Tot School - Week 3 - Blue Week!!!

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Week 3 of Tot School - BLUE WEEK!!! 

Buddy Boy is 32 months old

*warning - huge photo dump ahead!*

I decided to wait until the end of the week to do out tot school post, to give myself more time to take pictures. The following is what happens when I do that:


Our BLUE trays are:

My First Crayola Markers (in blue) with dot sheets basket

Lacing Basket

One to One/Fine Motor Skills - tongs

Our BLUE Sensory Basket

BLUE Unifix cubes 

BLUE stretchy key chain (very stretched out at this point, since Buddy Boy decided to see how far he could make it go)

BLUE plastic seahorse (from a fishing set that someone got at the dollar tree - the fishing set has long been broken - imagine that! :) )

BLUE dinosaur

BLUE magnetic numbers (not the exact ones, but close enough!)

BLUE bear family counters

BLUE shoe - from our miniatures collection

BLUE puzzle erasers - found at our local Walgreens marked down - they do really fit together! :)

BLUE oval and diamond blocks from a shapes puzzle
BLUE spiky balls, found at both Walmart and Target
BLUE plastic ball (who knows where I found it!)
BLUE ribbon
BLUE berries and cubes (freezable ice cubes from Dollar Tree and Target Dollar Spot)
BLUE foam stars/hands fond at Target's Dollar Spot

Last, but not least - our BLUE book from ABC Teach. The interesting thing I found when we have looked at our book (which I got a little busy and haven't been able to ribbon-bound yet) is that he connects the blue plastic ball with the picture of the Earth  he will put it on top of the picture every time he sees it. It is very neat to see the shape recognition come on it's own.

Another sensory work - blue gems, marbles, pom-pom balls - soft and prickly, and small blue erasers in a - YES - and BLUE pencil box. I have found these from various places - Walmart, Dollar Tree, Target Dollar Spot etc. I also included three blue eggs from my Easter stash -they are actually in the shape of a bunny, and when you look close you can see the face and front paws etched in.

The last tray is a scooping/transferring work. Great for left to right and preparation for scissors! The eggs were also from my easter supply of materials, and the scoop - bought at a local grocery store in an egg-dye kit.

I have to admit, I was very glad to NOT have to say the word RED every few seconds for a few days. Now for the action shots!

Instead of making small dots as I did with our red week, I made small circles for him to use the dot marker with. It made for an easier target with the marker, and much easier to accomplish - although he did still do plenty of scribbling, marking on himself. and the floor. He is, after all, still your average two year old boy!

He did not do the lacing card very much, but when he did choose it, I was surprised at how well he did.

There was a day when we didn't get a chance to do his blue trays until the afternoon, so we pulled them down in the school room. Of course, Bug just had to work with them as well, so Buddy shared :)

Of course, his favorite work so far is still the sensory basket! 

It never does take long to get dumped out all over the floor, his mat - everywhere!

Still a little on the mouthy side, he figured out pretty quickly that the blue ball, on of his favorites from the bin, could be held between his teeth. He also figured out that I thought it was somewhat funny and was willing to make me laugh as much as I wanted :) .

Something I didn't plan to come from the sensory play is what we now refer to as 'blue bowling'! He asked me about halfway through the week if he could go bowling with the blue ball, which took me by surprise. So we set up some makeshift 'pins' out of blocks, and that's how 'blue bowling' was born!

Of course, when he reset the pins, they were in his own trademark style.

He really likes to line objects up, and does this A LOT - both during school time and in free time elsewhere.

One of my favorite faces, when he figured out for the first time that he could keep the egg in the scoop and walk around with it.

Then he realized that if he could squeeze it hard enough, it would separate into the two halves.

Which made for an extension of the work, because he had to figure out how to get the correct halves together again. This proved to be a little hard for him, so I ended up helping find the right pieces, and then he would fit them together and replace them in the bowl.

That pretty  much wraps up our blue trays. We will continue to work through these for one more week - not only do I think he needs the two weeks, but it works out very well because some days we don't get a chance to work one-on-one. The only thing that may change is that next week I may bring out some red and let him compare the two colors, because if I give him the choice of red or blue, he will tell me the correct answer to the color of an object. However, if I just ask him "What color is this?", he still answers 'red' too often, and I think he needs to see the two together some.

I will post anything new that we do with the color blue next week. I hope you have enjoyed seeing my Buddy Boy at play and would love for you to leave a link in the comments if you are a fellow tot-school mama. I LOVE looking at other tot school posts, and usually end up borrowing ideas!

To see what we did for RED week, check here for week 1, and here for week 2!