Tot School: Fall Theme

Sophie is 17.5 months old.

This week was all about introducing Sophie to my favorite season - Fall!  Living in Florida we don't get much of a real Fall, so we just had to pretend. :)

Sensory Play

Sophie loved the sensory bin this week!  It was filled with silk leaves, fake gourds, plastic apples, and some real twigs we found outside.  The silk leaves were by far her favorite component.  Her daddy (who always comes up with way more fun ways to play than Momma does!) showed her how to blow the leaves from her hand and she would just giggle and giggle!  I wish I could have captured how excited she got in a picture, but it just didn't happen.  

We also explored the real leaves outside (the ones we could find) but the colors weren't anywhere near as pretty.  Our leaves pretty much just get brown and fall off. :(  But she did discover the joy of walking through crunchy leaves.  Chalk that up as one victory for Mom. 

Tot Trays

The first tray was a transferring activity using her red lacing beads and tweezers.  This was her first time exploring tweezers, and as I suspected, they were still too challenging for her.  However, she loved trying to use them and would lace the beads onto the tip of the tweezers and move them from bowl to bowl that way.  Creative problem solving at its finest! :)

Her second tray was placing red poms ("apples") onto a tree.  She did this easily, but didn't seem that interested in it.  I think she only played with it one time.  You can get the clip art I used here.

Her third tray was an apple sorting activity.  I cut out several apples in red, yellow, and green using my Cricut machine, and she would place them into the corresponding color cup.  She did pretty well with this activity with assistance.  This was a popular "on the lap" activity.  We may try this again at a later date having her "pick" the apples from around the room before she sorts them, but she wasn't quite ready for that extra step this time.

Her final tray was a colored leave matching game I made using my Cricut.  She has loved card matching games the past few times I've put them out, so I figured I would try one based solely on color.  She really didn't seem interested at all. We'll try again later!

Next week we'll have a Thanksgiving theme - I can't wait! :)

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 

Teaching Tuesdays at Intentional Homeschool
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

Tender Moments with Toddlers and Preschoolers at The Chaos and the Clutter 
Sunday Showcase at Learn Play Imagine
TGIF at 123Homeschool4Me
For the Kids Fridays at Sun Scholars