Tot School: Orange

Sophie is 14.5 months.

This week we picked back up with Tot School with the color orange!  I know some people change their shelves every two weeks instead of every week, but I would have to add more to keep Sophie interested at this point.  By about Tuesday of the second week she was no longer interested in the activities on her shelf!  But fortunately she was interested when I showed her the new activities for orange!

Sensory Bin

I was going to try water beads with Sophie this week, but decided against it as she has taken to biting EVERYTHING lately (I'm hoping she has some more teeth coming in - poor girl only has four, all on the bottom!).  So instead I tried some homemade playdough and added some orange foam blocks and orange flower beads.  

She really liked pulling the foam blocks out and putting them back in the indention they had left.  She also really liked licking her fingers after playing in the dough.  Gross.  But I guess it just tasted a little salty to her (benefit of making my own!)

We also explored really simple water play outside this week - she wanted to go out anytime she saw the bowl we used! 

Tot Trays

Her first tray was tearing orange paper.  She overlooked it for the first day, because it didn't look very exciting.  But after I showed her how to tear on the second day, this quickly became her favorite.  Later in the week we glued the torn pieces onto a picture of an orange.  (I put glue on and handed them to her like stickers - she really seemed to enjoy it!)

Her second tray was this velcro block idea I found at Memorizing the Moments.  I was super impressed at how quickly she caught on.  She liked this pretty well, but lost interest in it after a couple of days.  We'll try it again later.

Her third tray was putting orange pipe cleaners into a parmesan cheese container.  We had done this activity before pretty early in our Tot School journey, and she really liked it.  This time I opened the side with the three small holes and she was able to do it without a problem.  But overall, she just wasn't that interested in this one.   (Pretty much after discovering tearing paper, she lost interest in everything else!)

I also included her new Melissa and Doug Caterpillar Gear Toy (affiliate link).  She really enjoyed this toy and actually picked up the yellow gear and said "yellow" (in 14 month old language...but I recognized it because she had been repeating if after me for a while).  Then I asked her to put it on the yellow spot on the board and she did it!  Proud momma moment! :)  She was ready to play something else when I tried to see if she could show me the blue. :)

I got new trays from Oriental Trading this week, and once I switched them out Sophie preferred playing with the trays themselves over anything I tried to put on them!

Other Activities

This week we added an orange fish to our God Made Everything Book and flannel board.  

I started a fun activity using our book and the flannel board pieces that Sophie did really well with.  We would read the book and have the pieces nearby.  As we read each page, I would point to the pieces and ask if she could find the one that matched the page, like the red ladybug, and place it on the page.  She did really well with the red ladybug and the yellow sun.  We will definitely keep doing this activity as we add more colors to her book.

We also worked on eating with a spoon and fork this week!  Is it normal for a fork to be easier to use than a spoon?  Sophie has very little success (or interest, for that matter) with a spoon but has figured out the fork pretty well!  

She saw my camera and wanted to play with it, so I took some pictures of us playing.  Please ignore all the toys spread out in the background!  ;)  She learned to say "cheese!"  Ooh I love that sweet girl!  (And one more picture because I can't get enough of those cheeks!  Forgive me!)

Up next week: Purple! :)

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

Titus 2sday at Time Warp Wife

Trivium Tuesday at Living and Learning at Home

Tender Moments with Toddlers and Preschoolers at The Chaos and the Clutter 
Sunday Showcase at Learn Play Imagine
Top Ten Tuesday at Many Little Blessings
TGIF at 123 Homeschool 4 Me