What's On The Trays- Post 7

D is 33 months.
S is 14 months.

On our trays for this week we had:

1. Connect 4 game

2. 2 recycled spice containers (well cleaned and now filled with water), sponges & a bowl (I also added a funnel later.)

3. Magnifying Glass File Folder Game

4. Hide N Squeak Eggs

5. Melissa & Doug Lace and Trace Pets

6. 55 Wooden Blocks (I had to include 2 different sizes to get enough), 1-10 numbered cards (You could just jot these down on scrap paper, but ours are from here and get used frequently.)

And now for the fun part:

   

The Connect 4 game definitely turned out be be both boys favorite tray this week. Dude requested it quite a few times and Spudder was desperate to get to it too. I'm not totally sure why Dude loved it so much, but he used it to make patterns and liked taking the pieces out. I wasn't totally sure Spudder was going to be able to drop the pieces in. He played with it for longer than I expected while not being able to. And then I guess it all clicked for him and I started hearing plunk, plunk,...plunk, plunk...plunk, plunk. I was excited!

   

 I couldn't resist putting out the Hide N Squeak Eggs this week. I'm so ready for it to feel like Spring! Spudder really enjoyed these, but Dude never choose this tray. He's far from mastering being able to match these up, but Spudder liked taking the tops off, trying to put them into the tray and really loved making them squeak. Anything musical or with an interesting noise is a hit with this guy right now.

 

We used our number cards and blocks for making towers. This started out as a tot school activity, but I ended up putting it on a tray because I knew Dude was going to want to repeat it. First I had him put the number cards in order. Then he built a tower next to each card using the appropriate number of blocks. 

When we got to the upper numbers I could tell that Dude was having trouble remembering what number he was counting after he had placed a block, so I had him start counting the blocks out onto the table first and then building each tower. This worked much better for him and was the way he did all of the towers the next time we did this.

   

Of course the best part of this activity was knocking the towers down!

   

Spudder also got a turn at tower building and was able to stack 2 blocks successfully (large or small). At his 12 month well-baby appointment I saw that this was a milestone that they ask about at 15 months so it looks like he's right on track. (Big brother built the tower in the right picture for Spudder to knock down.)

I had to hold the Melissa & Doug Lace and Trace Pets cards for Dude so I don't have any pictures of him working with them. Lacing is still a difficult task for him.

The Magnifying Glass File Folder Game I made for Dude was a hit!

The water cleanup tray was also tons of fun! This was a Montessori inspired idea. The idea was for Dude to sprinkle the water onto the table, clean it with a sponge, then wring the sponge out into the bowl.

   

Dude had a ball doing exactly that after I modeled it once for him.

Since he showed me that he already knew how to take the top off the spice bottle, I decided to give him a funnel to keep the fun going. He played like this for quite a while!

   

Spudder also got in on the fun both as a spectator and a participant. He shook, he splashed, he smiled, and he got drenched! I tried to give him a sponge too, but he immediately tried to eat it, so that wasn't going to work. Both boys did end up pretty wet, but it wasn't anything a change of clothes and a towel couldn't fix. The fun they were having was definitely worth it!

I'm linking this post up to Tot School at 1+1+1=1, Tot Tuesdays at My Delicious Ambiguity.