Teaching Toddlers about Day and Night [+ Giveaway]

We are celebrating a new book release from the creator of Goodnight Moon thanks to our sponsor HarperCollins! Regardless all thoughts are my own and I only recommend products I truly love!

I’ve been making a real effort to do more teaching around our house for our two toddlers. And from reading every preschool and homeschool blog on the internet I’ve learned that the best way to do this is to center our week around themes and pull resources each week that associate with each theme. I’m lucky that both of my kids love both books and arts and crafts (although worksheets have not been a hit with them) so I always try to really rely on these to go with our themes. One of our themes recently was Day and Night, and learning about the different times of the day. We had so much fun with this theme – the kids loved it and I love anything they do so I definitely recommend it for your little ones!

Book. The main book I used for this theme was Margaret Wise Brown’s Good Day, Good Night. Yes, this is the same author of Goodnight Moon, which has been Tripp’s favorite book since he was a newborn. We love Margaret Wise Brown’s lulling words and the classic illustrations by Clement Hurt. We still read this book at least once a day, so I had a feeling Good Day, Good Night would be a hit as well and I was right. It has beautiful artwork by Loren Long, and we all loved the rhyming story that takes an adorable bunny through daytime and nighttime. It gave us the perfect opportunity to discuss the difference in day and night after reading it! Check out the trailer for the book:

Crafts. Our favorite craft of the week was simple but fun for everyone. I cut out simple shapes with colored construction paper (Maddie Grace helped with a little cutting to work on fine motor skills), and then we glued them on to paper to make scenes of day and night. Tripp and Maddie Grace could both help with the gluing and completed their pictures by coloring with crayons. We also used play doh throughout the week to make day and night scenes.

Activities. I was so excited to find this free printable activity booklet from HarperCollins to coincide with our theme for the week and that’s mostly what I used to pull activities from for the week. I really enjoyed using it to talk about the different activities we do in the day versus what we do at night, as well as talking with the kids about both rhyming and opposites. We also made a point to go outside one night and have a campfire (with s’mores) and look at the sky and talk about the night and all the stars. The only problem with this is now my kids want to do it every night!

Because we love Good Day, Good Night so much I want to give one of you the chance to share it with your children or other lucky kids in your life as well as some other awesome goodies! We are giving away both a copy of Good Day, Good Night, as well as a copy of Goodnight Moon, a Good Day, Good Night-themed activity kit, and a bunny rattle from Kids Preferred. Just enter using the form below – good luck!

Harper Collins Good Day, Good Night Prize Pack