I love playing with A.J. and seeing him engaged in activities. Besides drumming, he gets a kick out of putting items inside of things (like the garbage can.) While a muffin tin doesn’t have a lid, I added the Muffin Tin Matching game to his shelf along with a lock and key. Also on his shelf is a numeral recognition matching game to help boost his brain power and fun quotient!
Muffin Tin Matching- I found some red and green Christmas bells at the dollar store that I thought would be perfect for this game. A.J. loves the sounds the bells make, especially when they clink against the tin. I have several pattern combinations that are printed. A.J. actually followed a pattern, but I think this was by accident. When I changed the pattern, he was still focused on the joy of putting the bells in the order that came to his mind. He understood the one to one correspondence and was happy to put them in and dump them out to start again.
He wanted his stuffed animals to watch and learn, too!
Lock and Key – Every time A.J. sees me with keys, he wants to play with them. He tries to insert them into car doors or keys holes on doors in the house. I bought a simple lock and key for him to play with and it was a hit. Although he was able to get the key into the lock, he is working on strength to turn his wrist.
His focus was completely on the lock. This engaging activity is improving his concentration.
A.J. was inspired to add playing with his lock box, which has several different types of closures for kids to play with.
Numeral Counting – I called out the numbers, which actually goes up to ten, but in this particular session we focused on 1-5.
Pointing to objects is exciting. I ask him to repeat after me so that he can learn as he explores.
At first he was using his drum sticks to point to the numbers.
Stay tuned for Part II of this post. What fun learning explorations are engaging to your tot right now?
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