Avery is 17.5 months old
This week I decided to try out my first theme. I thought it would be easiest to begin with a holiday and since my grandmother was Irish and Eric and I spent our honeymoon in Ireland, I thought St. Patrick's Day would be perfect! I found so many great ideas online but most of them were geared towards older kids, can't wait for St. Patrick's Day next year. However, here is what I came up with...
We did our first sensory bin this week and Avery loved it! We played with it almost everyday. She had a great time scooping, pouring and playing with everything. Towards the end of the week she got into finding all the treasure (gold coins, shamrock erasers, and green flattened marbles) that were hiding down in the split peas. She'd pull one out and place it in a green cup and then go back in for more.
We did some finger painting. First we made handprint shamrocks and then we did a blue and yellow makes green painting. She loved it!!
We did some tonging with green tongs and green sparkle pompoms. She was very fascinated with the tongs!
We made a shamrock "stained glass" with construction paper, contact paper, and little tissue paper squares. She was so funny about the tissue paper. Since they stuck to the contact paper she kept trying to get them to stick to her shirt and mine (thinking they were like stickers) and couldn't understand why they wouldn't.
On rainbow day we went on a rainbow walk around the block and looked for things that were each of the colors of the rainbow. Avery had a great time looking at everything and saying the colors back to me.
That day she also helped me cut the bananas and strawberries for the rainbow fruit pizza we had for snack. We used a plastic knife and I helped her cut.
At bath time we did some rainbow shaving cream painting. She had a great time!
On St. Patrick's Day we went on a shamrock sticker hunt. They were "hidden" around the living room and when she found each one she got to stick it on a piece of paper with a big shamrock on it.
We did a work with a paint tray and flattened green marbles. She loved the sound the marbles made when she dropped them back into the the glass container. This was another one she kept going back to again and again!
Friday she wasn't feeling too well so we decided to scrap our tot school plan and just have a free play day.
Besides St. Patrick's Day themed activities, I also gave Avery a wallet work this week. She always wants to play with Eric and my wallets so I decided to give her her own. I took one of my old wallets and put in some old cards, added some play coins and made some fake dollar bills. It has become one of her favorite things to do. She loves it!
Along with our St. Patrick's Day Tot School, we did St. Patrick's Day themed snacks and meals. Several of them were used as practical life works (cutting and whisking). Head of here to check out what we ate!
Head over to 1+1+1=1 to check out all the other tot school posts!
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Oh my goodness Liz! You really outdid yourself! I love all of these wonderfully creative ideas for St. Patrick's Day! The "stained glass" shamrock is beautiful. Even the hunt for shamrock stickers in the living room sounds like so much fun...right along with her very own wallet full of paper money and coins. Do we have a mini shopping buddy for special mother/daughter trips? I think so...
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, is right! Um, aren't you supposed to be tired or something? ;) This is amazing. So much great stuff here. I love the colored shaving cream idea. I'm going to steal that and hope Nate doesn't try to put it in his eyes or mouth...where he likes to put soap suds every once in a while.
ReplyDeleteNew follower here! Avery is so cute!!! Looks like she had fun with the St. Patty's Day activities!
ReplyDeleteLove the sensory box and the shaving cream idea is great!
ReplyDeleteI love the way your shamrock tissue paper collages turned out! The window look with the paper around it really lets you see the shape good!
ReplyDeleteYou are an absolute genius with the colored shaving cream! We're doing a Noah's Ard/Rainbow theme in a couple of weeks and this would be a perfect activity for my little guy! Bookmarking it right now. Thanks for sharing.
Wow! Great activities, especially the colored shaving cream and stained glass. Love it! Also, where did you get the green tongs? I have been trying to find some good (but inexpensive) ones for the girls, but I am having a tough time tracking some down...
ReplyDeleteThanks so much everybody, we had a fun week! Amber, I definitely have my energy back. First trimester was tough (didn't start tot school until afterwards) but I am now feeling great! Annette, Avery is totally my shopping buddy, thank goodness, makes errand so much easier! Carolyn, I got the tongs at Hobby Lobby. I had a really hard time finding just what I wanted and I happened to come across these and thought they were perfect for beginning tongs. I also have another pair (also from Hobby Lobby) that are the exact same size but the tonging end is like normal tongs instead of larger like the ones in this post. They weren't too much either, can't remember the exact price but it wasn't bad.
ReplyDeleteWOW, Liz... this was such a great post (as was the St. Patty's Day food post). Thanks for making me feel like the laziest parent on earth. Haha. Just kidding! You really do motivate me to get going with Tot School though. I was just at the website and I'm not sure where to begin! If you have any tips please email them to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're feeling better! Yay, second trimester!
Holly
I think I need to make a wallet for my LO. Cute!!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Liz! I didn't think we had a Hobby Lobby here in FL but I found one close by. And boy, am I in love! That place is amazing!! And I did find the section of mini tongs. Couldn't believe they were $1.57... amazing. Thanks so much for the tip! :)
ReplyDeleteOkay - all of this was way too cute! Seriously! Love the rainbow shaving cream. It also looks like you have a future banker on your hands! Following (via email) for Feed Friday. (Already follow via GFC)
ReplyDeleteWe did stained glass flowers this week, so I linked to you here http://www.apurposedrivenhome.com/?p=845 Thanks for the inspiration! :)
ReplyDeleteThese are such wonderful learning tools. You have intrigued me to look at Tot School for my Baby Girl who turns 1 year at the end of May. I was worried that might be too young but after reading, it seems it's not. When did you start Tot School for Avery?
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, This Lil Piglet! We've had a great time with it and I love the Tot School linky, its fun to see what other kids Avery's age are working on and share ideas. I think most of the Tot Schools starts around 12 months but there are a couple 10 and 11 month olds. You should check out there posts and get some ideas. If nothing else, now would be a great time to start getting ideas and gathering supplies. It took me a while to get going with it all. Let me know what you do and if you need any ideas or help!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the feedback. My lil trouble maker seems to need activites to occupy here time; she gets into trouble without me giving her things to do....maybe I should start early? Ideas would be great, mainly where do I start? LOL!
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