of trees [tree pose--stand with one leg balanced against your other shin or thigh and arms out, raised or gathered in the center for balance] and big rocks [child's pose--curl forward over your knees like a little rock] and a place just perfect for pitching our tent [downward dog pose--bend from the waist with feet and hands hip width apart creating a tent shape]. It is already getting dark and the moon [moon pose--stand up with arms raised above head and hands clasped and stretch to one side; repeat on other side] is shining brightly. We must build a campfire so we can cook our dinner! Once the fire is built, we sit around it to roast some hot dogs and sing some camp songs. [Sit in butterfly pose with feet touching or criss-cross and sing a favorite camp song.] Once the hot dogs are done cooking, we sit in chairs [squat in chair position] at a picnic table [begin on back and lift your hips and arms into table pose] and eat our supper. The stars [stand in Warrior Pose with legs wide and arms out to create a "star"] are shining so brightly! Boy are we tired from all the work of getting to and preparing our campsite. It's time to go to our tents [downward dog] and get some rest [lay on back into resting pose--you can invite your young yogis to close their eyes if they are comfortable to play some sounds of nature for them to listen to and see if they can imagine the sounds of the forest].

Well, all of that fun and exercise made us hungry for a snack! The tent was the perfect spot for this and you can even prepare a camping themed snack if you'd like--such as s'mores, or  s'mores trail mix (graham crackers/tea biscuits, mini marshmallows and chocolate chips--I was out of chocolate chips so I substituted pretzels per my son's request).

You might even have some fun singing

The Campfire Pokey
to the tune of "The Hokey Pokey"

You put your marshmallow in
You pull your marshmallow out
You put your marshmallow in and you shake it all about
You do the campfire pokey and you turn yourself around
That's what it's all about!

We love our DIY felt fishing
set for indoor fishing

Fishing is another great outdoor activity related to camping. We had some fun with another little action rhyme and some indoor waterplay and dramatic play. I created a magnetic fishing activity with felt fish that each have a paperclip "mouth." Using a wooden dowel, some yarn, duct tape and a magnet, I created a fishing pole to go with it and we've had fun over the last couple of years going fishing inside with this little activity! If you have a nice day outside or don't mind some waterplay indoors, try out a toy fishing set in a basin of water (or the bathtub) or try your hand at this fun "ice fishing" sensory bin!


As you fish, you can chant this playful action rhyme:

One, two, three, four, five
Once I caught a fish alive!
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let him go again!
Why did you let him go?
Because he bit my finger so!
Which finger did he bite?
The little finger on the right!


 In years past, we've had some fun making Lag B'Omer themed arts and crafts projects. Some of our favorites included painting with marshmallow "paintbrushes" dipped in vanilla pudding dyed with yellow and red food coloring to make a Lag B'Omer bonfire. You can also use regular washable paints and create handprint/footprint bonfires and add cut brown paper for your kindling and logs. One of my favorite arts and crafts projects for Lag B'Omer is one we did last year to create our own little campfire prop that actually lights up!

To make your own, you will need:

• a clear plastic cup
• a paper plate
• brown construction paper, cut into strips for logs/wood
• red, yellow, and orange tissue paper squares/scraps
• a small wooden dowel
• a cotton ball "marshmallow"
• an LED tea light
• glue

To create your own light-up campfire and marshmallow for roasting, begin by gluing on your brown construction paper wood to the paper plate base. For the marshmallow, dip one end of the dowel into glue and stick your cotton ball on top. You will need to pinch it on for a minute to help it stick and then let it dry. Meanwhile, you can create your "fire" by gluing on tissue paper to the outside of the cup. You can crumple the tissue paper or leave it flat for different textures. Once the project is entirely dry, place the cup over top of the LED tea light and turn it on to make your campfire glow. My then younger toddler had SO much fun pretending to roast his marshmallow in the fire! He still uses the project as a little nightlight in his room every once in awhile.




Well, learning and playing about Lag B'Omer and camping has been a lot of fun! We are rained in for a few days but this Sunday, which marks the actual festival is forecast to be warm and sunny. We look forward to celebrating with our friends and community. Until then...


Happy Playing!

Around the World: Namaste from India!

 Namaste from India! It's hard to believe we've "traveled" to ten amazing countries in this unit and we are dwindling down with just a few more stops before we return home to the United States at the beginning of next week and then move on from our Around the World unit. I wondered at the beginning of this how my toddler would do with a learning theme I had only taught to four and five year olds before. We've both learned a lot! For me, I have really seen how adaptable this subject matter can be to toddlers--especially if you include toddler-friendly methods of exploring it. We used a lot of multi-sensory exploration, kitchen activities, dramatic play, building materials to teach about architecture, repetition of familiar songs, some arts & crafts and a lot of opportunities to look at great library books--both fiction and non-fiction. Having a variety of approaches really helped keep things exciting and interesting for us and ensured that if one type of activity was not a real winner, another one would be.

Repetition of predictable routines was also an invaluable tool. Every time we've "traveled" to a new country, we've done so with the same songs, a bit of airplane dramatic play and a stamp in our passport upon arrival. This is not something that gets boring for children, but rather something that is familiar and ignites interest and enthusiasm. For most of our destinations, I've also provided a non-fiction book to leaf through so my son can see photographs of familiar concepts in a novel environment. He especially likes to see pictures of other children, food, transportation and animals. Including select children's fiction in the mix also enhanced our experience. My son loves helping in the kitchen and was really interested in the colorful photographs of food and spices in our book about India. I was very excited to offer him a hands (and nose)-on experience of painting with spices!

I am never sure exactly how my son will respond to any activity. He can display a great deal of excitement only to remain with a project for a few minutes and then move on. Other times, he may be hesitant to try or begin something, but sit with it at length. I was really impressed with how long this activity held his concentration and interest! It encouraged a lot of language development as well as he initiated conversations about using spices in cooking and what he was painting about (in this case, "robots" and "snakes," as my husband had participated a bit in our homeschool activity by showing our son a video of snake charmers in India and a robot used to help catch snakes!).

To set up our activity, I filled a plastic tray from our recycling bin with a variety of colorful and aromatic spices: turmeric, paprika, cinnamon, ground mustard, dill weed, and chili powder. You could use any spices you have on hand. I wanted at least some of the scents to be familiar (like cinnamon) and some to be particularly rich in color (like chili powder and turmeric). I also wanted to include a little texture variety (hence the dill weed). I also filled a recycled plastic container with school glue that I added vanilla extract to for scent. It did not take on quite as rich of an aroma as I'd hoped but I didn't want to use too much pure vanilla extract in glue! We started the activity by setting out the spice tray and a magnifying glass. I allowed my son to observe the spices up close and notice the different colors and textures. I did not dissuade him from touching them either! Next, I explained that we would now be using them for some artwork and making a spice painting. I set out the glue dish with a brush. He hesitated a bit primarily as though he wasn't sure what to do. I demonstrated dipping the brush in glue and "painting" it on the paper (we actually used a thick matte cardboard that was recycled from a frame shop). I pinched a bit of one of the spices between my fingers and sprinkled it on top. That was all the instruction my son needed and he went to town!

Many times, my son does not like the feeling of his hands getting sticky or to have his hands dirty. I provide a wet washcloth next to messier projects so he has the option to wipe off his hands without having to leave an activity. This time, he mostly wanted to wipe them on his shirt! If you're concerned about staining, you may want to use a smock or cover-up! We did cover our work table with a disposable tablecloth so we could easily shake our finished work over the top and then roll it up and toss it. My little artist had fun sprinkling spices on glue, sprinkling them in glue, painting with the now very colorful glue and exploring the different textures as it thickened with spices in certain areas of his artwork. Then, he went back to sprinkling spices over the top. It was incredible to watch his concentration and curiosity in action. This was truly process art at its best. I was not focused on the end result and he was totally focused on the experience.

When I taught my son the way to greet others in Hindi, "Namaste," he recognized the word from our yoga activities. yoga would surely be a part of our visit to India. We love the Cosmic Kids Yoga series on YouTube for home yoga sessions. We've also checked out some wonderful DVDs for children from our library and even come across or created some routines at home through online resources like Pink Oatmeal.

My little yogi!

Lastly, we took to our kitchen to make an adapted version of this simple recipe for Indian Rice Pudding. I'm hopeful that my particular eater will want to actually try it, but if not, I definitely think it is a suitable breakfast food for me!

That's all for this leg of our trip. Join us in Israel next time where we will try our hands at replicating the Israeli flag with playdough, making our own homemade "Dead Sea" bath salts, playing about farm life at the kibbutz, juicing oranges like the ones that grow in Jaffa, making hummus from scratch and tasting some of our favorite Israeli cuisine. See you there--and until then, happy playing!

Around the World: Exploring the Brazilian Rain Forest!

Whenever I introduce a country's flag, I point out familiar
colors and shapes my son can recognize. 

Bem vindo ao Brasil! Today our world travel adventure took us to another South American country. I introduced our journey with the same continents song and airplane song presented in this post and as soon as we touched down, my son was greeted with a new stamp for his passport. We learned how to greet someone in Portuguese and looked at a photo of the Brazilian flag in a book of world flags we borrowed from our local library. We talked about the rain forests in Brazil and looked at some non-fiction books about rain forests also borrowed from our library.

My little monkey loved gluing ears to this paper plate
mask and coloring it a bit with crayons as we acted out
the action rhyme, "Five Little Monkeys."

Since we are learning about the letter "Mm" this week, we began with some activities centered around monkeys. This fun action rhyme is a great one for toddlers preschoolers:

Five Little Monkeys
Five little monkeys swinging from a tree
  [hold up hand with five fingers]
Teasing Mr. Alligator, "you can't catch me!"
[wag finger back and forth, teasingly]
Along came Mr. Alligator, quiet as can be
And snapped [clap] that monkey right out of the tree!
[hands together, wiggle like an alligator toward child/children]

We used our journal and stickers for a "Five Little Monkeys"
picture and math activity.

We talked about other plants and animals found in the rain forest. Our library books made a great

I based our tree frog scavenger
hunt on an activity found in
this fabulous book. I highly
recommend it!

resource. Even though children's non-fiction can be a bit wordy for very early readers, the photographs are invaluable and you can paraphrase or select particularly relevant passages to read together. Never underestimate the non-fiction side of your library's children's department! Seeing actual photographs of topics that they are learning or curious about helps children to feel connected to people and things outside of their immediate environment and can help them relate to people and things inside of their immediate environment!

We learned a bit about tree frogs and toads in the rain forest. Looking at photographs together, we were able to see how some tree frogs and toads are brightly colored giving predators (animals that might want to eat them) a warning that they are poisonous and not safe to eat. Others have colors that blend in with their surroundings, helping them to camouflage. I am all about teaching little kids big words--this increases vocabulary and confidence in communication. Next, we went on our very own tree frog scavenger hunt. While my son was busy finishing his supper, I hid 5 plastic frogs in our play area. I explained that we were going to be rain forest explorers and provided a magnifying glass, binoculars and a plastic jar to fill with our findings. We needed to find 5 hidden tree frogs. Some might be camouflaged and some might be brightly colored. I offered clues along the way, and my little explorer had a blast collecting the frogs in his jar!

Want to do more?

Gross Motor: Rain forest Yoga! We found a great rain forest themed yoga video on YouTube via Cosmic Kids. My little Yogi LOVES this series (and so do I)!

Play Soccer or learn some Judo! Soccer is a popular Brazilian sport and Brazilian Judo is a widely practiced martial art across the world. If weather permits, take a soccer ball outside to play together. You can also teach your little athlete that Brazilians refer to this sport as "football," rather than "soccer." My husband happens to be trained in Brazilian Judo, so my son has been learning some moves with him over his short life and some Portuguese vocabulary to go with it. You can likely find some great videos online or at your local library.

Cooking Activity: talk about foods that grow in the rain forest. We learned that bananas and cocoa beans are found in rain forests. We baked banana chocolate chip bread together that will surely be enjoyed as a Shabbos treat this week (if there is any left by then)!

My little Yogi

 Sorting Game: Create a large poster with a vertical line down the center. Label one side "animals found in the rain forest" and the other side "animals not found in the rain forest." Alternatively, you can use masking tape for your line directly on your floor and sentence strips or smaller sheets of paper to label your categories. Using stickers, pictures cut from magazines or printed from the computer, toy animals or even felt ones if you happen to have a flannel board set to sort your rain forest dwellers from those who live in other terrains. Younger ones may need more assistance and clues (you can use those fabulous library books as a reference!) while older children may be able to work through the activity more independently.

Animal Antics: Play a game of rain forest animal charades. Using pictures of rain forest animals and/or cards with animal names written on them, invite each player to act out their animal while others try to guess what it is. Alternatively, play "I'm Thinking of a Rain Forest Animal." On his/her turn, a player thinks of a rain forest animal without disclosing it to the audience. "I'm thinking of an animal, can you guess what it is?" Players will have an opportunity to take three guesses before asking for a clue. The player will then provide a clue about the animal (like what color(s) it is, how it moves, what it eats, etc.) and guessers can continue to try to solve the riddle, asking for clues as needed. Whomever is first to accurately guess the animal in question gets to play the next turn. This is a great game to play on a car trip or while waiting for an appointment or a restaurant meal to arrive.

We are having a fabulous time on our Brazilian Rain Forest adventure. Next week we are leaving South America and heading to a new continent: Europe... See you there and until then, pleasant travels and happy playing!

Think Outside the Box: Un-planning and Unwinding

Yoga Time with the Toddler!

We are a family who thrives on routines and when routines change, we strive to find a new normal as quickly as possible! Big and little things can change family routines--holidays, work schedules, season/time changes, traveling, visitors--you name it! These all present wonderful opportunity to teach flexibility and adaptability. Change, however, can also feel unsettling or challenging--particularly to sensitive little ones.
Whenever I have taught outside the home and something is different or suddenly changes, I encourage my students to look for and find the things that are the same. Who are the people that help us that are the same? (This is particularly useful if/when a familiar face is not around or a teacher is absent.) What are the things in the room that are the same that bring us comfort? What are the parts of the day that did not and do not change? I have a particular passion for teaching children flexibility perhaps because I, myself, often struggle with rigidity. I love to know what to expect. I love to plan. I love routine and structure and some might call me a creature of habit. Still, surprises can be fun. So can spontaneity. "Mixing it up a bit" in a safe, secure environment can add just the right spice to life! My husband brings a perfect balance of these qualities to our home and as I see my own son thrive in the routine and the expected (and sometimes grapple with the opposite), I am invited to support him as well as he grows toward flexibility (and so do I)!
Becoming a play-at-home mom this year was a new opportunity to build meaningful routines. My husband's work schedule along with his lengthy commute each day set the pace and the tone. When I started staying home, my son quickly appreciated the additional Mommy time and also began to crave more Tatty (Yiddish: father) time as well. We adjusted evenings to really include a good dose of quality father and son time. They enjoyed walks and building towers and reading, playing and bonding together. We also did things as a family and continued family dinners, but evenings and bedtime routines became very centered around the two of them. This was also a nice respite for me, having been "on" all day at home, and perhaps a nice change of pace for my husband as well, having been in an office all day.
Recently my husband was blessed with the opportunity to begin a teaching job a couple of nights a week in addition to his day job. It is a wonderful opportunity for our family to work toward our goals and plans for the future and we both made some adjustments at home (as well as to his previous work schedule) to ensure as smooth a transition as possible. He has eliminated his commute on the days he works nights as well and works locally instead. This allows him to still have his quality time with our son on those days (and me to have a little break as well). But now, those evenings were Mommy & Me time and even though I totally had this daytime thing down, a few more hours in the evening seemed to stretch endlessly. I found I had no idea what to do with that time other than turn to screens. So I consulted the experts: my husband, my fellow mommies, and Pinterest. And what I found we needed most was not more planning and more activity, but rather, some UNPLANNED time to UNWIND.
Adjusting to our new routine is a work in progress and we always invite the opportunity to go back to the drawing board as necessary. But if you, too, are finding yourself with some hours to fill in your day or evening and aren't quite sure how to fill them, here are some things that are working for us:

Our local library has some great children's
Yoga DVDs. Pinterest has links to great
websites for child-friendly Yoga and
exercise routines as does YouTube. Sometimes
we make up our own as well!

Tonight my son asked to do Yoga. He loves choosing
what color mat to use, watching me light a favorite
scented candle and is now also growing into
performing the poses he sees on the DVDs we use or
by watching me.

Here's an example of a family Activity Bucket List
I created for a workshop on surviving the summer
without school!

• The You-Pick Method: I am such a planner by nature that it never occurred to me to ask my son what he wanted to do with this time together. Several fellow home-preschooling mommies suggested this one, so I tried it. And what do you know? It worked like a charm! Asking my little one what he wants to do with our special time was an empowering experience for us both. He is a bit young yet to ask it in a completely open-ended manner (though I imagine this will be less intimidating as he gets a few more Mommy and Me nights under his belt). I offer a few suggestions and he chooses what we do. I include activities he enjoys that we don't necessarily get to during the day like cooking/baking, Yoga, arts and crafts projects and (YES) movie nights. Larger families can utilize a voting process with predetermined activities or a rotation of who gets to choose. Kids can be involved in creating a family Bucket List--even using an actual bucket with activities written on individual papers inside--of choices for unplanned family time like this. 

This is my U-Pick-a-Project Basket! We do a lot of arts and crafts as part of our preschool experience. I also keep a basket stocked with ready to make projects for open-ended evenings, rainy days, or other unplanned times together. Sometimes I stock up on cute little kits or seasonal projects from the dollar store or discount aisle of the craft store. Other times I save materials from old projects in a ziplock bag. The idea of the U-Pick-a-Project Basket is to have things ready to go that require little to no additional prep. It's not necessarily an invitation for process art (although you could create a basket more conducive to that as well, and rather than including kits and crafts, include materials, small parts and trinkets that can be used for art and creation), It's also a great travel accessory if the projects are not too messy and material-intensive. I plan to bring our Thanksgiving themed collection along on our upcoming family vacation for some festive fun in our spare time.

• About Those Screens: We don't have a television, but we do allow for select videos and shows. While this is not the only thing we do in the evenings or with down time, it is one thing we do. Sometimes that just means snuggling on the couch to a favorite show on Netflix or DVD (I got some awesome Sesame Street snuggles tonight thanks to a DVD my son found at the library). We've also done themed movie/activity nights. We checked out the movie Cars recently after my son got a pair of Lightening McQueen slippers and was curious about it. I wasn't so sure this would be his type of film, but I popped him the bathtub (with some toy cars to splash around with), and got him in his favorite truck pajamas. Next, I helped him carry his bin of toy cars and trucks to the rug and even brought a car riding toy downstairs for him to sit/ride around on in his very own drive-in theater. We popped in the movie and the feature film captivated his undivided attention for about 15 minutes before he mostly had a blast just playing with the movie on in the background!

• PLAY! My son took the lead with this one. He loves to play and even though we are home together, our days are often busy and filled with activities in and out of the house that are more structured. Having a time and space in the day for unhindered play at his discretion is vital. He has toys and books and a whole world of ideas that, when I am lucky, he invites me into! And when we have unplanned unwinding time, I don't feel the ticking of the clock to get dinner ready or be at our next engagement. There's nothing between this moment and bedtime to stop me from getting down with him and joining his game of traffic jam or making a pretend smoothie in his kitchen set or helping him draw a picture of a "big triangle" in his journal because he wants to color it green! 

Some fun baking together--but you don't even have to turn on the oven and get out all of the ingredients in your cupboard! We have just as much fun washing and preparing vegetables, making smoothies or practicing cutting, peeling and grating. And who says it has to be edible? You could whip up a favorite playdough or sensory play recipe instead.

• And once you've joined their world for a bit, invite them into yours! So putting away laundry, washing dishes and making Shabbos dinner might sound like chores to you and me, but even the most daunting tasks are more tolerable fun when shared with the ones you love. My little guy probably wouldn't go for a whole evening of household chores, but he is totally eager to help out (and sometimes hinder a bit) with activities in the kitchen and around the home. Plus, there is such a benefit to including even very young children in age appropriate chores. My little one loves cooking and baking with me (even if he almost never tastes what we make in the end) and he's just as eager to help me transfer laundry, put things away and clean/wash/scrub ANYTHING. I include these activities in our time together so that we can spend time together, rather than me being absent and unavailable to him while I get the housework done. 

We are all adjusting to our new routine and, while I was a bit unsettled in how to plan for these extra hours just the two of us, now I am savoring the gift that is being UNPLANNED in those hours. As much time as I do spend with my little guy during the day and as much as we both love and learn through themed play and home preschooling, I feel very much that these less structured times are the ones where I really get to know the little boy my husband and I are raising. It may not be a specifically Thanksgiving related activity, but it has me feeling thankful nonetheless this time of year and all year through.

And the best way to unwind at the end of a full day? Unplanned snuggles!