March week 1: shapes

I am a little behind on this post, but here it is anyway.  This month I decided I needed some organization in my life in regards to Riley's activities.  I decided to pick a theme for each week, and pick toys and activities and outings to go with that theme.  Obviously we do things not related to the theme, and sometimes certain activities branch off into something totally different based on her interests (as you will see with the playdoh in a few seconds...) but at least I have a starting point when thinking of new and fun things for the toddler.  I chose each week's theme based on what Riley is interested in at the moment or what was relevant at the time. Here's a little glimpse of what we came up with...

(1) Playdoh!!!!  Riley is really into playdoh right now, and asks to play with it multiple times a day.  So, we spent lots of time making whatever shape she wanted... circles, triangles, squares, pentagons... thank goodness I scored some shape cookie cutters from the toy library to use... that let me add star and heart to the list. :)

You can do just about anything with playdoh. We made a bunch of shapes, but we also used this activity to talk about colors and letters (C is for circle, B is for boy, etc...) 

Other things to do with playdoh?  Fine motor activities- we had some wooden skewers and some pasta in our pantry... instant activity!  Stick the skewer in a ball of playdoh, and show the toddler how to string noodles on it.  Easy peazy (free) entertainment. It would have been even better if I had dyed the pasta different colors... an idea for next time!

Obviously we moved away from the shapes theme a bit with the playdoh... Some other playdoh activities we did: Making "fossils" with screws, coins, anything really! 

Okay back to the shapes theme.  Other things we did with the shapes theme in mind included: (2) stringing shape beads (3) sorting foam shapes by shape and by color (4) playing with her shape train and shape sorter and shape stacking toys.  None of those were all that creative, as it was just using toys we already owned and she already liked to play with.

Another fun cheap activity we discovered was playing with pipe cleaners and a kitchen strainer.  Fine motor activity trying to get the pipe cleaners in the hole, and we brought it back to the shapes by making shapes out of the pipe cleaners.  Of course, she asked me to make her a pentagon.  Ha.  Easier said than done, but I managed. :)  Then she wore all the shapes around her wrist like bracelets! 

We try to find songs and books related to the theme, which I'll be honest, was a little boring for the shapes theme.  We have a bunch of "babyish" shapes books, but I decided for this week to let her read the books she loves, but this time point out all the shapes we could find in her books.  We pretty much just sang our usual songs... The bad thing about the shapes theme is that it doesn't provide for much fun in the "outings" department. So we just went about our usual business and went to music class, the playground, playgroup, and coffee group... One fun thing I did was I decided to use the shapes theme with her food.  She's not the best eater ever, but I decided to try and cut her food into certain shapes if I could.  Hellooooo circle sandwich! 

Some of these things might seem silly to you, but Riley seems to really enjoy these kinds of things, and I actually really do too. Plus, she seems to be learning so much so quickly these days, I want to take advantage and provide her with as many learning opportunities as possible.

Next theme (the one we're on to right now): THE FARM!!  This one is FUN!