Tot Trays - St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday I posted the baby tot trays that I will be using with my son this month....check them out here.

And these are for my daughter, who is almost three years old.  (Seriously...when did that happen?)

She likes to help me put the trays together and comes up with some good, creative ideas! 

Tonging pom poms

This is a co-tray for both kids and it's a hit.  And sometimes it's a fight over the tongs.... it just depends on the day!

Shamrock patterning

Coin counting and number recognition

You can't tell from the picture, but each little jar is labeled with either 1, 2 or 3.  Sweet Girl will have to add the correct number of coins.

Word recognition and word-picture matching

For this tray I printed out some pictures of our family and some simple words (ie. cat, dog).  Then I used some of my alphabet stickers to spell out the corresponding word on a card.  I will have her look at the word, try to recognize what it is and then glue on the correct picture.  She can easily recognize our names, so the cat and dog will be the most challenging for her.  For these words, I will have her sound out each letter and try to determine which word/picture it would be.

Pre-writing/tracing letters

Cutting practice

Sweet Girl loves to cut!

Baby Tot Trays for St. Patrick's Day

My little guy is growing so fast.  He is already 15 months and I swear it literally feels like he was born just yesterday.  Even the second time around, I am still amazed at how fast they learn and how much they enjoy learning.

Little Man sometimes plays around with some of our trays so I decided to put some together for him this month!  Boy were they a hit!!  He will literally sit and play with them for about 20 minutes.  He enjoys the fine motor activities the most so I tried to include several of those types of activities for him.

Here are his "trays" for this month...

Coin drop

Transportation counters

For this tray, we just play with the counters together.  While he plays with them I say things like, "oh...that's a red airplane....it flies high up in the sky, like this", and "Look...there are two of these blue boats".  Basically the skill here is just to expose them to as much language as possible.

   

Dropping sticks in a container

(Note...I ended up punching a hole in this container because he really wanted to drop them through the lid.  I don't think it was very interesting to just drop them in without the lid...as I originally intended.)

   

Pick up sticks and a sugar shaker

This is his favorite little activity of all the trays.  He is so cute as he tries to carefully to place the sticks in the sugar container.

   

1:1 correspondence

I had included this tray with Sweet Girl's originally, but both of my kiddos loved this one.  I was really surprised at how insistent Little Man was at using the tongs.  As he tries to pick them up, I usually help him and then guide his hand to the muffin tin.

Here are some action shots...

   

     

    

Tomorrow I will be posting Sweet Girl's trays....stay tuned!

St. Patrick's Day Fun

Looking for something to do for St. Patrick's Day?  Here are some things we did last year that were super fun!

Rainbow cupcakes

Click on the link to see other fun party ideas!

St. Patrick's Day Crafts

St. Patrick's Day Tot Trays

St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bin



Toddler crafts - Week in Review

What a fun filled week we had!  Happy Friday!

Shamrock sun catchers

These were really easy to make.  I just laid down a piece of contact paper on our counter, gave Sweet Girl green tissue paper and glitter and let her go at it!  Once she was done, I covered it with another piece of contact paper and then cut out shamrock shapes!!  I love having these sun catchers in our kitchen window!!

Finger painted shamrocks

We used yellow and blue paint to make green shamrocks.  Sweet Girl didn't get the whole "color mixing" thing, but did enjoy getting all dirty!  This would be a great activity for teaching color blending to older children!

Rainbow with a pot of gold

This took FOREVER to make.  First we had to sort our cheerios by colors, then glue them onto the rainbow (I did that part...Sweet Girl lost interest after the sorting).  Then we took a little break for a while and came back to add the pot of gold, clouds and sun.  Sweet Girl insisted it had to have a sunshine!!

Heart shamrocks

We made shamrocks out of heart shapes.  Then Sweet Girl used her watercolors to paint the page (watercolors are her absolute favorite!!).

F is for....feathers

Sweet Girl loved this one because it involved glue and feathers.  Warning, though....cutting out the letter F made quite a mess.  There were feathers everywhere!!

F is for....flower prints from soda bottles

I saw this neat idea over at Frugal Family Fun and thought it would be great for our letter F week.  As you can see we made three flowers and then Sweet Girl decided to add her artistic touch! 

What did you do this week???

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

Happy St. Patty's Day from my family to yours!!  What a great reason to have some fun!!  Like I need an excuse to make something or have a party.  Tomorrow we are having some of Sweet Girl's friends over for some outdoor fun, crafting and little celebration. 

Here's what I have planned!!

Rainbow cupcakes

Yummy!!  These were a little time consuming to make, but look so pretty!  Sweet Girl actually had one for breakfast this morning....shhh...don't tell!!

St. Patrick's Day coloring books

I put together these super simple coloring books from different images I found on the web.  The front page is from here.  We are also going to finger paint and make some shamrocks out of hearts!!

St. Patrick's Day treat bags

I saw these super cute and free printables over at Cap Creations and just had to make them for our little party!!  How cute!

Here are my lucky charms!!   How did I get so lucky???

I made these little shirts for my kiddos using transfer paper.  I added fabric glue and glitter for Sweet Girl's shirt and just fabric paint for Little Man's! 

Do you have anything fun planned for today???

Tot Trays - St. Patrick's Day

All of our tot trays are inspired by St. Patrick's Day this week!!!  Happy early St. Patty's Day!!! 

Pot of Gold Counting

We are still working on number recognition so I thought counting gold coins would be fun. 

Pouring and dividing split peas between three containers

Sweet Girl loves pouring so this should be fun for her.  The glass dishes are tealight holders.

Tonging green sparkly pom poms

Shamrock ABC's

This is from Oopsey Daisy's recent mommy school pack.  I printed off letters A, B, C, D, E, F and G and have cooresponding green alphabet stickers to match.

Shamrock size sequencing

Also from Oopsey Daisy

Coin drop

Always a favorite!!

Shamrock sticker sort

St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bin

I decided to keep our St. Patrick's Day sensory bin simple this month.  In here are three bags of split peas, some green shamrock coins, some of our green transportation counters, a green bowl and three green eggs (which have little surprises in them).

Check back at the end of the week to see our St. Patrick's Day crafts!!