Infants and Toddlers • Unit 7: Learning About Good Food - LifeWay

Parents Day Out
Unit 7 • Learning About Good Food
Do not expect younger preschoolers to understand how to express gratitude or
thankfulness. Foundations for thankfulness become attitudes in children because
they observe adults expressing thanks.
Music
During resting and sleeping times, play a quiet recording. At other times during
the session when infants and toddlers are playing, you may want to play segments
from the cassette tape or CD ‘Specially Special Songs. Provide jingle bells
sealed inside small plastic bottles, a coffee-can drum, or other safe noisemakers
for younger preschoolers to shake, rattle, or pound while they listen to music.
Use your singing voice to interest or calm a child, naming the child in the
song. “I Have a Good Friend” and “Thank You, God” may be adapted to include
the names of specific children.
Nature
Bring fresh flowers for preschoolers to smell. Tie the stems of the flowers to a
coat hanger to make a mobile. Hang the flower mobile out of reach of the children
but in a location where you can hold children up to the mobile as you touch
and smell the flowers. Since many flowers are poisonous if eaten, do not allow
children to handle flowers. As you look at the flowers with a child, say: “God
made the flowers. Thank You, God, for pretty flowers and for Maria’s nose to
smell the flowers. A verse in the Bible is ‘Thank You, God.’ ”
Allergy Alert!
Post an allergy alert on the
door notifying parents of
the flowers to be used in
the session.
Teaching Pictures
Locate the pictures “Joey Eats an Apple,” “Fruit,” “A Family Walking,” “My
Family Thanks God,” “I Love My Family,” and “Thank You, God, for the
World” (pictures 8, 9, 12, 14, 20, and 21 from WEE Learn Teaching Pictures for
Two-Year-Olds). Teaching pictures displayed in the room provide you with
opportunities for conversation with children about things for which you can
thank God: good food, family members, friends, Jesus, the Bible, flowers, trees,
and so forth.
Make a “thank-you box” by taping four pictures onto the four sides of a large
cardboard grocery box. As an older infant crawls to the box or as a toddler
climbs in and out of the box, talk about the pictures.
Toys and Games
Prior to the session purchase five or six colorful plastic bangle bracelets.
Younger preschoolers enjoy handling, mouthing, and carrying these bracelets. A
large plastic bottle with a long slim neck is ideal for stacking the bracelets onto.
Also provide a rock-n-stack toy.
Infants and Toddlers
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