Tot School - Gray Week

Sophie is 17 months old.

This was the last of our color themed weeks!  I can't believe how far she has come since we first started doing Tot School back in June.  She has grown up so much just in that short time.  I am so thankful for the fun time we've had together doing Tot School.  

We had been traveling for two weeks right before this, so admittedly, gray week is a little less involved than our previous color weeks.  And even though I personally love the color gray, for a toddler, well, gray is just a little blah.

Sensory Bin

For her sensory bin this week, I just pulled out an old favorite.  We had been out of town and I couldn't come up with anything gray (and quick and on-hand) for her to explore, so I got out her rainbow rice and some tools we had around.  I added a funnel as a new way for her to play.  

Tot Trays

Her first tot tray was a button snake that I made her.  She loves buttons, snaps, or zippers of any kind right now, so I thought this would be a hit.  It wasn't.  She could do it with help, but just wasn't that interested in it.  I may try again doing a button "board" instead - sewing a bunch of buttons on a piece of felt-wrapped foam core - so that at least one side is stable.  It was difficult with both the button and the felt shape moveable.  We'll put it away and try later. (No pictures of her trying it, because it took my hands to help her!)

Her second tot tray was super simple and she loved it!  I took my silver colander (not gray, I know, but close enough!) and some silver pipe cleaners and just let her go at putting them in the holes.  This was such a hit, that all the next week, long after this tray was put away, she would get the colander out of my cabinet, walk to her tot school shelf and said "play tot school."  So I ended up pulling it out again the following week because she specifically asked for it! :)  I wish I had a picture of her face when I "figured out" what she was wanting to do.  It was priceless!

Her final tot tray was a repeat of the black and white week.  She enjoyed the matching cards so much that I left them out for this week.  And besides, black and white make gray, right?  I like to think of this less as lazy and more as presenting her with an advanced color mixing lesson at an early age. ;)

Honestly, that's pretty much all we did last week (as far as planned Tot School activities) - it was just so crazy getting back into "real life." 

Our next several weeks (through the end of the year, actually) will be holiday and seasonally themed weeks.  There are just so many exciting things this time of year that I want to share with Sophie! :)  Next week will be all about pumpkins!