Stamping Shapes

I saw this great letter recognition activity, over on The Activity Mom's site, that I just LOVED. Except that Kayleigh isn't really working on letter recognition just yet. We're still in the exposure stage. Although she will be working more purposefully on that in the late summer/fall.

So I decided to revamp it to fit Kayleigh's learning needs. So I changed it into a shape activity.

I made a layout with shapes instead of letters and printed it out twice. One for the board and one to cut into pieces. I put the pieces into a bowl.

Kayleigh drew a shape out of the bowl and then would stamp all the similar shapes with Do-A-Dot markers. She really enjoyed this and did a great job. Only a couple of times did she get ornery and try her "Kayleigh mind games." LOL

In fact, one color wasn't good enough. She wanted to use them all. So we picked a different color for every shape, with only one repeat.

I'm also thinking about laminating a board and letting her use dry erase markers to mark them off. You could also cover the shapes with stickers instead of stamps. I plan on using this activity for number recognition also.

I actually remembered to save my work this time so I can share. You can download the page by clicking HERE.

Tot School

Kayleigh is 28 months

Well we made a tot school comeback after our two-week break for Kevin's retirement. We did quite a bit this week, although all the activities were totally random. There was no theme, I just set up some trays and we did those along with some playtime with some her learning toys.

The only thing remotely "crafty" that we did was when she scribbled all over her sisters final math test and tried to cut up her certificate of completion. Thankfully she is not good with the scissors. =o)

Tot Trays

Her favorite activity of the week was putting flowered drink stirrers into the holes of a sugar shaker. She LOVED it. She did almost everyday. She had her dad do it with her and she carried those stirrers everywhere.

I made her a shape sorting activity using our giant buttons and a veggie/dip tray. I just taped a different shape into one of the compartments on the tray. She actually did it. Two weeks off did not derail her slightly more cooperative spirit of late. Woot

I set out some Foam Beads with some pipe cleaners and let her do some lacing. She did as I asked but she was done after a few beads. She never opted to do it again.

She also had a spooning tray. I put two Ice Cream Bowls and filled one with treasures. She then spooned, or dumped, the treasures back and forth. I didn't get any pictures though. She insisted on sitting on my lap whenever we did this.

Learning Toys

Her favorite toys of the week were her Little People playsets. The palace , fairy treehouse, and her pink house in particular.

She read/played with her Shapes on the Farm mag-NUT-tics book. We got our copy at Sam's Club. If they still have them, I'm going to grab some of the other titles next time.

We played with her Fruit Dominoes for the first time. She did a bit of cooperating and a bit of trying not to match them. LOL


We also had fun with her MATCHIN' MIDDLES game. I only pulled out shapes that she knew already.

She had fun matching teddy bears with her Teddy Mix & Match game. We got ours from Sonlight. (It's cheaper through Sonlight.) It comes with the p3/4 core but I just bought some of the manipulatives. We're holding off on cores for a while. LOL The p3/4 will be the only new one she gets. The rest will be hand-me-downs.

The pieces are adorable and really sturdy. Kayleigh loves them. She plays pretend with them and has the bears hug, kiss, and sing to each other.

Bristle Blocks and MEGA Bloks rounded out our week. Shew! We were sure busy playing.







In other news, we read Teeny Tiny Mouse's Book of Colors exactly 1017 times. My throat hurts.


Be sure to head on over to Carisa's and see what fun all the other tot's have been having.