I'm determined to have Rachel love Christmas as much as I do! She doesn't remember much about last year except for the tree, which is admittedly one of the best parts. I decided to make a countdown chain with her to build up excitement and found quite a few learning opportunities in the process.
Step 1: Introduce calendars. I discussed the basics. One square equals one day. Each row is called a week and is seven days. Each day has a name. Point and read each name. Point out which square is today. Point out which square is Christmas.
Step 2: Make Christmas special. I had Rachel decorate a card stock strip with stars stickers to represent Christmas day.
Step 3: Explain that each chain is a day. To reminder her that each square is also a day, I laid the Christmas day chain over Christmas on the calendar. The sizes matched perfectly! Pure, dumb luck.
Step 4: Start the chain. I had Rachel stick the next strip of paper through the loop. I tried letting her staple, but her little fingers weren't strong enough. I also tried having her hold it while I staples, but it was just too awkward. It was better to just have her get the next strip ready to pass through the hole while I stapled.
Incidentally, running out of staples is a good excuse for a (supervised) fine motor skills activity. She had a really hard time getting the staples in.
Step 5: Reinforce weeks. To help with the idea of weeks, I made each week a new color in the chain. Rachel had a grand time flipping through the card stock book and choosing the next color.
We laid out each strip of paper over a column in the calendar and counted out 7 days to emphasize the 7 days in a week. Good counting practice and fine motor skill practice.
Then I had an idea to put stickers on each strip to represent the days of the week. I would point out the day at the top of the calendar, read the name, ask her to tell me what letter it started with, find the letter on the page of stickers, and stick it on! More stickers are always a plus.
Plus I got to reinforce the idea of upside-down since she had to insert the strips in the the next loop upside-down to make the letters show. Once again I reinforced that each different color represented a week.
Step 6: Dealing with a short attention span. After a while she got bored with the pure number of strips. So "baby bear" helped pick out the color choices. And "mama bear" helped put staples in.
Step 7: Enjoy finished product! I hung the chain right by Rachel's crib and she points it out first thing every morning. We rip one off before she even gets out of bed. She points at Christmas day and while she can't (or won't) say Christmas yet she tells me that we are waiting for the "red" day.
