Tag: Feelings

Dear Reader,

As we have said in previous posts, we decided to take a week and focus on emotions and feelings with our kiddos this week. This is easier said and done when said kiddos are still super little. While thinking about what toddlers need as far as emotions, I realized that what toddlers need fairly regularly is redirection and distraction when things just aren’t going their way.

I’ve had these for a while, but I decided to pull them down and see how my toddlers responded to them. Of course, they love them, and they are a great diversion. I usually just pick them up while I clean the house and set them out of reach but somewhere central and easy to access when babies just need a distraction.

Although they’re kind of heavy for littles, they can roll and shake them and that is enough for their little attention spans.

There are multiple recipes all over the internet and I highly encourage you to play around with the exact proportions because it is nice having multiple jars that “calm down” at different intervals. My dark, “galaxy” themed one takes the longest to get all settled, and my patriotic jar goes the quickest. But you can see the trinkets in the patriotic one better, making it ideal for toddlers.

Also, I used clear glue for my patriotic bottle and regular white glue in my winter hearts bottle, and it has totally different vibe, so don’t count out the regular white glue! It makes the hearts kind of appear and disappear.

… okay, I can’t really take credit. My mom made the winter one, but I added the teal because she had it in a cute little bottle and it broke 🙁 But when I put it in the smart water bottles (seriously perfect for this project), it just looked so blah, so I added the teal (that was the color of the bottle she had it in, so it didn’t change the feel of it, really). Actually, she made it and my kids loved it so much that I made the other 2. They worked really well while I was watching my brother’s kids. I intended to make a bunch and keep experimenting but 3 seems to be a good amount and I’m not constantly picking them up if there is only 3. Maybe when my toddlers get old enough that these are “old news,” I will make the others.

So, to make a calm down jar (I know, finally, a recipe… but I wanted it at the end because these aren’t rules, they’re “guidelines”), you will need:

• a clear bottle (Smart water bottles are seriously great, but as long as it’s mostly solid and will hold up well, it doesn’t really matter. We have some distilled water bottles from a local grocery store that I think will work well and they’re not so huge.
• glue. Best choice by far is clear glitter glue, but there is flexibility here.
• water. HoT water!
• Glitter (yes, more glitter).
• Little sequin and trinkets to go in the jar. My patriotic one actually has little beads I had been saving just because they were cute, so this was a good use for them!
• Food coloring

I’ve found for me, personally, the sweet spot is about 1 part glue and 2 parts water. And then as much glitter as you want. I personally like lots of glitter, but I have 3 different variations and they all have obviously different amounts of glitter. Just know, you want hot water so the glue mixes in!

FYI it is really hard to get a picture of all 3 at their prettiest! Which is your favorite jar? What would you put in a jar? Let me know!

Dear Reader,

Today for our emotions week I played egg-streme emotions with my toddler.

Egg-streme Emotions is simple enough. All you have to do is draw faces on the plastic eggs you get from Easter. Draw sad, happy, mad and many more that your toddler will recognize (we don’t want to make it too difficult for them).

For a Toddler I would do around 5 eggs a child. So some options besides the 3 I listed earlier are: silly, sleepy, sick, disgusted, scared, surprised.

Once You draw your faces and let them dry separate the top from the bottom of the egg and let your toddler try to put the faces back together.

Discuss the different emotions, help your child understand them. You don’t have to stop at what I listed for emotions either. Just remember to have fun.

Dear Reader,

When we were talking about what activities to do this week, we noticed a common thread occurring. We both picked out activities that had to do with feelings. Maybe it’s the change of season, or maybe it’s just part of growing up, but it sounded like a good time to talk about feelings. And when we got to talking, we decided that it wasn’t something exclusively for preschoolers. Even newly-christened-toddlers are learning emotions in full force!

But my littles can’t handle some big grand activity on emotions, it’s all so new and undiscovered territory; However, they can definitely mirror your expressions and try copying your face. So, we just did that on purpose for an activity. That’s a lot of what this whole experiment is about – doing things with intention.

Really, it’s super easy and you’re probably already doing some form of this activity with your babe. I have found it easiest to either turn the camera around on my phone so you can set baby in your lap, or do the same but with a good old fashioned mirror. Letting baby see your face and theirs at the same time. You can just make faces across the dinner table, or even from any place your kid can make eye contact. It just ends up more fun when you can snuggle and when they can see themselves. Note: babies love seeing themselves!

Anyway, the post is short and sweet, but it is definitely fun to make faces on purpose. Try smiling and pulling silly faces and winking (don’t expect them to even come close on that one, haha). Definitely stick with happier emotions if your kids are still little like me, because they don’t understand the difference between pretend sad and real sad.

Since this is a fairly common practice even subconsciously, I’d love some feedback if anyone has actually thought about playing monkey see expressions with their kids!

Dear Reader,

It’s emotions week for us. Today I did yoga with my toddler. Since she is only a toddler I chose to start with only 5 poses. The poses are inverted sitting, resting, sea lion, train, and downward dog.

I was amazed at how much my toddler loved doing this activity. She actually sat still for longer than she has ever before. If you know my child you know she id constantly moving and getting into things so any time I can get her to sit still it is a miracle.

My toddler’s favorite pose was the inverted sitting pose. She thought it was so fun to sit with her legs up the wall.

Resting pose is as simple as it sounds. Lie flat on your back with your hands resting beside you.

Sea Lion pose is one of the hardest I chose to do with my toddler. Lay on your belly and lift your top half up on your arms. Make sure you are leaving your legs resting on the floor and bending back at the waist.

Train pose is another fun one. Sitting with your back and legs straight move your arms around in a circle like they are your wheels.

The last pose is one I think is the most well known yoga pose. Downward dog you form a triangle with your body and the floor. Legs straight, bend at the waist and place your hands on the floor.

Your child’s poses might not be 100% correct, but know they will get better over time so don’t be a perfectionist on them. This is supposed to be calming, not stressed because they can’t get it right away.

Anyways, have fun. It is so much better when you don’t place too much expectations on it.