Week 1: Colors (Monday and Tuesday)

When I decided to start Tot School, I chose to do the first two themes that Kaitlyn over at Simply Learning did for her curriculum: colors and shapes. S had been sorting this shape sorter by color for awhile, so I wanted to expand his horizons! Most of the activities we did, I found on Pinterest!

Monday:

We began with singing the rainbow song from Barney, and I used some color bean bags that I found on the swap table in my teacher's lounge. Each day, S got better at grabbing the correct color bean bag.

Our first activity: color sensory bin sort

Materials:

• Sterilite Bin
• Black beans
• Pattern blocks
• Stacking cups
• Unifix Cubes

At first, S was more interested in playing with the beans than actually sorting. I pulled this bin out almost every day and he caught on quickly to what he had to do. I kept reminding myself that the point of sensory bins is free play. He'd ask for this bin constantly!

Our second activity: do a dot rainbow!

Thanks to Pinterest, I found this neat rainbow printable over at Gift of Curiousity. She has some amazing printables that match all kinds of theme and are free!

Materials:

• Do a Dot Markers
• Rainbow Printable
• Tray

This was S's first time working with Do A Dot Markers. He got the hang of them, but didn't really match the colors. He was just having fun stamping the dots all over the place. 

We ended up doing a third activity, because someone decided not to take a nap. :( His schedule was thrown off during the weekend with visits from family. 

It wasn't too hot, so I came up with this activity: Sidewalk Chalk Sort

Materials: 

• Sidewalk chalk
• Different objects in various colors
• a sidewalk!

I drew different colored circles and brought out the objects from his sensory bin. He had a BLAST! At first I asked him where he thought the object would go, but after awhile he did it on his own. This was a repeat activity, but only in the late afternoon when it wasn't so hot!

Tuesday:

Next morning we sang our rainbow song again. We also read one of our color books that we checked out from the library. 

First activity: Water Bead Sort!

Materials:

• Bin
• Water Beads
• Cups for sorting

I'm so glad that Kaitlyn mentioned that you need to let water beads soak over night. I soaked the whole bag, which in hindsight is TOTALLY unnecessary. They grow so big. My husband and I kept playing with them. 

Originally, I was just going to let him explore. I knew this would be tricky for S, because he's not the biggest fan of unusual textures (neither am I!) But once he got used to it, he loved squishing his hands in the beads. He went over to his shelf and grabbed the cups and handed them to me. I realized he wanted to sort them and he did well! I've even thrown some water beads in his water table for him to explore. They are awesome for building fine motor skills!

Our next activity: Cotton Ball Painting

Materials:

• Washable paint
• Cardstock
• Cotton balls
• Straws
• Muffin tin
• Tray

The night before, I cut the straws (leftover from a shower I threw!) and hot glued them onto the cotton balls. This made it much easier for S to grab. 

As you can see, we started this activity on the floor, but after an attempt at painting our cat (!) we moved to the high chair in our breakfast nook. 

He loved mixing the colors and putting the cotton balls on the paper. He also wanted to make sure the cotton balls went back to the correct color. 

I had planned on a daily snack to go with the theme. Tuesday's snack ended up being a fine motor activity as well. Fruit Loop Sort!

We had some Take Along bowls and lids that worked perfect for this. I gave him the pipe cleaner and showed him how to string the cereal. I was amazed at how quickly he picked up on this!

Along with a snack, I also let S watch some shows during lunch. I would talk with him about the colors we saw and what the characters were doing. Here are some of the ones we watched:

• Bubble Guppies Season 1 Episode 2: The Crayon Prix
• Blues Clues Season 5 Epsiode 2: Colors Everywhere
• Peep and the Big Wide World: A Peep of a Different Color and Peep's Color Quest

I'll share what we did on Wednesday and Thursday in a different post. Comment below if you've tried any of these with your toddler!