On the shelves 12 and 16 months

Whew!  This post has been a long time coming.  It's seems that May and June have just been crazy busy and only now do I seem to have some time to catch my breath.  L is done school so Sweetpea is also on her summer holidays with her mother.

I finally managed to take pics of most of the activities that have been on the shelves over the last couple of months.  Of course these have not all been out at the same time but have been at one point over the last three months.

 

Open and shut.

This is super popular with both Sweetpea and Little J.  I put little finger puppets that I have from Ikea inside some of the containers for them to find.

 

Tennis ball cannon using a Pringles container.

 

This was more of a testing the waters activity to see if Sweetpea was ready to sort colors.  Both littles enjoyed manipulating the beads and container however I will bring it out again in another few months to see how the color sorting goes.

 

This animal basket used to be by the pottys.  One morning I started putting the animals along the edge.  The littles caught on so I turned it into an activity and put it on the shelf.  Little J enjoys doing this activity as well as making some of the animal noises.

 

Hat basket.  We play with this basket together or as pictured here the littles will also try the hats on when it suits their fancy.

 

Little J is obsessed with trying to put shoes on.  He will spend up to 20 minutes doing this.  Once he gets it on he will take it off and start again.  Watching him so reminds me that at this age it is all about the process and not the product! 

 He is also obsessed with trying to put his pyjamas, pants, shorts and diaper on.  While sitting on his potty he will spend ages in deep concentration attempting to get his legs into one of these things.  The other night he managed to get both legs into his sleepers! I was astounded however once again as soon as he got them both in he took them off and started again.

In a few months I will bring out this out again as a matching activity.

Little J got this cute ice cream set from Sweetpea for his birthday. 


 

They both enjoy putting the pieces on and off but are not ready for sorting by color or shape yet.

 

I love this cute little activity.  It's actually two activities in one.  The first is pulling the finger puppets out of the snack cup and the second is to put them in the muffin tray.  Little J enjoys pulling them out and putting them back in and will also put a couple in the tray.

 

Okay I think I'm all up to date now.  As I said before these activities have been rotated throughout the last three months and have not been presented all at the same time.

 They all focus on fine motor skills however the littles also have ample opportunity to work on their gross motor skills which I hope to document in a future post.