What's On the Trays?

Here are our trays for this week. I bought my trays at Discount School Supply, which is pictured in my left column. You can click on it to find these trays. They are the Brawny Tough Art Trays.

Using chopsticks to sort the vehicles into the bowls.

Playing with letter beads.

Introduction of magnets.

Pouring water.

Sorting the bears by color.

What's On the Trays?

I put together a couple of Easter themed trays for the kids this week.

Spooning eggs into the bunny egg holder.

These are sound matching eggs. There are various objects in each egg, with two of each being the same. The kids have to shake the eggs and see if they can find a matching pair.

A stencil and tracing tray.

Placing the correct number of erasers into the eggs.

This is the homemade silly putty the kids made last week. I hid objects in it and they have to dig through it to find the objects and then place them next to the corresponding picture. I got the idea from here.

What's On The Trays?

Here is what we have on the trays this week:

Matching Shamrocks: here they will chose a picture card and then pic hearts out to create a matching shamrock

Color Mixing: use a dropper to mix colors

Here they will place a tee into the styrofoam and then place a marble on top.

Assembling and disassembling a flashlight.

Shape Buttons: matching the felt shape and slipping onto the button ribbon

St. Patrick's Week!

I love holidays, no matter how small, and I like to plan activities to go with all of them. (Except we don't do Halloween.) St. Patrick's Day is honestly one of my favorite holidays. I used to love planning things to do in my classroom when I was a teacher. Who can't love a holiday centered around rainbows and a cute little leprechaun?! It is also a good opportunity to teach about Ireland and the reason why we celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Here are the activities that we did today. Josh was only interested in one tot tray, the playdough one of course. Callie did all of them except the tonging one. It will be interesting to see what they do the rest of the week. I also did a Muffin Tin Monday meal today. I've done these before, but not for a long time. It was fun to do one with the St. Patrick's theme, though the guacamole and green bell peppers weren't such a hit! (You will notice that Josh is missing some clothing in most of these pics. For whatever reason, he chooses to only wear a shirt, or only wear pants, most days. Silly kid!) My printables came from here.

Callie knows the order of colors in the rainbow. I didn't help her at all. She even told me that we were missing the indigo blue!

Matching numbers to create a picture puzzle.

Stamping letters. He didn't quite get the concept that the matching letters were supposed to be in the same rows!

Our green themed muffin tin lunch.

Callie will hate me for this pic someday!

Callie knows her letters, but I knew she would enjoy the stamping activity.

Matching bigger numbers to create her picture puzzle.

Here is the muffin tin I used for their lunch:

What's On the Trays?

I haven't done tot trays in a long time. I was struggling with where to keep them out in order for them to be accessible throughout the day and week, like in a Montessori program. I finally settled on our dining room table, moving the chairs so the kids could easily grab the trays. I also added some little roll up mats that they are to place on the kitchen table as their work space. They put the mat down at their spot, then come back to grab a tray, and when they are done, they put everything back. Callie did really well with it today. Josh still needs some guidance and help with the carrying. Here is what I put together for this week. Everything is themed around St. Patrick's Day.

My set-up. These will stay here all week. The little rolled up mats are just some of that non skid shelf liner stuff that I cut up.

A sticker tray. I added crayons to this today.

For Callie, she will pipe water drops into the suction cups on the fish, and then suck them back up. In the background is what Josh will do. His fingers aren't developed enough for the fine motor skill of the dropper, so he will use a baster to transfer water between the two white dishes.

Pushing the pipe cleaner end into the styrofoam, stringing the same color beads on, then sticking the other end into the styrofoam to create a rainbow.

Hammering matchsticks into playdough.

Tonging pom poms from bowl to bowl.

Sunday Morning Tot Trays

The kids were having a little case of boredom on Sunday morning, so I put together 3 tot trays for them to try out. They played with these for probably about 45 min.

Transferring colored water from one bowl to the other using a baster. Great for strengthening those little hand muscles.

Callie is placing spaghetti into tiny holes in a sugar shaker. Great for eye-hand coordination.

Josh is placing a wet sponge into a garlic press and squeezing the water out into the ice cube tray, then placing the dry sponge into the other bowl. Great for overall coordination and strengthening hand muscles.

The Letter E Week

This week Josh learned about the letter "E", using the Confessions of a Homeschooler curriculum, and Callie did a number review. One day, I pulled out a tot tray instead of doing art. This may be how I end up including tot trays during the week, rotating art and the trays. I am also not sure how to create two different trays to make them age appropriate without them each wanting the other one's tray.  I really need to work on posting more than once a week about what we are doing, because this post is very photo heavy, but I just couldn't leave any more off! Enjoy!

Callie's apple pie that she made all by herself. The box and cutting board are her homemade "oven".

Pushing eyes into the play dough.

Stamping the letter "E"

I call out a number and he runs and jumps on it.

Counting the dots and placing the correct clothespin on it.

Spelling numbers.

One day, instead of art, I pulled out a tot tray. Here they are using fine motor skills to place cheerios onto spaghetti.

Callie was matching shape puzzles and decided she wanted to create a person out of the shapes. She did this all on her own. I'm telling you, she is one creative kiddo!

Creating patterns.