Tot School: Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green

Sophie is 14 months old.

I decided to spend a couple weeks just practicing with the colors we already had focused on and do some fun multicolor activities.  We had fun exploring red, blue, yellow, and green!

Sensory Play

The sensory bin this week was filled with colored poms and plastic ice cubes (red, blue, yellow, and green, of course).  I also threw in a couple of her colored koosh animals (which were her favorite part of the bin) and a scoop.  She discovered the fun of stirring this week between this bin and one of her Tot Trays and spent most of the week stirring the bin (or dumping and filling - which I could let her do this time since it was just poms and not something messier!).

We also played in ice cubes several times this week, which meant my kitchen got cleaned!

Book Basket

Our book basket was the same as last week since we didn't make it to the library, but the books are still well loved.  She really enjoyed Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown.  I'm shocked at how long she sits through this book - we still don't quite finish it but she lets me read most this longer book.  She really likes all the animals.

She also specifically asked for Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton.  She couldn't find the book, so she had me read Doggies really quickly (she kept turning the pages without letting me make the dog noises - which never happens!) until we got to the back cover.  Images of several other books are on the back, including Blue Hat, Green Hat, so she pointed to that picture until I figured it out and went to find the book.  She squealed with delight when I pulled it out from the other room.  It was precious! :)

Tot Trays

She really loved her Tot Trays this week!  We seriously "played Tot School" at least three times per day this week.  

Her first tray was putting stickers on paper.  We had done this several weeks ago during our first Tot School session and it was amazing to see the improvement on this skill since then!  She was able to put the stickers on all by her self once I held it out for her to grab.  I would hold the sheet and ask her which sticker she wanted and she would point to the one she wanted.  So sweet!  She also really got a kick out of putting stickers on herself - her nose, her head, her toes.  It made her giggle when I put one on the bottom of her foot!

Her second tray was her new peg board.  She liked this but had trouble getting the pieces completely vertical to put on the board.  She was much more successful just connecting the pieces separately from the board.  This was probably the least loved tray of the week.

Her last tray was hands down the winner this week.  I put some counting bears in a little bowl with a spoon to work on our spoon skills.  We mostly ended up stirring instead of transferring with the spoon (which is fine with me - we just really started using a spoon and she gets so frustrated when she wants to do something and can't!)  She liked it when I sang a little stirring song we do every morning when I stir up her yogurt (don't worry...your not missing any spectacular music by not having this one in your repertoire).

Side note:  Okay Montessori Mommas....I started out with glass bowls and immediately knew that was not going to work for us at this point.  She only wanted to clack them together because they make a great noise.  And then she wants to throw them.  How on earth do you use glass with your young toddlers?  Help a sister out! :)

I also included her shape sorter with just the circle, square, and triangle on her shelf this week.  We played with it a bit and at one point I would ask her to "give momma a blue" and see which one she would hand me from the bucket.  She did better than I expected with this - better than the statistical chance of handing me the right one, but definitely not mastery.  She seemed pretty proud when I made a big deal about giving me the correct color.  I think she's starting to associate the names with the colors.  It's so neat to see her brain figuring all this stuff out!  

Trying to put everything in our shape sorter bucket.

Other Activities

I don't have any pictures of these things, but this week we also climbed mountains of pillows, went on a color scavenger hunt around the house (ex: looking for anything blue we could find), had some colorful snacks eating yummy fruit, went on a couple family bike rides and danced to lots of music.

I am loving the sweet memories we are making by trying to be intentional with our time with Sophie.  I never get to all the ideas I have listed for the week, but just the fact that I've made a list means I get to much more than I would have otherwise!

Next week we'll stick with these four colors and do more fun activities.  I have been working on a new project this weekend that I can't wait to start using with Sophie this coming week!

Want to see how other families do Tot School?  For tons more ideas be sure to visit these sites I'm linking to this week!

Tot School Gathering Place at 1+1+1=1 

Tot School Tuesday at See Vanessa Craft
Tuesday Tots at Rainy Day Mum
Link and Learn at No Time for Flashcards
Show and Share Saturday Link Up at I Can Teach My Child