UBC Motherhood - Toddler Activities

Only because it was hard for me to make good Mom friends didn't mean I didn't provide my toddler with opportunities to play with other children. This was especially important to me considering he was an only child.

So apart from going to daycare two days a week, we joined a weekly music class for toddlers. I always felt a little awkward, but he seemed to enjoy it for awhile. The teacher was super creative and always came up with props to visualize the songs. This is us, moving water in order to create waves.

The Mom to my left and I got along well, and we were socializing for a while until she became pregnant again - with twins! I literally didn't see her again for years!

Other times we'd get Easter bunny finger puppets, duckies or huge sunflowers to dance with.

When the music teacher moved away, we started to attend an English speaking playgroup. Our main language is Swiss German, in case you're wondering why I mention that this class was held in English.

I lived in California for a while but didn't feel like my English was proficient enough to teach my son. Also I lacked all the baby and household vocabulary. I still wanted to expose him to the English language, and this sounded like a perfect opportunity.

This group was run by three Moms who originally came from Australia, England and the U.S. 

Among the members were people from New Zealand, Canada, Bulgaria, South Africa, Kenya, Malaysia, China, and probably other parts of the world.

This was more my thing than the music class! I so enjoyed meeting all these lovely ladies! Usually we had a theme of the day that was related to a song we were singing or a book we were reading. Also every week one of the Moms was on snack duty. 

When it was our turn, we were reading the Gingerbread Man, and I thought it was only fitting that we brought some gingerbread as a snack, never mind it was in May!

It didn't stop there. We also donated our Gingerbread house! I had made it out of the cardboard box the new oven arrived in, and it had been sitting in our living room way past Christmas, so I was glad to give it a new home.

We would usually meet at the community center, but sometimes the room was otherwise occupied, or we were only a handful of participants, and one brave Mom would host the group at their home, like the time we dyed Easter eggs in my kitchen.

We'd sing "the wheels on the bus go round and round" countless times. 

Same goes for "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" and "put your left hand in, put your left hand out and shake it all around", oh and let's not forget "old MacDonald had a farm".

Enough singing though, let's go outside!

Aww, where has time gone? They were so little! 

Today's official UBC assignment is to write a "this Day in History" post. The picture below was taken July 18, 2014 - Colin was soon to become a first grader, and it looks as if he was practicing his writing skills.

What activites did you do when your kids were toddlers?