Good Night Sleep Tight Lesson Plans for Infants and Toddlers

This week my daughters and I concentrated on "Night Night Time." I should explain that many of my lesson plans depend on my daughter's interest that week. For example, on Mondays we go to playtime/story time at the local library. She delightfully chooses her own books from the children's section and with some guidance from me, she chooses her movies. Then once I get home that afternoon, I pull together the lesson plans for the remainder of the week. This may not work for all mothers, teachers, or home schoolers, which is why I post them. Now there is a resource that you can access whenever you have a topic - or maybe it will just give you some ideas of what to do to keep your child entertained and informed while you are home with them.

This week, we came home with ten books. But the favorites by far were, "A Child's Good Night Book," by Margaret Wise Brown and "Good Night, Mr. Night," by Dan Yaccarino. We already had at home "Good Night Moon," by Margaret Wise Brown and "Dora the Explorer's Outer Space Adventure." So, this week our lesson plans focused on night time and the moon.

For Circle Time (as referred to in many preschools) but we call it quiet learning one day this week we had a pajama day, my daughters and I got up, had breakfast and kept our pj's on when we started our lessons. On another day we had foam cut out pictures of the moon and stars and foam sheets to peel and stick the several different pictures of the moon (different phases) and start.

Toy Time

Great toys to use during the night time lesson plans are the shaper sorts that include star shapes as well as round and crescent. We also had play time and pretended to put our "babies" to bed. The girls had their own baby dolls that they put diapers on in their household center, gave the babies baths in the bathtub and fed them a bottle and tucked them in to bed. We also pulled out the play dough and the shape cutters/shape "squeezers" for the play dough and made stars and moons from the play dough.

Imagination time

Take extra time to do all the night time routines and reinforce them. The kids can take long bubble baths, brush their teeth, put their own baby dolls to bed and read night time stories to you, together or to their own baby. Explain what we do at night time to get ready for bed.

Build a bed with blocks, waffle blocks work well, or you can also use legos or the large size waffle blocks. Add extra blankets, if you make it big enough your child can use it for tv/dvd time as their pretend bed.

Art

Art time can be the most fun, but be sure to include scribble time so that your little one (or class of little ones) can learn how to put together their scribbles to form a picture. Try these ideas for art time:

Let your child scribble on a black piece of construction paper with a white piece of chalk.

Use white paint on black paper, use sponges of stars for stamping. Little ones don't really have the coordination for stamping, but they have a great time putting the paint on the paper. Don't have a sponge shaped like moon or stars? Use this quick and cheap trick-take your large size sponge and cookie cutter shapes. Press down to form the indentation and cut around the outside of the cookie cutter with scissors or a sharp knife. Instant sponge shapes. For little hands, glue the tops of your empty laundry soap containers, they are just the right size for dipping and stamping.

Use stickers to make a picture about night time things. You can pick up at the dollar store stickers of the moon and stars and your child can stick all over the paper.

Music

Play different lullabies, if you don't have any download them for free from the computer. Several sites allow you to. You can even make your own CD for use in the car or at naptime if you find that some of them work better than others.

Sing and finger play to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star - for variation, use the words "great big star" and use your hands to show big by holding them far apart sort of like saying how big a fish is). This is also good for teaching size and contrasts.

Another fun music song is "There Were Ten in the Bed"

Here are the Lyrics:

There were ten in a bed*
And the little one said
"Roll over, roll over!"
So they all rolled over
And one fell out.

There were nine in a bed
And the little one said
"Roll over, roll over!"
So they all rolled over
And one fell out.

So, on and so forth counting down to one:

There was one in a bed
And the little one said
"Good night!"

Use your fingers to indicate numbers or flash cards, this will reinforce counting and number recognition, also roll hands one over the other for rolling out of bed. You can also turn this into gross motor time, by singing it to your child and letting them roll over on the floor.

Gross Motor Play

To get some energy out of your little one try these activities:

Have a moon race. Use different size balls (if you don't have them and worry about bouncing and breaking stop by a local craft store and pick up different size "balls" of Styrofoam. You and your child can have a moon race, marking a beginning and ending point and rolling the balls to see who wins.

Snacks

For just one day this week, you can break the rules on snacks. Try hot chocolate or chocolate milk for a snack, Also popcorn (if your child is over 2) or make smores together. There are even kits at the grocery store for smore making in the microwave.

Take a field trip

Walk around outside in the evening or at dusk and talk about the moon and stars and how it is getting dark outside. Point out the light from streetlamps, houses and driveways. Here in the Houston area, go visit the Johnson Space Center.

Storytime

"A Child's Good Night Book," by Margaret Wise Brown and "Good Night, Mr. Night," by Dan Yaccarino. We already had at home "Good Night Moon," by Margaret Wise Brown and "Dora the Explorer's Outer Space Adventure. Good Night Moon is a long time favorite of all my children and the rhythm and rhyming invokes a peaceful atmosphere. I love the subtle colors in the book as well as the details of each and every scene.

Good Night, Mr. Night was a little disappointing. The colors were subtle and I love the crescent moon for eyes and the twinkling stars are his design. But the messages and text were sort of ordinary and without rhythm, but the children light it.

Dora's Outer Space Adventure is great fun with color recognition and reinforcement, stickers for an interactive experience and of course Dora is a favorite with my little one. You can also get the DVD for a visually stimulated child.

For a visual learning activity you can rent or purchase the DVD, "Baby Einstein Baby Galileo Discovering the Sky." This DVD features night time music like Clair de Lune, Mozart's A Little Night Music, and nursery rhymes for the night sky. In it's 30 minute long episode it introduces your child to not only moon and stars, but planets, clouds and galaxies. Individual colors) to create a new color, for example yellow and blue make green. By doing so children are taught a process as well as results and consequences.

Costs of these plans: Each one of the books is approximately $6.99 or free from a local library, the movie is approximately $14.99 on Amazon.com, many of the art projects are items you already have laying around the house, but I had to pick some up so hit the dollars store where I spent approximately $5.00. Total for the week: $5.00 as I already owned some of the books and the DVD was a rental. The budget conscious mom will be happy when she prepares these lesson plans and your director at your daycare or preschool will be happy that once again you are saving money on your supply allowance.