Toddler Thursdays: Rainbows

 Hello, and thanks for checking back. This week was about using what we had around the house. Our theme this week is rainbows and we had a perfect week for this. It has been raining on and off all week.. Our Sensory bin this week is Jello! I'm really pushing Panda with new sensations to work on his sensory aversions. At first he would not touch this for anything. We tried smelling it, hitting it with a spoon, stirring, and then even dumping it into bath water to try and get him used to it. The bath water finally did the trick. As his bath was filling he helped swirl the water around with his hands. The jello chunks would brush his hand and he had a lot of fun. It's a start.

 I set out these bowls and asked Panda to find things that were red, blue, etc, to put into the bowls. I was happily surprised when he went and picked some strawberries to add to the red bowl on his own. An easy activity and any bowl will do. I just happened to have these on hand. 

 This is a fun stacking game that Panda loves. His grand-papa found it for him and it's been a hit. You could also just stack regular blocks or legos and sort them into piles of matching colors. 

 These light-blocks are still a hit, especially on rainy or very cold days. I do highly recommend them, but alternatives could be colored cellophane and water on the windows, or window markers. 

These were a birthday gift from Panda's Auntie that I've been waiting to introduce him to them till now. Alternatives could be looking through colored plastic or glass bottles or filling jars with colored water to look through. 

And last of all, to kick this week off Panda got a new Mud Kitchen! We made this from scraps around the house. It's not very big, but I love how it turned out. I had left over beach sand from a  project that I mixed with food coloring to make the Rainbow Mud! 

I know this week was heavy on the things we had around our home, but the idea is to look around your home and see what you might already have on hand. Sometimes pulling out something that has not been played with for a while and using it with a common theme can give it new life. Some other things we have done is to run in the sprinklers and spray each other with misting spray bottles looking for rainbows, blowing bubbles, and playing with rainbow colored fabrics. There also are a lot of color themed books at the library. Thanks for checking back. Have a colorful weekend. What colorful things can you find around your home?

Shine on!