Shamrock Shape Puzzle Printable

Looking for a fun shape activity for St. Patrick's Day?  Be sure to check out the shamrock shape puzzle printable I'm sharing today at The Activity Mom.  Sophie LOVED this one!

Tot School - Rectangles

Sophie is 21.5 months old.

This week was all about rectangles, and I have to admit, after the fun heart week we had during Valentine's Day, I just wasn't feeling this one.  Honestly, Sophie kind of felt the same way.  The trays were kind of random and really simple because I just didn't put the time into planning and prepping for this one.  Totally my fault.

There was no sensory bin this week.  Mostly just because this pregnant lady is getting very tired and naps have just become priority during Sophie's naptime.  

Tot Trays

The first tray was one of the two that she really liked.  I got brave (*ahem* crazy) and put two containers with just a little bit of water and a sponge for transferring.  It didn't take a rocket scientist to determine this would be her favorite.  We always played with this first, and often times didn't even move on to the other trays at all.  She got really good at transferring with the sponge, and it definitely worked her little hand muscles!

Her second tray got no love.  It was a few jenga blocks (Donkey Kong version my husband has ;)) for stacking.  Lame, Mom.  The only interest she had was in the holes on the side of the block.  She thought they were beads and kept trying to take a shoestring from another tray and lace them.  

The third tray was her wooden name puzzle.  I thought since she has taken such an interest in letters lately that this would get her attention, but she never even let me take it off the shelf for her.  We'll try again later.

Her fourth tray was some pig shape matching cards I made and blogged about on The Activity Mom.  She wasn't interested in these either.  You can grab your free printable here if you think your toddler might be more interested than mine! :)

Tray number five was the only other tray that got attention.  It was the easiest, laziest tray I had this week, but she loved it!  I pulled out the animals from her Farm Animal Toob and let her play with them.  She sat there for ten minutes at a time singing songs with the animal names and sounds.  It was so precious!  She would stand them all up on their feet and then "ooohhhh nooooo!" dump the tray and do it all again.  Definitely a simple hit.

The last tray was a rectangle lacing card I made.  She didn't really even want to try it, but she did use the string to try and lace the Jenga blocks.  

Other Activities

We did some baking and lots of pretend kitchen play this week, but nothing really special to write about.  We had some sunny days that were great for going to the park, so we loved getting outside again!

We did do a couple "craft" activities.  We made a bus out of (mostly) rectangles, because Sophie thinks "Wheels on the Bus" is the best song ever written.  And she loves to glue.  Win-win.  We also did a St. Patrick's Day shape puzzle I shared over at Activity Mom (printable available here!) that she absolutely loved doing.  She really impressed me with her ability to be able to glue the shapes in the correct spot.  We'll be doing another page of this next week!

Perhaps the most important news of all is that she wore her first pigtails this week!  I can't resist sharing the cuteness with you! :)  When did my baby get so big???

Up next week is stars, and probably our last shape week.  We may do one general shape review, but I haven't decided yet!

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
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

Tot School - Hearts (Valentine's Day)

Sophie is 21 months old.

Better late than never, right?  This post is a little late in the writing, but we had so much fun with heart week I had to share!  We ended up spending two weeks with this theme because Sophie loved the activities so much and we were traveling for a few days the second week.

Sensory Bin

The sensory bin for heart week was filled with candy conversation hearts, small plastic heart containers I found at the dollar store, and foam hearts.  Sophie really enjoyed pouring and making noise with the conversation hearts.  I never had any issue with her trying to eat them since she had no idea they were candy, I just had to inform everyone that entered the house that she didn't know they were candy so they didn't say something that would encourage her to taste them! :)

Tot Trays

The trays were a hit this week!  Her first tray was heart sticks (umm...no idea what these things are actually called!) in floral foam. She loved it!

Her second tray was playdoh, which is always a winner.  I got out some heart cookie cutters and she made some hearts, but mostly she put it on her nose (Daddy taught her that) or made little balls.  This is her new "show your teeth" face.  Hilarious.

The third tray was a conversation heart color sorting printable I found at Teaching Tiny Tots.  She did this a few times with ease, but really preferred the other trays instead.  

Sophie's fourth tray was an heart lacing idea from Nicole at The Activity Mom.  Sophie tried this one and got frustrated and never really wanted to try again, unfortunately.  I just think she isn't quite ready, even though I thought this was a good stepping stone to threading.

Her fifth tray was utilizing one of my favorite DIY toys - a heart bracelet stacker.  We used heart-shaped bracelets from the Dollar Tree.  These bracelets have since been added to her purse, because they are a must-have fashion accessory.  She preferred stacking them on her arms to stacking them on the dowel rod, but she loved them!  One of her favorites!

The last tray was by far the favorite tray of the week.  This was two small bowls of conversation hearts for Sophie to practice pouring back and forth.  She got SO good at this skill during these weeks.  I think the bowls and hearts were the perfect size for her to practice with and were easy to clean up.  I was very impressed by her progress pouring - and she was so proud of herself.

 Other Activities

We made heart cookies with her BFF!  We had so much fun cutting out and decorating cookies on Valentine's Day with our good friends.  They turned out delicious, and of course they were works of art.  Sophie decided to pose with her cookie to make sure we got a good picture.

We also did several different arts and craft activities this week, including a heart do-a-dot, foam stickers, and gluing conversation hearts on to a heart outline.  (Be sure to get my free printable shape outlines here!)

 The weather started to warm up here (though it has since turned cold again) and so my loves got to spend some quality time riding the bike and playing outside! She kills me in those shades! :)

 Next up will be a really simple rectangle week!

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
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

Tot School - Triangles

Sophie is 20.5 months old.

We continued on with our shape theme these past two weeks with triangles.  Strange as it is, I had such a difficult time finding things around our home that were triangles!  We ended up spending two weeks with this theme, because at the end of the first week we had just spent so little time in Tot School.  

Sensory Bin

I pulled back out the rainbow rice this week and it was a huge hit!  She has gotten so much better at pouring and spooning since the last time we played in the rice and she loves pretending to "cook" with it. I "hid" some wooden and pipe cleaner triangles in the rice, as well as included the triangles from her shape sorter and some tweezers to play with.

Tot Trays

Her first tot tray was a felt pizza I made for her at the last minute.  She liked this one a lot at first, but it didn't get much attention after the first few times.

Her second tray was a few pieces from the Who Lives Where? game.  The game itself is still too hard for her, but she had fun playing with the wooden pieces, putting the animals in the correct spot and building "houses" for them.

The third tray was a triangle road printable from Making Learning Fun.  Sophie had zero interest in this tray.  She never has been very into playing with cars, but I thought I would give it a try.  Even with a monkey that looked like her BFF Curious George in the car, she didn't even want me to pull it out for her.  Oh well!

Her fourth tray probably got the most use, but not in the intended way!  I had a triangle printable with her counting bears.  The idea was to put the counting bears on the line or in the triangle (whichever she decided was fun at the moment).  Mostly she just loved showing me the bears.  She would hold one up and say "look" and I would act really surprised that she was holding a purple bear.  So, we talked about colors and counted the bears, but really didn't make any triangles.

She was really good at her fifth tray whenever she decided she was interested in it.  I had three cups with shapes taped to the outside and some wooden shapes to sort into the cups.  I wasn't sure how she would do, but she picked it up really fast.  But mostly, "drinking" from the cups was way more fun than sorting shapes.

Her final tray was a counting activity using the triangles from her Melissa and Doug shape stacker.  She loves counting, but has decided that "one" is overrated.  Everything is "two, three, four".  So I figured some deliberate counting with me might help show her that one is important too.  She really didn't care to count these triangles, though she did "steal" the cups for her sensory bin and kitchen. 

Overall, I'm not sure that the trays are the best approach for her anymore.  They don't seem to get or keep her attention like they used to.  I don't know if I am just slacking in my preparation, or if it's time for another approach.  I've been doing a lot of thinking about how we might try a different approach in the future.  I'll probably write a post about that as a way to process my ideas soon.

Other Activities

Music Time: We played with the triangle from her Melissa and Doug Band in a Box quite a bit this week.  She had the most fun when it was accompanied by Daddy on the guitar.  

We also sang our Shape song using laminated triangles, which is still just as much of a hit as it was the first week.

(to the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat") 

Hold your triangle high,

Triangles touch the ground,

Put your triangle on your head,

Then we spin around!

Arts and Crafts:  We didn't do as much with arts and crafts this week, mostly because I had a hard time coming up with something cute for triangles!  But she did a Do-a-Dot triangle, colored some triangles I drew, and glued triangles in an outline.  

She spent TONS of time drawing and really has come to love drawing with a pencil rather than her crayons.  I cannot tell you how much of our day was spent with her drawing at her little desk.  She looks SO grown up!  I did decide to get her some colored pencils since she enjoyed pencil so much and she is a big fan.

Tot Notebook:  I added the triangle page from the  shape quiet book, though she didn't want to play with it.   She did love drawing with her "special marker" on the traceable shape book.  

Out and About:  We had the first "snow day" our Florida town had seen in 25 years - complete with school and bridge closings, which meant Daddy got to stay home with us.  (As someone who grew up in the Midwest, it was totally anti-climatic.  But I know to people around here it was a huge deal!) Here's a picture of the most ice I will ever see at our house, and the amount of ice it takes to shut down a Florida town for two days. ;)  (In all fairness, the bridges really were dangerous, and people down here are in no way used to driving in any kind of ice!)

The funny thing is, our church hosted a Snow Day event just three days before, where they shipped in snow for the kids to play in!  Here are a few pictures from our fun in the snow, 

Next week will be all about hearts for Valentine's Day! :)

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
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

Tot School - Squares

Sophie is 20 months old.

It has been so great to get back into the swing of Tot School these past couple weeks.  I am constantly remind of how beneficial it is both to Sophie and myself.  I love the dedicated one-on-one time (when I don't allow myself to try and multitask our time together - something I definitely should do more of!) and Sophie loves having "new" things to explore each week.

Forgive the pajamas in almost every picture - it was cold outside and we didn't leave the house much.  Sometimes a girl just wants to play in her jammies!

Sensory Bin

Our sensory bin this week was filled with square items I found around the house.  Honestly, I have a harder time with these shape bins than I anticipated!  This bin included wooden squares from a neglected craft project long ago, some letter tiles from the game Up Words, squares from the Melissa and Doug Pattern Blocks set, some foam squares, and a couple square boxes for transferring.

She didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the circles, because she had a more difficult time getting the shapes on the spoon.  You can't make square soup if you can't scoop the letters.  That's just a fact. ;)  She did explore it quite a bit and enjoyed finding all the letter tiles and putting them in the box.

Tot Trays

The first tray this week was making popsicle stick squares.  Not such a hit at this point for Sophie.  She liked playing with the sticks, but had no desire at all to match them up to the square template.  So we just counted to four instead. 

Her second tray was by far the winner of this toddler's affections this week.  I pulled the game board and a container of letter tiles from the game UpWords.  If you are unfamiliar with this game, it is similar to Scrabble, but the tiles can stack on top of one another to modify words.  It was a last minute find in my closet and I knew from the second I saw it that she would absolutely love it.  She loved putting the letters on the board and stacking them into towers.  She was also very interested in the letters on the tiles, and would repeat after me each time I told her the letter name.  I need to remember these tiles when we move on to the alphabet!

The next tray was sorting little and big blocks.  She enjoyed this tray, but I think it was mostly because it included some of her rubber blocks that I had put away in exchange for some of her "big girl" blocks.  This was the first time we have really explored the concept of little and big.  By the end of the week she was saying the words and (when she felt like it) putting the blocks on the correct sized squares.  Not sure she really understands the concept yet, but she could definitely match up the blocks.  This will definitely be a concept we keep exploring together.

Her fourth tray was putting pipe cleaner squares onto a dowel.  She liked this one and we said the color names as she put them on as well.  And, when you get tired of putting squares on, the dowel rod makes a great microphone to practice singing.  Not kidding. ;)

The fifth tray didn't get touched - probably because it looked too much like chores. ;)  I put out some square wash cloths to fold, something she usually likes attempting when we are doing laundry, but apparently wasn't fun enough for Tot School.  Oh well!

The final tray was a simple DIY shape sorter using a plastic container with a square and circle cut into the lid and her small foam shapes.  She liked this one alright, but honestly was too interested in the others to want to keep going back to it.

Other Activities

Music Time:  I had planned to sing the shape song we did last week using both squares or circles, but honestly the week went by and it completely slipped my mind!  We'll have to do it next week.  But there is always plenty of music in our house!  Sophie learned "My God is So Big!" this week and absolutely loved it!  She caught on really fast and soon was taking the word "Big!" as her solo part.  So much fun.  Check out the video if you are in the mood for some non-square related adorableness!

Arts and Crafts: I'm pretty sure this is Sophie's favorite part of our Tot School activities and I need to be better at integrating more into our day.  This week we kept it pretty simple with a square Do-A-Dot page, putting stickers on a square template, and making a turtle shell by gluing square (an idea I found at Intentional by Grace).

Tot Notebook:  I added two square pages to Sophie's Tot Notebook this week:  the square page from this printable shape quiet book and the square page from this traceable shape book.  The quiet book pages haven't been as much of a hit as I expected, but she loves drawing and "writing" with the dry-erase marker on the traceable pages.

Out and About:  We tried out a local gymnastics place's Preschool Open Gym this week and Sophie had the time of her life!  She loved jumping and running around and was talking about "nasteeks" the rest of the day.  It was especially nice in such cold weather (for here anyway - it was below freezing in Florida!) for her to get a chance to run around and burn off some energy.

Next week: Triangles!

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
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