Little Page Turners: More Thailand for Toddlers

Sawadee Ka! We're learning about Thailand this week. Last night, we talked about how children in Thai mountain villages sleep. I explained to E how people build houses up on stilts and keep their pigs, chickens and roosters under the house. The kids lie on grass mats under mosquito nets and listen to the animal noises as they fall asleep.

Just before bedtime, we created our own pretend village hut. E loved pretending to be a Thai village child. Daddy and the dog weren't as excited about their roles.

The pretend play was a perfect lead-in to our bedtime story:

Hush! A Thai Lullaby by Minfong Ho

This prequel to Peek!: A Thai Hide-and-Seek follows a similar format. A Thai mama hurries around her home telling the different animals to be quiet because her baby is sleeping. (Having slept in a Thai village myself, I can attest that it is a noisy place!) The rhythms and repetition are wonderful:

"Wee-wee, Wee-wee," A small mosquito.
Mosquito, mosquito, don't come weeping. Can't you see that baby's sleeping?
Mosquito, Mosquito, don't you cry, My baby's sleeping right nearby.

The baby, of course, does everything but sleep, climbing out of his hammock and following Mama around the house. Kids will love trying to find the hiding baby in each picture, as well as enjoy learning the different animal calls in Thai.

For another related activity, I worked with A to build this Paper Plate Elephant. A came down with hand-foot-mouth disease and is absolutely miserable from all the blisters on her tongue and gums. I tried to distract her this morning with this simple craft. Using this template, I cut out the pieces and gave them to her to put on the plate. She chucked the ears at my head, so I did those for her and then she got the idea and helped with the nose and googly eyes. The googly eyes were a huge hit with her. I swear I only turned my back for a second!