A Little Bit of Learning for Little Bit - March 30

Little Bit is 2 yrs old

So I'm finally remembering to take pictures & now I'm forgetting to actually write the Tot School posts, sigh . . . always something. Here's a little bit of the fun that Little Bit has been having the last week or two.

Awhile back I saw this idea and put together a little "kit" to take with us on a trip when I knew I'd need to keep her entertained in a hotel room. We played with it a little bit on the trip & then it got put in the game cabinet & I kinda forgot about it. Found it last week and pulled it back out. First we used small pompoms, a small divided plate, a small bowl (it's a collapsible silicone one to keep things compact for travel, otherwise any bowl would work), and a set of tongs (I think I ordered them from timberdoodle.com). We put the pompoms on the plate & she used the tongs to transfer them into the bowl. Part of the time I'd tell her what color to move & she'd find one that color, part of the time she'd pick one up and tell me what color it was, part of the time she was tired of colors and just moved them. 

When she got tired of the tongs (they're pretty stiff, and she has a hard time with them still, but insists on trying them each time), we switched to using a plastic spoon. Much easier! We did the same things just used the spoon instead of the tongs to move the pompoms around. 

I also have multi-colored pony beads in the bag. So when she got tired of the pompoms we put them away and got out the pony beads. The tongs are too stiff to use with the beads, so we just used the spoon to transfer them around, the same as  we had done with the pompoms. We also used pipecleaners to string the pony beads. And she discovered it was great fun to then dump the beads off the pipecleaner into the bowl.  All in all, this is a great little "kit" that she seems to really enjoy. It requires supervision (obviously) but is very portable. I'm so glad we re-discovered this!

 She continues to LOVE playing with the "boo coo cawds" (blues clues cards, otherwise known as Blues Clues Memory). I tried to get a picture of her  playing memory with me, but she wiggles so much, the game was pretty much over by the time I got one that wasn't just a blur. I continue to be amazed at how well she does at memory for being so little. 

The other game she enjoys with the memory cards is putting them away. She generally dumps them ALL out when she plays with them, then I go through and put one card in each spot in the box, and then as I find the matches to those, I hand them to her & she finds where they go. We were almost done in this picture, she just had her final stack to find and put away. 

And finally, a few days ago, Little Bit pulled the pop-up toy back out. She's been able to do it for MONTHS, I know that when she got a second one for Christmas, she'd already mastered this one, and mastered the new one in about 10 minutes (we passed it along to a friend). But, she's having fun rediscovering it just the same. 

Visit 1+1+1=1 to see what other little ones are learning this week.