Color Sorting for Toddlers

We are really big into color sorting at our house right now.  Drew really loves to play with these little transportation counters we have and loves to sort them by color.  He even tries to "trick" us by putting a color in the wrong cup and waits to see if we will notice.  Then he laughs hysterically...which is adorable.

We have several different cups floating around our house and I also made the cups on the right side of the picture using leftover Tupperware and some paint.  

And you don't have to have any particular type of object or counter to make this work for you.  Just gather up some of your little ones toys in the corresponding colors.

Tot Trays: Fun with Trains

Now that Anna is in preschool three days a week I have a little more time to spend one-on-one with my sweet little guy.  He loves trains soooo much so I thought it would be fun to put together some train tot trays for him.  He's so cute carrying the trays around.....and it's so interesting to see how differently he approaches the trays than Anna did at that age.  Too cute.

Here are our train "trays".

Color matching with trains

Lacing trains and other vehicles

Making train tracks in playdoh

Train dot page

(Dot page from here)

All of these are pretty simple and I have been leaving them out all the time.  He loves trains and has been enjoying these trays!!  It gets me excited about making trays again!!  

Fine Motor Activity: Color Matching with Star Stickers

This is another color matching activity similar to the watercolor one from the other day. 

My daughter always loves finding something "new" to do and I love making these simple little activities for her.

This one is great for color matching and fine motor skills.  

All you need to do is draw some small dots on a piece of white paper in a variety of colors.

Then add a sheet of star stickers and let your little one match up the colors.

Easy peasy!!

Tot Trays - Farm Theme

We are going with a farm theme for this months trays!!  We love going to farms, so hopefully we can plan a visit this month also!!

Farm animal matching

Counting pigs

I made up these counting dot cards similar to the ones used in Montessori activities.

Mommy and baby farm animal nomenclature cards

This is from Counting Coconuts.

Stringing a farm

This is a super fun stringing activity and both of my kids love it!  The pieces are great because they can each stand on their own so you can play with them as well.  Plus, the string is great because it has a long wooden piece to help you guide the string through the whole.  

Pouring milk

I'll add some water and a little bit of white paint and Sweet Girl will practice this in the kitchen.

Cutting practice

Writing and coloring farm book

I put together a simple little farm book with some words Sweet Girl can trace, as well as pictures to read/match to the words.  And there is extra space for simple coloring too.

Here's what the inside of the book looks like.

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!

Valentine's Tot Trays

Sweet Girl and I finally pulled out all our Valentine's Day stuff.  She had lots of fun looking through all our things and I really enjoyed having her help me make our trays.  These are the trays she requested.

Uppercase and lowercase heart matching

This is from a Time for Tots set from last year.

Attaching heart close pins to a heart bowl

Heart color matching

Heart counting and placing the appropriate number inside each heart container

Letter writing and a mailbox

For this activity, I just wrote out some words for her to trace and then place in the mailbox.

Valentine's Tot Trays and More!!

I thought I would share our Valentine's Day tot trays and sensory bin from last year!  I'm in the process of putting some new and updated trays together for Sweet Girl, but will likely use some of these as well.  Just click on the link underneath each picture to be taken to the original post and more ideas!!

Valentine's Tot Trays Part I

Valentine's Tot Trays Part II

Valentine's Sensory Bin

Tot Trays Are Back!!

We've missed our tot trays around here!!!  They have definitely been missed.  Sweet Girl still asks for them, but I haven't been able to figure out the best way to keep them accessible to her, but away from Mr. "I like to eat everything".  Now that my little guy is on a more predictable sleeping schedule I have decided to bring those good ole trays back out for Sweet Girl to play with while he naps.  For now, I am keeping the trays in our guest bedroom closet (which also has slowly been transformed into my craft room).  During his nap time, we usually go up and she can play with the trays while I do some of my crafts.

It's working for us so far!  I'm hoping to keep up with the trays because Sweet Girl sure does enjoy them!

Here are our trays for this week!

Coin drop

Open and close activity

I've included little trinkets inside each container.

Playdough

Color matching

This is from a Time for Tots set.  It's probably Sweet Girl's favorite little activity.

Kumon coloring book

These are fun little books and seem to hold Sweet Girl's interest for a while. 

Snowman matching



Tot Trays

Color matching

These peg people get used a lot at our house.  Usually for pretend play in our doll house.  This tray is pretty simple and easy for Sweet Girl, but she enjoys them so I like to leave them out.

Pouring beans

Still a favorite at our house!

Knobbed cylinders

I usually try to just remove one row at a time because they can be pretty tricky to match up if they are all out.

Storytelling

For this tray I pulled out some of our little wooden animal/object pieces.  We will take turns pulling out one object/animal at a time and try to "tell a little story" about our objects.  Sweet Girl is really into stories right now.

Body part puzzle