Tiny Tot School: Hanukkah

Maddie is 14 months old.

Tray #1 - Felt Menorah

I created a felt menorah for Maddie to explore this week. We practiced counting, one to one correspondence, and it was a sensory experience as well. She never really put the candles on the menorah, she much preferred to take them out of the basket and put them back in. :)

Tray #2 - Blue Candles, Floral Foam

Similar to our golf tee/floral foam activity. Maddie worked on finger strength and fine motor skills as she pushed candles into the foam and pulled them out. She enjoyed this activity a lot, and would do it over and over again each day.

Tray #3 - Yellow Button Pushing

For this activity, Maddie pushed yellow "gelt" through a buttonhole in an old Parmesan cheese container. She LOVED this, easily her favorite activity this week. She quickly figured out that, once there were several buttons in it, the container made a great rattling noise! She would put them all in, shake it around, and hand it to me to open and get the buttons out.

Christmas Baby

Oh, how I love Christmas, and everything that goes along with it. The decorations and music, especially. I tried to convince Maddie to take a few pictures with the tree... and she semi-obliged me. :)

Visiting Santa? Nope. Not her thing. Not at all! (Not that I blame her... but it's so funny!)

Thanksgiving 2015 and Temple Square

We stayed home this year, and had a few family members over to our house. It was the first Thanksgiving that I have hosted, and it was a lot of fun! All the food was delicious, and the company was even better. :)

And just for fun, Thanksgiving 2014 and 2015.

After Thanksgiving, we headed up to the Temple Square Christmas lights with all of the Saunders family. It was so fun to see everyone and to be able to hang out for a bit, even though it was cold and snowy! Maddie wore her "purple people eater" suit, AKA the "pink bunny suit" and was toastier than the rest of us put together, I think! :)

Tiny Tot School: Pink

Maddie is 14 months.

We had lots of fun with the color pink this week! No surprise there, Maddie is no stranger to this color. :) We tried some different activities too - some went over well, some not as much. That's okay, we are figuring this out as we go.

Sensory - Jello

Okay, so the Jello turned out red instead of pink, but that's okay. Maddie LOVED this. It took about 10 minutes the first day for her to warm up to it, but then she went to town every day. She would stick her hands in and just squeeze the life out of the Jello in order to feel it squish through her fingers. She also enjoyed picking it up and tearing it apart. I used the Jiggler recipe, but in hindsight, for sensory play, the regular recipe would probably be better.


Tray #1 - Pouring water

I thought maybe we could try a pouring tray, but I think Maddie is still too young for that. She just wanted to play with the lid on the teapot. Most of the week, I would pour a tiny bit into her cup and she would drink it - she loved that. We turned it into more of a grace & courtesy lesson than a pouring activity. We worked on the signs and oral language of "please" and "thank you." On Friday though, she surprised me by trying to pour the water from the pot into the cup! She did a decent job and was so proud of herself too.


Tray #2 - Pink pasta shells and egg carton

I painted some pasta shells pink (couldn't get the right color food coloring on them) and set them out with half an egg carton. Maddie only gets one to one correspondence about 50% of the time, so I want to do lots of these activities with her to really cement the idea in her head. She, however, does not care about what I want (haha!) so she never once used the tray as I had intended. Which is fine, but just so funny! She loved playing with the shells and putting them in and out of the basket. She also enjoyed opening and closing the egg carton all week.

Tray #3 - Pink stickers on paper

Since she loved stickers so much, I decided to do another sticker tray with her. This time, Maddie would point to the sticker she wanted and I would start it, then let her finish peeling it off and put it on the paper. She did SO much better with this activity this time around. It's amazing what 6 weeks or so of development will do!


Art - Coloring with pink marker

Maddie really impressed me this week! She knew which way to turn the marker in order to draw with it, and she was able to color quite a bit! She doesn't have the right hold down, but that's just a matter of age and development. She loved coloring her pink pig picture.


Playdough - Christmas

I made a Christmas-y playdough to use throughout the month this month. I colored it green and added green glitter. Maddie really enjoyed this as well - she is getting really interested in sensory activities! she loved smooshing and squeezing the playdough and breaking off chunks.