Valentine Tot Trays in Action!

Here are our Valentine Tot Trays in action! Also are a few modifications I made from the original ones I made last Sunday.  Just so you know, Sweet Pea is 18 months, she is prissy about what she touches, and this is our first time to ever do Tot Trays. The intention behind a Tot Tray for me, is to have some structured play with the end goal of learning a specific skill/task or just a new thing for me and Sweet Pea to experience together. I consider it a blessing if she stays at it for 10 minutes :) Want to learn more about Tot Trays?  Read this by Carisa.  

Pink plastic hearts to go inside of the empty water bottle.

Sweet Pea liked doing this the first day, but when I brought it back out the following few days, she didn't care for it much.  I think I'll change the hearts or a new container for next week.  

This was the original tray I made, but the flowers, were too much.  I took those out and added more chenille stems. 

This has been Sweet Pea's favorite activity.  I brought it back out several times this past week, and she has loved doing it!  Our dog Peyton even got in on the action.  

Concentrating hard.  

This was the Sun catcher activity I found from Building Our Story.  

Sweet Pea really liked this tray, but as soon as she put one of the sequins in her mouth, I told her no and that little rascal looked right at me and did it again! So the tray was put away and we returned to it later.  

Valentine Sensory box outside in the beautiful sunshine!  She loved finding her monkey buried in there.  And my husband was glad there wasn't rice all over our floor. :) 

I know it's Valentines, but she loves this Halloween book with its hologram looking pages. They sparkle in the sun.  

I had a tray with hearts that needed to match, but it was way to hard for Sweet Pea right now.  So I just put her puzzle on the tray and placed the pieces in one of the free gift makeup bags I have exploding out of my closet.  She loved playing with the zipper and she is getting really good at placing the pieces.  

;

Such concentration!

 Tonight I will adjust some of these trays... maybe a new puzzle, container, or pom poms instead of hearts.  We will stick with the Valentine's Day  theme, and I might make a tray with all the LOVE books I can find... she loves to read and I feel like that has not happened as much as usual.

Come back next week to see what we do! And if you want more ideas or wondering more about Tot School, be sure to check out the Tot School Gathering Place

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