Tot School: Pink Week!

Sophie is 16 months old.

Well, once again we ended up spending two weeks on the color pink.  Mostly because I didn't have the materials I wanted for our next week yet!  But she did really enjoy these activities and spent lots of time playing with them, even the second week.

Sensory Bin

I struggled finding something to use in her sensory bin.  We've been doing rice for several weeks, and she loves it, but I wanted something different.  So I sent some scrap pink construction and scrapbook paper through the paper shredder and voila!, a sensory bin was born.  I added some pink poms and some pink glass beads ("jewels") and dragonfly figures to the mix and it was ready to go!  She spent TONS of time searching for all the jewels and pulling them out.  We counted those things over and over and over again.  She would put them on the plate, then move them to the bowl, then hand them to Mommy and do it all again.  They were a huge hit.  She didn't even touch the poms and hardly messed with the paper except to search for the jewels, but we had lots of fun with this one.  I'll definitely repeat something similar.

Tot Trays

For once all three Tot Trays were well-loved this week!  Her first tray was a "piggy bank" with wooden discs.  I found this coin bank on clearance for 50 cents after Hobby Lobby cleared out their VBS crafts!  I added a few pink pigs to fit in with our theme and she had a great time.  She figured out how to put the "coins" in the slot pretty quickly and spent lots of time doing it over and over.  The only negative was that I had to get the coins out for her when she had put them all in, and well, for an independent toddler sometimes that wasn't really popular.  :)

Her second tray was several small pink toys and a matching photo of the toy.  I laminated the photos and she matched the toy with the picture.  This was really our first successful matching activity.  She did a great job and I was really impressed that she could match all of them up after a couple days! 

Her third tray was her old faithful peg board.  This is always a favorite, but it was neat to see how she played with it differently as she was a little older than last time.  She liked to make really tall towers of the pegs and seemed to enjoy connecting, disconnecting, and rearranging the pegs.  This was another one that was played with all week, all over the house.  (This was a great one for Daddy to get in on too!  They had fun building tall towers together.)

Other Activities

I left out the rainbow beanbags this week since they were such a hit last week.  They didn't disappoint.  This has been our go to game in the house for a month now!  I'm tempted to put them away so they stay fresh to her, but I also hate to take away something that is played with so often.  Do any of ya'll rotate toys?  Should I just add this one to her regular toy bin for a bit until it becomes unloved?

She also finger painted her pink pig page for her God Made Everything color book, as well as played with the felt pieces for her felt board.  She really enjoyed finger painting this time and seemed to understand more than the last time we did it.  I will have to bust out the paints more often for her.

Our town hosted a Wounded Warriors Retreat this week and they had a big parade of all the Wounded Warriors that came within walking distance of our house.  She had a great time standing by and checking out a fire truck, and especially waving her flag at all the motorcycles and cars in the processional.  I'm so glad we were able to be part of such a special event!  I love this sweet picture taken by a friend!

Up next week: Brown! 

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

Tot School - Rainbows!

Sophie is 15.5 months old.

Sorry it has been so long between blog posts!  It has been a crazy few weeks around our house.  My mom (the best Skype Grandma in history) came to visit for a week and a half, Sophie and I got the black plague from the church nursery, and Clay's grandmother passed away.  I also started directing our children's choir at church and coordinating the crafts for MOPS.  There was a lot going on and blogging just didn't happen.  But I'm back! :)

The last two weeks, Tot School has been focused on rainbow colors.  Sophie did a large amount of her Tot School time with Grandma, because I ended up either being down sick or away with family during funeral arrangements, etc.  Grandma took some pictures and told me a lot about their adventures!

Sensory Bin

Sophie loved her sensory bin this week!  She usually does love the colored rice, but these past few weeks she really started to get in to pouring and dumping from container to container.  It was neat to see her working so hard - she obviously had a plan of what she was doing!

Tot Trays

Her first tray was definitely her favorite.  I put several different types of ribbon into a bottle for her to pull out and put back in.  Her favorites were the more structured ribbons that could be kind of rolled into a ball.  She would put them in and take them out and walk them all around the living room.  Later in the week, she eventually figured out how to put the regular ribbons in as well (out is easy!), but still preferred her structured ribbons.

The second tray was an attempt at exposing Sophie to color sorting.  We still aren't quite ready to do that independently, but she enjoys putting them in the tube I told her to.  This was made from toilet paper tubes and an egg carton.  I just covered the tubes in cardstock and hot glued the tubes into the egg carton.  It looked pretty, and Sophie enjoyed it, but I should warn that it is not structurally sound enough to endure a toddler tantrum!  All of the tubes had been removed by the end of the two weeks, but she still enjoyed dropping the sticks in the tubes and watching them fall out!   (As well as the cotton balls I had stuffed in the bottom so the sticks were visible when she put them in the tubes!)

Her final tray was pretty much a dud.  She had no interest in playing with her stacking cups this week, but they sure looked good for rainbow week!  Lol.  They are usually in her toy basket and I guess they just weren't special enough to warrant attention during Tot School time!

Other Activities

One of Sophie's favorite things both weeks was the basket of bean bags!  My mom helped me make these bean bags in rainbow colors and Sophie really enjoyed playing with them.  The plan is that eventually we will be able to do all kinds of matching and color identification as well as gross motor activities with them, but for now it is just super fun to throw them in the basket!  She would sit on someone's lap and throw bean bags into the basket for up to 30 minutes at a time on occasion.  As soon as they were all in the basket, she would dump them in her lap and start again.  She got really good and making them in!  Thank goodness this girl doesn't have her mother's throwing capabilities! :)

She also painted a rainbow for her God Made Everything Color Book.  We played our usual matching game matching the pages of her book with the felt board pieces.  She's getting pretty good at doing the first few completely independently!

She also got to have a real life tea party with Grandma (instead of just over Skype) as well as lots of good stories and snuggle times!

Also, my little fashionista found these sunglasses in her drawer and decided she needed to wear them to church on Sunday.  Just had to share! :)

Next week:  Pink! :)

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