Our 4th week on Fruits of the Spirit and I was so excited for this week, because this was one area my toddler had lots to learn. As adults, we lose our patience constantly throughout the day, and I know it’s going to be a learning experience for J everyday of his life. Even before starting the week of patience, I knew that this mama needed a lot of patience. I had more practical lessons planned for him throughout the week that could help him to be patient along the way.
We started off the day with stories of patience from the Jesus storybook Bible. Our favorite this week was Joshua and the battle of Jericho. J loves the old Sunday school song ‘Joshua fought the value of Jericho ‘ and we sang this song a lot this week. I explained how Joshua and his friends waited just like God told them too and the walls fell down, just like God said it would. The lesson I was teaching my toddler throughout the week was based on this story – God can do great things when we wait for Him.
FREE THE TOYS FROM THE STRINGS
This was such a great teaching activity for my toddler, and the setup does not take much time at all. I placed some of J’s favorite toys, a mixture of big and small ones at the bottom of the laundry hamper. Then I used some yarn (it’s softer than rope or string) and roped it all around the hamper as shown in the first picture.
The activity is to take out all of his toys through the maze of strings. J had to be patient when he was trying to take the big toys out. He got most of the toys out, some needed more patience than others. He finally left one big one at the end. If the toddler gets too frustrated, pause the activity and continue when he is ready to try again.
THREAD THE PASTA – Fine motor skill activity
Any fine motor skill activity would be a great one to teach patience to a toddler. I chose threading the pasta for J. I made rainbow pasta to set and dry overnight – add some pasta inside a Ziploc bag, few drops of vinegar and food coloring. For the activity I used some pipe cleaners for J to use as threads.
I guided J to thread the pasta through the pipe cleaners. J threaded three or four pasta at a time, and we took breaks so it does not get too overwhelming for him. This activity was great to teach J to keep trying without acting out while working on those little fingers.
TIMER AS A LESSON ON PATIENCE
We used the Visual countdown timer for children for this activity. You can find it on both IOs and Android. The timer has increments of 10 seconds. When you set the timer it counts down and displays a toy or animal at the end.
We introduced this timer during his snack time. I asked him to wait till he sees the toy show up at the end before he took each piece of banana. The suspense of what he will see at the end kept him watching the timer and waiting. I slowly increased the timer count and J was amazingly patient throughout. I would really recommend this app to someone who is teaching their toddler patience.
LINING TOYS IN A LINE
This activity is a great way to teach patience and also doubles as a pre writing activity. I used some painter’s tape to write out alphabets, and collected all the small toys from around his room.
I asked J to line up his toys on the line, one letter at a time. As the toddler lines up his toys, be his cheerleader and encourage him to keep at it. Learning to finish this activity, while following the lines encourages the toddler to show patience even when he wanted to give up.
BOARD GAMES TO TEACH PATIENCE
Board games can be a splendid way to skip in a lesson on patience as the toddler has fun in the process. We got the Hi Ho Cherry-O game for J to play this week. This was J’s first board game, so it was monumental for me to experience this with him. He had to follow the rules, wait his turn, work on his counting and even had some fine motor skills to use in the activity.
J was such a trooper playing this game with me to the end. He loved spinning the arrow, and counting the berries to collect them in his basket. There were moments where his patience was tested, like when he had to put back the berries from his basket according to the rules. And they were still great moments to teach him how to act out patience.
This week was filled with lots of learning for both of us on patience, but we had so much fun among the way and I look forward to continue teaching him patience as he continues to grow up.
