Toddler Play Shelfie – April 1st

Another toy rotation in the books! I rotate every two weeks normally; though this was technically a three-week rotation because we were gone for a whole week in the middle for a little “spring break”. This was the first time that I considered leaving the toys for a little longer. As I was watching her play over the weekend she was still interacting well with a few of the items! In the end I did decide to change most of it out but we did have out first repeat toy this time so we’ll see how that goes!

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Activity Table

If you have a keen memory you’ll notice that the activity table is different. I redid her closet storage and pulled this little purple table out of there. I am testing the waters of having this smaller table here and her big table is moved to the corner of the living room for some small world play. I’ll talk about that later on.

I pulled out her Melissa and Doug chunky farm puzzle this week she has really been improving with these puzzles so I am excited to see how she does with it this go around!

Hot tip : always present a puzzle pulled apart or with the pieces separate. It gives them incentive to put it all back together!

Play Shelves

Her shape sorter cube is still too advanced for her for the most part. She understands the pieces fit in different holes but she doesn’t always understand that you might have to rotate the piece in your hand…

This is still very much a guided toy. She needs help to get more than one piece. She enjoys doing it, but I only ever present it with a few of the pieces. This time I have the top three as well as one other side. I have the rest of the pieces near by in case we are sitting to work on it with her and she seems interested!

She has finally got the hang of the Hape hammer bench! She still very much likes to play with the pieces separately but I am fine with that I just love that she has started to use the hammer with the balls instead of just pushing them with her hands! Also, I don’t know if it was a fluke or not but I noticed her rearranging the balls so that the colors all matched…hello, color recognition?!

She has been Rawring anytime she sees a dinosaur when we are out and about so I thought it might be fun to get her dinosaurs out! I want to find some more these ones are thrift store finds and most of them are just small little things!

She has also been vrooming when she hears a loud car or signing car when she sees one drive by the window so to feed that interest I got out her Melissa and Doug cars

I felt that with her kitchen behind the couch it’s not getting the love that it used to so I pulled out Learning Resources Market set that we had stashed away from Christmas to see if that helped spark some more cooking play. To be honest, though I did still stash away about half the set. (I swear I’m turning into a squirrel constantly stashing away things for a later date! Lol)

Say hello to our first repeat toy. Over the weekend before rotation, she became very interested in these nesting cups. She would methodically nest them together one cup at a time and if she found one that didn’t fit next she would back up pulling the cups out until it fit and then nesting them all back together. It was one of the first times I have seen her really engrossed in any kind of focused play like that! I didn’t want to take them away incase she was still focused on figuring them out. So I just presented them in a different way so keep them interesting and we’ll see how it goes. I don’t anticipate them making the full two weeks until we rotate again but that’s okay. This is an experiment for us!

The Big Baskets

We switched out the wooden blocks for her mega block sets. I honestly think that blocks are just not her preferred method of play. Only wants to play with them when we are building and even then all she wants to do is knock it all down. She never tries to build herself. Got any pointers to encourage building?

Her baby dolls are still a strong favorite so I don’t feel any need to change them up any. I am looking forward to more dramatic play later but for now, these baby dolls work just fine!

Small World

I set up her first real small world this week. While she hasn’t been doing any imaginative play she has enjoyed all the loose parts. From watching the crystals bounce when she drops them to stacking the cone trees, to carrying the rocks around, to taking the unicorn all over the house. I plan on talking more about small worlds later on. Be on the look out for that!

Gross Motor

Her Picker and her wobble board are front and center and used every day in some fashion. I don’t see either of these moving out of rotation any time soon.

I’m testing out the playable over in the corner. I know that I want to get a sensory table situation and I just am not sure where I want it. So this is the trial run for that. Does anyone else feel like they are constantly rearranging their living room to make it work with all the kid’s stuff?! (Or is that just me…lol)