15 Months: Shapes

I know it's June and many people are winding down from school things for the summer, but we are just getting started in our house! We began with the simple theme of shapes last week (just circles, squares, and triangles), and used many toys that we already had at home. Here's what our shelves looked like:

We tried to read at least two books each day and do two activities each day. There wasn't really much structure or plan. If Little Cutie seemed like she was looking for something to do, we would go pick something from a shelf.

Books
Brainy Baby Shapes and Colors
Shapes and Sharing (Ark Angels) 
Baby Mickey's Book of Shapes (Little Golden Books)
Shapes (An Educational Lift-a-Flap Book)
Abby's First Book of Shapes (Sesame Street)
Big Bird's Guessing Game About Shapes (Sesame Street)
Architecture Shapes by Michael J Crosbie 
My Very First Book of Shapes by Eric Carle
Round is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Thong
Little Critter Shapes by Mercer Mayer
The Shape of Me and Other Stuff by Dr. Seuss

Activities

Triangle Peg Game

This is like the game they have on the tables at Cracker Barrel. I knew it would be the most challenging of all the activities this week. Little Cutie couldn't quite figure out how to get the tees in the triangle, but she had a lot of fun playing with the tees in the container. She also would take the tees out of the container and put them back in one at a time. This kept her occupied for probably 30 minutes.

Soccer

In the past, she has kicked little balls around the house, but I think the size of this soccer ball intimidated her. We would kick it to her and she would follow it around and then pick it up. She was more interested in the grass and rocks.

Square Mega Bloks

She loves Megabloks. She can put them together pretty well by herself. We added a container to our play and she took all the pieces apart and put them in the container and shook them around. She loves to make noise!

Stacking Rings

Little Cutie is pretty good at stacking rings. She sometimes puts the wrong one on, but realizes there is a gap and takes it off and searches for the correct one. She would take them off and hand them to me, then take them from my hands and put them all back on.

Plates and Food from LeapFrog Shapes and Sharing Picnic Basket

We have had this toy for a while and she used to play with it all the time, so I think she got bored quickly (hence, why there is no picture of her playing). She can match the shapes in the plate pretty well though.

Circle/Ball Box

I basically just put a bunch of round things together in one container. We had plastic balls, wooden balls, poms, frisbees, links, an Oball rattle, a crinkly baseball, and a bumpy ball. She liked the Oball rattle the best because it made noise. She enjoyed emptying the container.

Shape Sorter

First Little Cutie took the lid off, put each shape in the box one at a time, and put the lid back on. Then took them all out, one at a time. And repeat. I showed her how to put the shapes through the holes and she tried it but was mostly unsuccessful in choosing the correct hole. After she couldn't figure it out, she would hand me the shape to put in the correct hole.

Square/Cube Box

Our box had some wooden ABC blocks, some B. One Two Squeeze blocks, and little containers I found in the dollar section at Rite Aid. We stacked the blocks, made other shapes out of the blocks (like a pyramid), and put the ABC blocks inside the little containers. She was able to take the lids off of the little containers and put them back on. She also would pass me a block, I would create a stack, and then she would knock it all down.

Shape Song Swingalong by SteveSongs

This is a book with an audio CD that goes with it. There are 3 songs: two instrumental and one that you can read along with the book. The tune is very catchy and Little Cutie had fun dancing while I turned the pages as the story was sung. It was a little fast to look at some of the pages, but she was listening more to the song and dancing rather than looking at the book anyways.

Overall, it was a successful week for us. Next week, I hope to get a little more creative than using toys she's already been playing with for months!