Life on Pioneer Trail: Tot School Activities for Valentines Day (15 months)

This week all of our Tot School activities were Valentine's Day themed with lots of red and pink hearts. You might have seen my Valentine's Day Sensory Bin post earlier this week. My big 'aha' moment this week was where we do Tot School. I no longer do the activities in Luke's playroom. There are just way too many distractions in there. We usually do them in the kitchen or living room and that seems to work better. It's incredible how this little change has made a HUGE difference for Luke.

Poems for this week:

Be My Valentine

I'm a Little Valentine

Poems found at: childfun.com

Valentine's Sensory Bin

Rating: 4/5

Shake-up Hearts

Rating: 2/5

Skills:
Gross motor development
Art
Color: red

Activity:
I put a few paper hearts, some paint, and a few trinkets into a box. Luke and I took turns shaking the box. He absolutely loved shaking the box. I would shake it and then say 'Luke's turn' and he would shake it. This kept him engaged for about 3 minutes, but we did this a few times this week, so we were able to make heart garland.

Yogurt Painting

Rating: 1/5

Skills:
Fine motor development
Art
Sensory development

Activity:
As you can see from my rating, this activity didn't go too well. He put his finger in the yogurt paint once and that was enough. He wanted out of his little chair on the double and didn't want anything else to do with it, even after I tried to engage him and paint all over his paper...

Red Finger Painting

Rating: 1/5

Skills:
Fine motor development
Art
Color: red
Sensory development

Activity:
Luke was really interested in the red paint I used for the shake-up hearts, so I decided to run with it. I sat him down in his chair and plopped some red paint on his tray. Did he touch it? No. Did he look at it? Yes. Did he like it? No. Was it a waste of paint? Probably. We will keep trying.

Red Play-dough

Rating: 4/5

Skills:
Fine motor development
Sensory development
Color: red

Activity:
We have only tried play-dough once and it didn't go so well, but I wanted to give it another try. Luke LOVES playing with his play-dough containers, so I thought it was about time to try again. I also gave him a few pipe cleaners, his rubber ducky, a heart cookie cutter, and a heart shaped bubble wand. He played more with the wand and rubber ducky than he did the play-dough, BUT he did touch the play-dough and that is a huge improvement. We will keep trying this!

Foam Hearts

Rating: 3/5

Skills:
Fine motor development
Colors: red, pink
Shape: heart
Sensory development

Activity:
Did you know that when foam is wet it sticks to glass? Luke and I had fun sticking wet foam hearts (from the dollar bin at Target) up on our sliding glass doors. Luke also enjoyed dumping out the water and dragging the wet hearts all around the house. This activity was loads of fun (truly!) and it gave us ample opportunity to talk about the shape of a heart and the colors red and pink. We will be using different foam shapes in the future. For older tots, you could have them help dip the foam shapes in the water and then layer the shapes on the glass. You could work on patterns and all kinds of shapes and colors. Plus, it's super fun!