BE A SUPERHERO: PK-4

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Ana's Week

Be a Superhero week was an absolute blast! Aria loves superheroes, so there was no way we could go wrong in spending the week playing with superheroes, dressing up like superheroes, talking about characteristics of superheroes, and practicing being superheroes. Aria’s favorite activity of the week was earning beads, or “Power Pellets” for being a superhero in our house and our community. She could earn them by being nice to Skylar, doing her work, picking up trash, being kind to friends, and just generally being a good person. If she filled up a shot glass with beads, she was able to pick out a small piece of candy. Needless to say, the prize was extremely motivational and helped Aria to maintain a good and motivated attitude all week long. We would talk about “being a superhero” in everything we do, and Aria was so excited every time I would call her a superhero for her positive actions.

We had some wonderful learning activities throughout the week, such as a great superhero stomp literacy game where we placed words we have learned from BOB books so far onto notecards that superheroes could stomp on when Aria could name them. We also did a fun take on skyscraper art in honor of all those skyscrapers those pesky bad guys knock down and mimicked Van Gogh’s style from Starry Night. The art piece turned out really well and gave what could be considered a “silly” theme a classical twist! However, our main focus of the week was on Aria being a superhero in all of her actions.

Aria’s birthday is coming up, so we have been doing a birthday “Elf on the Shelf” all month long (a ridiculous tradition to start, I know, but I got several of the accessories on sale at a local consignment store). Each day, Aria gets a small present from the Elf rather than an overall large gift for the month. This week, she received a small superhero each day to play with, so our Elf tradition actually helped to set the tone for each themed day. Next week, for example, our dinosaur week, she will receive a dinosaur each day. Nothing like a little extra motivation to behave like a superhero because the Elf is always watching!

Another great motivator through our week to be a superhero has been our magnetic Melissa and Doug chore chart. Each day, Aria gets magnets for doing chores like making her bed, brushing her teeth, taking her plate to the sink, cleaning up and feeding the animals. Not only does this teach responsibility, but she is also learning that patiently working hard towards a goal reaps rewards, as she can win prizes each week for doing all of her chores. This week, she earned a dollar store pack of princess puzzles and was so proud of herself, and we were able to talk about how perseverance pays off with a physical example.

My favorite activities over the past week were taking Aria and Skylar to a local animal rescue to bring pet and cleaning supplies to the shelter and building cleaning kits for hurricane victims. For both, I brought Aria to the store and had her help me pick out supplies while we would talk about how people were being affected by the hurricane and why some animals need to be saved. These weren’t easy conversations to have with a 3-year-old, but she is super blessed to have all of her needs and wants met, so I feel it is necessary that she understands just how truly lucky she is and that not everyone is so blessed. Aria already has a heart for animals, but as she gets older, I hope her desire to give back and take care of those less fortunate becomes a focus of her life.
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Be a Superhero week is one that I am so glad I took the time to do this year. After spending a week talking about those who serve our community for a living, it was wonderful to teach Aria how to serve her community, family, and friends even at a young age. It is never too early to teach your child to be selfless, kind, and giving, and mixing it with fun superhero games, shows, and lessons makes it all the better! 

Jessica's Week:

This theme was a new addition from last year and I was a bit concerned it would seem to “boyish” for my girly girl to be interested. Thanks to Santa however, we had the perfect toy for creating an exciting and appealing superhero week! For anyone with an empty basement or other abundant space I highly recommend softzone’s 14,21, or 35 piece foam block set. They aren’t cheap, we ordered the 21-piece for $500 on an amazing on-line thanksgiving day sale and it still made me cringe to spend that much but this is great for all ages and can be used so many different ways. Def better than a bunch of small gifts that will be tossed out in a year. Plus you could always wrap the blocks individually and still have a full tree! This week we used our blocks for a power of flight trampoline, superhero obstacle course, villain’s lair, and towers for sight word smash down. While this theme was not one of her all time favorites I think T really appreciated the fact that it kept her active even though we spent almost all week indoors. In addition to the blocks I taped some numbers to stacked cups and let her have a shootout with nerf guns, and we did a couple spider web mazes.

​My favorite craft this week was a cape we created by cutting the sleeves off an old soccer team tee shirt and then removing the front side save the collar. She colored it with fabric markers and I made some patches for it out of foam sticker sheets. We had a badge for bravery, kindness, self-control, and honesty. These are all things we’ve been working on lately, especially understanding honesty as I’ve caught T in her first two really obvious lies this past week. She loved her cape and got really excited whenever she did something that earned her a new badge. I hope this reinforces good habits and helped build on our bible “superhero” lesson of David and Goliath. We talked a lot about how trusting God gives us “superpowers” to do things like be brave and tell the truth when we don’t think we can do it on our own. Because David trusted God he was able to take down the giant and eventually became king. Taegan knocked down her own giants both metaphorically and using ping pong balls with a Goliath cardboard cutout we made.