Tot School: Green Week

Sophie is 13.5 months.

This week was all about the color green and we had lots of fun doing activities!  This week was the first week I've wondered if Sophie is actually starting to pick up on the whole color thing.  There have been several small hints that she's starting to recognize the differences between the colors we've been working on.  We'll see!  It's neat to see her little wheels turning with the activities.

Sensory Activities

I've decided to be more intentional about not limiting our sensory activities to just this bin every week.  Sophie is still very much in a "put everything in her mouth" phase, so it's difficult to balance my desire for her to get to experience these things with the fact that she just wants to put EVERYTHING in her mouth!

Anyway, this week's sensory bin was filled with split peas, plastic ice cubes, plastic lids from baby food pouches and green poms.  There was a green scoop, green bowl, and a green shark colander of sorts.  Once again we utilized the kiddie pool to help contain the mess (did I mention she's also hit the desire to throw phase? - we are deep in the throes of learning about gravity!)  She really liked feeling the peas in her hands and learning to stir with the scoop.

We also tried playing with shaving cream in a bag (I'm not quite brave enough to try outside of the bag yet!)  Sophie was pretty unimpressed.  We'll try it again in the future.

What's in our Book Basket?

We started our week with a trip to the library and most of the books we got were a HUGE hit with Sophie!

Some of Sophie's favorite books this week were Where's Spot?, Green, and Big Red Barn.  Here are the books that got pulled out of our book basket over and over!

Tot Trays

This weeks Tot Trays were also a big hit with the little lady!  We probably spent more time at Tot School this week than we ever have before.

Her first tray was floral foam and golf tees.  She absolutely LOVED this activity!  She would put them in and take them out of the holes I had created over and over.  She also enjoyed the sound that the tees made when she put them in the little cup.  She did not, however, like the residue the foam left on her hands.  She kept sticking them out for me to wipe off.

Her tongue has started to make an appearance whenever she's concentrating - I can't get enough! :)

Her second Tot Tray was her new Melissa and Doug Geometric Stacker.  I knew she was going to like this one - I bought it specifically after trying to find something that would mimic playing with Clay's headphone jack.  Near the end of the week she seemed to more naturally place the shapes on the correct colored post - one of my hints that she may be starting to pick up on these colors.  It was not all the time, but it certainly happened more frequently than it did at the beginning of the week.

 Her third tray was putting baby food pouch lids into a parmesan cheese container (an idea I got from Nicole at The Kavanaugh Report)  She moderately enjoyed it at the beginning of the week but this was the favorite by Thursday!  I bet she spent ten minutes putting them in and shaking them out.  She really liked me counting each lid as she put it in.

Gross Motor Activities

We had lots of fun playing with my big green exercise ball this week!  It was big enough that she had to roll it instead of throw it which finally helped her learn the concept of rolling.  She chased this thing around the house for a good long while.  It was one of the first things she wanted to do each morning when she woke up (probably because she couldn't miss spotting it from across the room!).

I found a copy of Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready at Goodwill for $3 and couldn't pass it up after seeing positive reviews online.  It gives an activity for each week from birth to age 5 to work up to kindergarten readiness.  Most of the activities are things we do naturally in Tot School, but some are things I would never think to include.  The recommended activity for this week was the "imaginary bridge" - having your toddler walk on a tape line.  I have to admit I thought this was a little advanced for my just walking toddler, but Sophie had a lot of fun trying!  I would show her how I put my feet on the tape and walked to the end.  She tried so hard - it was pretty precious.  We ended up doing it together (me holding her hands) while she worked diligently to put her feet on the tape.  It was definitely good exercise for her and she had a lot of fun with it.  (Note: she also recommended trying to walk backwards on the tape line...we passed on that one for the time being! ;))

 Other Tot School Activities

We painted a green leaves on a tree with Do-A-Dot paint markers and ate kiwi for a snack
(still not impressed). 

Toddler Life

We FINALLY were able to take Sophie out on her first bike ride this week!  She absolutely LOVED it!  She doesn't look so sure in this picture because it was taken before we really got started (and she wasn't keen on the helmet), but once she started going she was sold.  We ended up riding for about a half an hour because she was enjoying it so much.  By the end she was wanting to help Daddy with the handle bars.  I see many bike rides in our future! :)

She also demonstrated her new skill and a new word this week.  She learned to stand on her chair and say "no"...two toddler rites of passage that I wouldn't have minded coming a bit later! :)

Does it make me a terrible mother that I took 5 seconds to snap a picture before making her get down?? :/ 

What's Next?

I've decided to wait a couple weeks before introducing a new color.  I feel like she's starting to grasp these four (red, blue, yellow, and green) and I want to spend a few weeks just focusing on these before I confuse her with more.  We'll do some fun multi-color activities to enjoy these colors a bit before moving on!

Want to see how other families do Tot School?  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

Tot School: Independence Day

Sophie is 13.5 months.

If you read about our Fourth of July, you know that we had plenty of indoor play time this week for Tot School!  We had the exciting privilege of having Daddy home with us on Thursday and Friday, so he got some Tot School time in with Sophie as well.  I love seeing Clay interact with her in this way - and she loves it!  He always comes up with different ways to engage her than I did and his ways become the favorites (we all know who the favorite parent is! ;))

All of our activities were Red, White, and Blue themed, which provided a good way to talk about the holiday as well as good review of red and blue!

Sensory Bin

I took the plunge into giving her a more genuine sensory bin this week.  I have never been afraid of messy, just the fact that she still loves putting things in her mouth.  Our bin was full of white rice, red beans, blue and red pom poms and white ping pong balls.  She had two different kinds of scoops and some cups and bowls.  She had a fabulous time trying to scoop the rice (and improved greatly in this skill as the week progressed - still one we need to keep practicing though!).

The first day I was a little naive and put too much trust in the ability of my vacuum cleaner to suck up lots of rice, but I wised up by the second day!  We brought in her kiddie pool (we weren't getting any swimming time in this week anyway!) and put the sensory bin inside of it.  She could play to her heart's content and scoop from the bin to other containers without rice going everywhere.  But she did a really good job and had a great time.  She even got to play this with her little cousin who was in town and they both had a great time!

I also made her a sensory bottle with blue food coloring and patriotic colored beads and glitter.  She really liked it once she found it on the second day!  I made the mistake of putting two drops of food coloring in - next time I will only do one so that the beads are easier to see.  She still enjoyed shaking it (and I am really thankful I decided to super glue the lid on because this thing took a beating!).

Puzzle

Sophie got a new table last week!  I got it from Ikea for only $20!  SO worth it!

She really loves it and because of this, I am going to leave a puzzle out at all times instead of tying it to Tot School.  I may save some puzzles for our Tot School time, and I will still rotate them out, but I think it will be easier to just leave one out to play with as she wishes.

Tot Trays

The first Tot Tray was definitely the least interesting to her.  I had a red star-shaped ice cube tray with  blue pom poms for one-to-one correspondence (or just filling and emptying!) and she really didn't want to bother with it.  I don't know if it was because she got to explore the pom poms in the sensory bin or what, but this tray was only touched a couple of times and then only for a few seconds.

The second Tot Tray included red and blue counting bears for sorting.  I know that sorting is still beyond her, but I figured it at least provided good opportunity to talk about the colors.  And moving items in and out of cups is one of her favorite ways to play, so I knew she would enjoy it.  She scared me a bit when she first started playing, because the first three or four bears were put in the correct colored cups!  But I soon realized it was just a coincidence and we just enjoyed talking about the colors and shaking up cups full of bears. :)

The last Tot Tray was foam "beads" (slices from a red pool noodle) and a strand of blue beads.  Actually threading the beads was difficult for her, but she definitely tried to put the bead strand through the larger beads.  She really like playing with the foam and stacking the foam beads.  When she did Tot School with Daddy, he discovered that the maraca from the music bin made a perfect rod to stack the beads on.  This was how we played with this tray for the rest of the week.  Stacking onto a rod is her new favorite activity!  (Her ring stacker she got for Christmas got new love and appreciation this week after discovering this game with Daddy!)

Music Bin

I added a new bin to our shelf this week!  Sophie LOVES music.  She comes by it honestly as both Clay and I are very musical (and Clay teaches guitar out of our house).  Between guitar lessons and practicing singing and play for church, she is exposed to music all the time and naturally explores it with her play instruments and Daddy's real instruments.  But I wanted to create some intentional time to enjoy music together, especially when our theme provided such a great opportunity!

I put her red and blue maracas, a set of bells, and several American flags in the music bin this week.  When she wanted to explore it, I would put on a patriotic march and we would play our instruments or wave our flags to the music.  I didn't get any pictures of her in action, because, well, I was too busy playing the maracas or waving my own American flag!  We loved this time together and she wanted me to play the marches over and over again.  We'll definitely be doing more intentional music time together!

Other Activities

We also celebrated by eating a red and blue snack of blueberries and strawberries and painting an American Flag with our red and blue Do A Dots.

Next week we'll do the color green, and I am super excited about the fun things we have planned! :)

Want to see how other families do Tot School?  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

A (VERY) Rainy Independence Day!

Our local meteorologists gave a 100% chance of rain for the 4th of July.  Unfortunately, they were correct:  100% of our 4th of July was filled with rain!  There was some pretty serious flooding around our town and all of the city's celebrations were cancelled.  I was pretty bummed because I was definitely looking forward to taking Sophie to the parade.  She would have loved it.

Not the best picture of Sophie, lol, but the cutest one of her little 4th of July outfit!

We spent a little bit of time with family, but once we heard roads were closing we decided to head home for a quiet evening in.

We grilled some hotdogs in the George Foreman and had a living room picnic - nothing says freedom quite like that. :)  Sophie thought it was pretty fun to eat on the floor right next to Mommy and Daddy instead of in her chair.  We also watched Finding Nemo (the first time for both Sophie and Clay), which seemed highly appropriate considering the ridiculous amount of water we'd been seeing and hearing all day!

She looks like such a big girl!

All in all, it was a good day, and thankfully the rain slowed down by late evening.  Although as I type this, another system of rain has made its way here and it is once again pouring!  What happened to our Florida sun?  As one optimistic friend suggested, though, at least there weren't firework bans due to dry conditions.... :)

Any ideas for a safe way to play?

So the other night my daughter spent almost twenty minutes playing with a headphone jack and extender.  She was absolutely fascinated.  She would plug it in, then pull it out.  Turn it around, try another way, and do it all again.  Both Clay and I were sitting right there with her (and I think it goes without saying that nothing was plugged in - there was no electricity involved!).  She seriously loved it and was SO proud of herself.  (I love this intense look of concentration!)

Clay is an electrical engineer who teaches guitar out of our house as a side business.  She sees lots of plugs and cables.  She watches like a hawk (while I try to block her view with my body) anytime I plug something in. 

I am trying to think of a safe alternative that would utilize the same fine motor skills but more importantly gain her interest like the headphone jack.  I don't want her thinking that she can play with any plug she sees. 

I tried pop beads, but she didn't have the strength to actually connect them or pull them apart.  Serious frustration ensued.

My sister found this link for a DIY Busyboard through Pinterest, and I think it is something Sophie would really enjoy.  I like that it's "real life" (which is always way more interesting to her than her toys).  This will definitely be in our future, but it still isn't quite the same as her plugs.

From the Bright Green Door

My mom suggested something like an old school telephone operating board.  This would be perfect -  I could even color the cords so that she knew they were hers and not just any old cords.  Problem - I have no idea how to make this happen.  Haha.  They don't sell telephone operating boards on Amazon.  (The ridiculous part - I actually checked...you never know what you will find!).

So...this is where I need your help!  What toys or real life items would be similar to this?  Any suggestions?

Tot School: Yellow

Sophie is 13 months old.

Sophie really seemed to enjoy Yellow week in Tot School.  She and I skype with my mom almost every morning and Sophie wanted to play Tot School with Grandma two different times this week.  She'll crawl over and point at her shelf, saying what I can only assume to be her version of "Tot School".  How can I say no to that?

Sensory Bin

Her sensory bin was full of yellow items this week.  This one was a good bit harder for me than the other weeks!  Apparently I don't have much yellow. Her two favorite items in the bin were a yellow bean bag (when you shake it it makes noise...the girl loves a good instrument) and a yellow "koosh"-type lamb that flashes colored lights when you bounce it.  She was fascinated by that little thing but seemed a little concerned about how it felt in her hands.  She kept trying to pick it up by one little string.

Puzzle and Book Bin

Her puzzle this week was her Melissa and Doug Shape puzzle.  She did really well with this!  She's starting to figure out the idea behind puzzles and is getting pretty good at putting pieces in.  She also really enjoyed the puzzles at the library!

During our library trip, we got a few color books including Brown Bear, Brown Bear and some general "First Words" books.  Her favorite, though, was Quick, Duck.  (Future note to self: This book would be fabulous to focus on prepositions through the grass, over the stones, in the water, etc..  It would make such a fun gross motor "obstacle course" when Sophie is older!)  She is really loving books these days and nothing could make me happier!

Tot Trays

Sophie really enjoyed all three Tot Trays this week.  Her first tray was her little hand broom and yellow pom poms.  (A great idea I got from Melanie at Teach What Counts).  She enjoyed sweeping them up, but got really interested when one stuck to the bristles.  After that discovery she spent most of her time trying to get them to stick to the broom.

Her second tray was putting yellow pipe cleaners into a parmesan cheese container.  She worked hard at this one and eventually got the hang of it.  It seemed a little too hard for her at first, so I took the lid off and tried to just get her to put them in the cup.  This little determined girl wanted nothing to do with momma making things easier for her and wanted the lid back on.  A few more tries and she had it!  She also discovered that it was really fun to take the pom poms from her other tray and shake them up in the canister.

Her third tray was definitely the favorite.  I took some of her Melissa and Doug magnets (only the animals) and put them on a little pan.  She got pretty good at identifying several of them (dog, horse, goat, monkey) and making some animal sounds.  This is a picture of her "loving" the animal.  She did this all the time! :)

Other Activities

This week she painted with yellow do-a-dot paint (which she loves!) and played with Play-doh for the first time.  She was pretty timid at first (she doesn't really like "messy" hands) but got more interested as we played.  Her favorite thing to do was to take some little balls I made and put them in the canister (pretty much her go-to game). :)

She also spent a lot of time with music this week.  I'm teaching the children's music for our Vacation Bible School and was working on learning the songs and motions.  Sophie LOVED the dvd and wanted me to play it over and over again (it shows kids dancing and singing).  She played her drum with them and eventually started trying some motions.  It was precious.

We won't do official Tot School this week because of VBS - it's just too busy and she's getting lots of fun activities at church with her friends.  She came home with a sensory bottle with sparkle confetti today! We'll start back up the following week, probably with the color green.

Places I'm linking up:

Tot School Gathering Place at 1+1+1=1 

Tot School Tuesday at See Vanessa Craft
Tuesday Tots at Rainy Day Mum