You’ve heard about them in parenting groups on Facebook, you’ve looked them up on Pinterest and you just don’t know where to start. No Worries! I am here for you and I will hold your hand through your introduction to sensory bins. You wont regret it I promise!
Sensory bins can be as fancy or simple as you want. In truth
all you need is a container, scoops and a filler of some sort. All the extra things are just that.
Extra. The most important part is to have fun and embrace the mess just a
little bit.
I am all for letting a child have access to as much of the house as possible. We keep cleaning supplies up high or locked away and small choking hazards also out of her reach, but other than that its free for her to explore. It also helps that she has never been a very mouthy baby so I honestly trust her. (most of the time…lol) That said we do have a few special spaces that are all hers. Here is what our toddler play spaces look like at 18 months!
The living/ dining room is our home base for most of the day. This is where her toys that are out on rotation are displayed. We are lucky enough to have a spacious living room with space for multiple toddler play spaces!
Tot School is not quite preschool – there is no structured lessons or specific thing she has to learn. But it’s also more than just daycare. It’s more about exposure to concepts and everyday tasks, as well as the chance to practice skills that those busy toddler brains are already learning. It also gives a theme for some direction and keeps things interesting for everyone!
Bitty is 18 months old right now and I find that if I don’t have some kind of plan in place we end up watching too much TV. So what did I do? I made a plan, and not just loose ‘hmmm here’s a couple ideas’ kind of plan. There are tables and categories and themes. Just like you would expect my type A brain to do!
With Bitty solidly in toddler land things are changing everyday. Tried and true baby tricks are out of the window and she is ready for more “big girl” activities. I feel like toddlers are a whole new challenge, but they payoff is some real connection and communication and I LOVE that!
TODDLER MILESTONES
Motor skills have never been behind
for this little lady. She was walking at 11 months and has never slowed down.
She dances all the time (and has some killer moves too), we saw the precursor
to jumping the other day and she is climbing her Pikler all the time. She has
recently decided that she needs help getting down off her stools, which is a
bit of a regression so I am trying to re-teach her how to do that.
Her sign language has really been
taking off! She has had all done, more, please, eat, drink and nightnight for
months. Help…she does wrong…but she has done it the same way for so long, no
matter how many times I correct her that I give up! She also has dog and cat
and bird and squirrel, and train. We recently added Daddy and she latched on to
that one. Mommy she still won’t do, but she did pick up on the sign we created
for her name really quickly.
She
has been able to say Mom and Dada for quite some time, but just a week we added
our first other words. Join us, as we have entered the “no” phase. She very
clearly says no and yup and actually means what she says maybe 50% of the time.
We might also have heard ball, I’m waiting to see if it stays consistent. We do
make a lot of animal noises as well. Woof, Meow, Moo, Neigh, Baa are the most
common.
