Egg-cellent Counting!

Disclaimer:  I taught public school for 8 years before becoming a mom. I taught a new grade or subject EVERY year.  Never the same thing twice (Jack of All Trades is the perfect name *wink)

I have hoarded  collected re-purposed many of the things that I used when I taught.

Hence the stash of about 100 plastic Easter eggs I have tied up in my garage.

Do you have some too?  I bet you do... no shame here my friend!

This month we are studying Baby Animals with Mother Goose Time, and our first week is all about Waiting on Baby.  That could mean pregnancy, eggs, or adoption. Today happened to be EGG Day, so naturally I pulled out my stash of plastic Easter eggs! You don't have to wait until Easter to bust out those things... we even make maracas out of ours! (cheap and super fun music makers)  

Mother Goose Time sent some Tangram shape manipulatives with this months theme! 

I gasped when I saw them! I made mandalas all over my elementary classroom floors with these things on rainy recess days. Oh how I love patterns... it's the art teacher in me.

Since hexagon is a new shape for us this month and a completely new shape to Sweet Pea, I put out her cloud shapes from our Circle Time board on her table and let her match up some shapes.  The hexagon and square shapes fit perfectly on the shape on the cloud!  

She is so into matching things up lately.

"TWO!!!"  It's her favorite number. Sweet Pea was so excited about these shapes!  But it was at this point that it hit me..."Leslie, there is no circle or star in this bag of tangram shapes. You need to take off those clouds.  Hmmm.... how can I make it more engaging if I take away some shapes?"

Duh, it's Egg day!  Bust out those hoarded plastic eggs and put those shapes in there! It's a surprise with every egg!  So I did.  We only used the squares, triangles, and hexagons, but we used about 18 eggs to hide them in.  She had so much fun opening each one.

She did a great job working on her fine motor skills while stacking the shapes into tall towers.  She talked about how BIG the towers were.  She accidentally knocked over her tower of orange squares.  But then she picked them up one by one and counted..."one, two, three, four, five!" 

I couldn't believe it!  This was her first time, without me prompting, for her to count completely on her own in order and up to five!  She's not even 2 and a half yet!  I was so impressed!  

Egg Day was so much fun!  This was just the beginning for us, so be sure to come back and see what else we did with those plastic Easter eggs! 

Can I just say that I am so excited to watch her learn and play.  It is such a blessing to be able to see moments like these.  Counting... in order... I'm just so happy I was able to be there when she did it.  I realize that not every mom gets too... and I am just so humbled and grateful that I am able to.