Summer is officially here! We exposed Little Cutie to a lot of seashells and water for our summer theme. Here were our shelves:
Books A Day at the Beach (Dora) Bunny at the Beach (Usborne) Bebe Goes to the Beach by Susan Middleton Elya Let's Look at Summer by Sarah Schuette Signs of Summer by Colleen Dolphin The Seasons Baby Loves Summer! by Karen Katz Seaside by Roger Priddy At the Beach by Anne Rockwell
Activities
Watering Flowers
This one was more of a challenge for Little Cutie than I thought it would be. I think it was because there wasn't a good place for her to hold her little watering can. I showed her how to pour the water onto the flowers. I think she watered more of the sidewalk than the flowers, but that's okay. She was giggling the whole time.
Paint with Water
Because Little Cutie is still putting things in her mouth, I wanted to expose her to some painting, minus the mess of the paint. These paint with water books are great, but I have not been able to find them in the stores. I just tore out a page of a book that I had when I was little. She loved using a new utensil and dipping the paintbrush in the water. I wish I had a smaller brush for her little hands, but we used what we had.
Shells in a Wipes Container
Little Cutie loved putting the shells into the wipes container. She loved to hear the "clink" sound they made when they went in and hit the other shells. And of course, she started to put the shells in her mouth.
Craft Foam Ice Cream
This one was just for fun. Little Cutie had never touched craft foam before so I cut out some ice cream and cone shaped pieces for her to play with. No real agenda here, just open ended play. I made 2 cones and 6 scoops of ice cream. She liked to pick them up one at a time and carried them all over the house. At one point, I saw her putting them inside her watering can. She also liked to chew on the craft foam (will this stage of putting everything in her mouth ever end?!).
Seashell Discovery Bottles
I want to expose Little Cutie to so many new things, but I feel limited in what I can do because she still puts things in her mouth. I found the idea for discovery bottles on Pinterest and decided to make some with the shells this week. I put three shells in two bottles and filled them with water. She thought they were sooo cool! The shells clinked together when she shook them.
She Sells Seashells Tongue Twister
We have been trying to incorporate a nursery rhyme or song with each week's theme. This week the tongue twister She Sells Sea Shells seemed appropriate. I couldn't find a book with the words at the library, so I just created my own and printed it out. You can get a copy HERE. (it folds into quarters)
Big Bath Tub
We have been using the infant/toddler tub for bath time with Little Cutie since she was born. But in keeping with our summer theme, we decided to fill up the big tub and let her explore in the water with about 5 times the amount of toys we usually have in the tub. She played with rubber ducks, Alex Quacky Cups, a watering can, and even the craft foam ice cream made its way into the tub. She may have been a little wrinkly when she got out.
Father's Day was last Sunday, but we continued thinking about Daddy all week long. I decided to do something a little different this week...I didn't fill the shelves. Instead, I brought the activities out when we wanted to do one. We also read some great books about Daddy.
Books The Daddy Book by Todd Parr Daddy Hugs 1 2 3 by Karen Katz Just Like Daddy by Cecilia Johansson Father's Day by Anne Rockwell Daddy Adventure Day by Dave Keane Oh, Daddy! by Bob Shea Driving Daddy by Hope Vestergaard
Activities
Make a Father's Day Card
Little Cutie gets very excited when she sees me get out a crayon and paper. In the past, we tried giving her more than one crayon at a time and it was too overwhelming for her. She loves to color scribble. Unfortunately, she still occasionally puts things in her mouth, so the actual coloring doesn't last very long. Daddy liked his card from her.
Hape Pound and Tap Bench
Daddy loves woodworking and fixing things around the house, so this toy fit perfectly with our Daddy theme. Little Cutie can hit the balls with the hammer pretty well, but can't quite hit them hard enough for them to fall through. She does love to play the xylophone and make loud music!
Laugh & Learn Learning Lawn Mower
Daddy mows the lawn in our household and Little Cutie loves to watch him from the windows. I have never seen her play with this toy as much as she did this week. I showed her how when you push it, the balls spin around in the top. She probably spent more time dragging it backwards around the house, but occasionally went forward. We noticed it works better on surfaces with more traction (like the carpet). She danced when it played songs and we pretended to mow the letters on our floor letter mat.
Bowling
Daddy loves sports, but the weather was too hot in our neck of the woods to get outside, so we opted for some indoor bowling! Little Cutie was more interested in throwing the bowling balls and pins and hearing the noise they made when they hit the tile floor. She didn't play for very long.
Last week, we focused on all things numbers. A little bit of number recognition as well as counting. Here were our shelves:
Books My Very First Book of Numbers by Eric Carle 123 Beep Beep Beep: a Counting Book by Brian Biggs My First Numbers: Let's Get Counting! by Dawn Sirett Numbers by Xavier Deneux Eight Silly Monkeys illustrated by Steve Haskamp I Spy Little Numbers by Jean Marzollo Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow Count with Dora! by Phoebe Beinstein Counting in Candyland (Hasbro) How Do Dinosaurs Count to Ten? by Jean Yolen & Mark Teague Five Little Sleepyheads by Andreas Nemet and Hans-Christian Schmidt John Deere: Farm 1 2 3 1 2 3 a Slide-and-Seek Book by Claire Henley
Activities
Dominoes
Little Cutie was so excited when we got these out. So excited in fact, that she was banging on the case of dominoes and they flipped over and all fell on the floor. She liked the sound they made when they hit the tile floor and ended up continuing to throw them on the tile. I was afraid they would break, so we put them away. She helped me pick them up one at a time.
Outdoor Foam Number Hunt
This wasn't as successful as I thought it would be. I popped out the numbers from our foam alphabet mat and scattered them around our backyard. I was thinking Little Cutie would go around the yard and pick them up, but she wanted nothing to do with it. Apparently, my child has not been exposed to grass enough in her life because that was all she was interested in. We ended up moving the numbers to the patio and after a few minutes of just running around, she started to pick them up and hand them to us. We talked about what number she picked up.
Counting Stickers
She did not like the stickiness of the stickers, so I ended up peeling them off the sheet for her and holding them over the space on the paper. Then, she pushed them down onto the paper to make them stick. She walked away as we started the fifth row. (I created this sheet to fit the stickers we were using, but you could really use it with anything. You can get a copy of it HERE)
Stacking Cups
This lasted maybe 1 minute. She does normally love the stacking cups, but I think she just wasn't feeling it at the time. I stacked them all up, she got really excited, knocked it down, and walked away.
Poms in a Container
To say that Little Cutie loved this activity is an understatement. She still occasionally puts things in her mouth, so I kept this one in a container until we were ready to play. At first, she didn't really know what to do with everything, but when I showed her how to put the pom through the hole in the container, she giggled. She did this activity over and over again. We counted the poms as she put them in the container. I think we played with this every day of the week.
5 Little Ducks
We sang the nursery rhyme 5 Little Ducks and used five little rubber ducks and one larger rubber duck to show the ducks not coming back. I was sitting behind our red ottoman and Little Cutie came around the corner to look for where the little ducks were going. We also read the Raffi book 5 Little Ducks and then I let her play with the ducks. She loves rubber ducks and when they squeak.
B. One Two Squeeze Blocks
We started our play by putting the blocks in a pyramid and Little Cutie knocked it over. These blocks come in a little zippered bag and she loved taking them out of the bag and putting them back in. Each block has a different number on it (1-10) with animals and different designs that add up to that number, so we spent some time counting those and talking about the animals. She also enjoyed throwing the blocks all over the room.
Stirring with a Bowl and Spoon
I took a small mixing bowl from our kitchen, three sippy cup lids, and a big spoon and let her stir the lids up. She absolutely loved this activity. She carried the bowl all over the house and added other things to stir in.
We didn't quite get to read every book on our list, but other than that, we had a good week with numbers.
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!
