What's On The Trays?- Post 4

D is 32 months
S is 13 months

In addition to doing Tot School with Dude we also do Tot Trays as inspired by Carisa over at 1+1+1=1.

I try to put these trays together with both my boys in mind whenever possible.

 

On the trays for this week we had:

1. Playdough & a couple of cookie cutters

2. A piece of styrofoam packing & some toothpicks

3. LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Letter Set

4. Multicolored hole reinforcement labels & a piece of paper with matching highlighter dots (The items beside the tray are only there for reference.)

5. Lincoln Logs an empty peanut butter jar with lid

6. Paper towel & toilet paper tubes, balls to fit in them, & an empty juice bottle

And what they did with them:

Playdough was played with. Dude still isn't incredibly fond of the texture of playdough, but is getting much better about it. I had really wanted to let Spudder get his hands on it for the first time this week, but he got sick and we never got around to it :(

Dude loved pushing the toothpicks into the styrofoam.

The LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Letter Set also got played with a little bit. This was another one I had hoped Spudder would enjoy, but we never actually got around to with him getting sick.

I was really excited to introduce this stickering activity to Dude. And he LOVED it! I had drawn dots with different color highlighters and gave him colored hole reinforcement stickers to match up to them.  I put the dots in the shape of a few letters we've already covered in our letter of the week studies. He wasn't nearly as particular or careful with this activity as I'd expected him to be, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. He can be extremely particular and hard on himself at times. I was very glad to see him get some relaxed fine motor practice! This idea occured to me while I was looking for supplies to do a similar sticker matching activity I saw over at The Princess and the Tot. 

   

The Lincoln Logs made for a fun tray for both boys. Spudder didn't have any problems turning even the longer pieces vertically to get them into the jar. He seemed to just do it naturally. I thougt that Dude might have wanted to screw the jar lid on and off, but he could have cared less about that. He just wanted to build a fort and do a little pretending. I certainly can't complain about that! I loved watching him play :)

Where are the paper towels rolls, you ask? Still on the shelf where they've been sitting all week! I thought that Dude would be all about checking out that tray, but I was wrong. He never wanted them and I didn't get around to offering them to Spudder. We did have a busy week though, so I may add some more items to that tray and see if I can't tempt Dude this coming week.

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