Time for an updated look for the Tot tray. We've been using an old stained baking sheet (see Tot Tray 7), but this week I decided to spray paint it a clean blue. Color makes my heart happy.
Tot Tray 7-
Use shapes from a shape sorting toy to make impressions in play-dough. In the spirit of our activities being tot-led, this activity changed to being all about stacking the shapes as we name them... Play-dough sad and forgotten.
So, I know I'm going out of order here, but as fun as playdough is, I don't think three days in a row of the same "play-medium" is very exciting or brain-stimulating. For the blog, I'm grouping them together, but the tot tray numbers are in the actual order I used them in.
Use mini cookie cutters with scented play-dough. We added spearmint extract to homemade play-dough, but I don't see why you can't add scents to any play-dough. I think it's important exploring all 5 senses, which is why I made the scented dough, but I'm pretty sure it's contributing to Fisher's love of tasting everything we put on the tot tray. Seriously we have not had a single tray where he keeps the stuff out of his mouth. Mabey next week we'll paint with Tabasco. Or to make something good out of this, we should have a veggie themed tray. Fill that tray full of junk that's good for him and hope he doesn't realize that playtime just blended into lunchtime.
Hide small objects in playdough for your tot to discover and uncover. I hid around 20 giraffe sequins, but I've seen people use googley eyes and alphabet magnets to embed in playdough. Up until this point, Fisher has been experimenting with playdough only by pushing things into it. This activity naturally encouraged him to pull the playdough apart because that was the only way he'd find the other giraffes.
