Dr. Seuss Tot Trays

We're back with new tot trays this week! Hooray! And in case you can't tell when you see the pictures, I had a TON of fun planning! And the only money I spent was on some new Dr. Seuss books for Boogie ($5 at Walmart! Woot!) because I had everything else on hand! Yay!

I included either the actual books or pictures of the cover pages with each tray. We have a set from the library with 6 books in it so I did not have covers for those, which is why I printed out pictures. We don't have a copy of There's a Wocket in My Pocket, but I think my mom is bringing it this week when she visits. Boogie has already been enjoying the books for the first time. The last time we tried to read Dr. Seuss to him was when we did our letter E week and we were reading Horton Hatches the Egg and I think maybe it was just too long and involved for him. He has been absolutely loving the beginner's books. Since I was raised on Dr. Seuss, I am loving this! Hubby- Man is reading many of these for the first time and laughing through them, which I am also loving! Parenting has so many fun moments :)

On to the trays!

I love this tray. It is so simple but I have always adored this book. I wanted to touch a know what a truffula tree felt like so badly, and I always felt a little guilty, but I kind of wanted a thneed. I imagine it to be kind of like microfiber except even better. Moving beyond my childhood now, this tray is called "transferring truffula tufts" :) Dr. Seuss brings out the alliteration lover in me, what can I say?  Boogie can drop and dump the truffula tufts, or use the spoon to transfer them. We can count tufts by total or color and sort them by color as well. We can also make patterns.

 

This is our green eggs tray. Reading Confetti reminded me about using plastic Easter eggs, and I decided to use just green ones. Like in our E week egg tray, there is a matching component with this tray. The tops of each egg have either a shape, letter or number to be matched to the bottom with the same shape, letter or number. There are 4 different shades of green eggs so there is a color shade matching component there. There is shape, letter, and number recognition involved in this tray. Boogie can open and close the egg carton and the actual eggs. There are 4 different colored green pom poms distributed throughout the eggs. The pom poms are not the same colors as the egg unfortunately, but Boogie will still enjoy them. I included green tongs so Boogie can use his fine motor skills to pick up the pom poms once he has flung them far and wide across the room. We can count the eggs and pom poms by color or total. We can sort the eggs and pom poms by color. We can make patterns out of the different colored eggs and pom poms too.

This tray is partly for letter recognition and partly for the fun and surprise factor of taking things in and out of the pocket. My plan is that I will take a letter, or a couple letters, and put them in the pocket. Then Boogie can take them out and we will talk about what the letters are. I am thinking we can spell simple words like his name, Mama, Dada and baby, too, just for fun. The box that the pocket is on also opens and closes with velcro. Besides putting things in and out, naming the letters, and making words, we can sort the letters by color. We can also match upper case and lower case letters.

I loved this book, too. Who am I kidding? I love them all! This tray was a bit more involved in the making and the trial and error process took awhile. First, I tried using homemade mod podge and covering the mini yogurt cups with tissue paper. That was a huge mess. Then, I was going to do construction paper like I did with our origami frog sorting cups. Thankfully, part of that process involves cutting a cup to spread it flat for a template. That was when I discovered the labels are not glued on. I peeled off the labels and had 5 blank hats. I used permanent marker to write the numbers, scribble some color on, and make the marks for the feathers. I used an exacto knife to make slits for the feathers. Ta da!  So, this tray is a color matching and counting tray. Boogie can put the feathers into the hats based on the colors, then count how many feathers are in each hat. This is a self-correcting activity because there are only the right number and color feathers for each hat. We can also count the hats or the total number of feathers.

I got the worksheet for this tray from Joyfully Weary. This is a matching game with Dr. Seuss hats. I think it is too involved for Boogie this year, but I thought it was too cute not to try. He is very good with puzzles and it is a similar concept so we will practice some direction following and see what he does with it.

One thing I love about these trays is all the different sensory experiences with touch they provide- the pom poms, feathers, jean pocket, wooden letters, and egg carton are such different textures than paper and plastic, which is what everything else is.

Want to see some of the other fun things we are doing for our Dr. Seuss theme week? You can download the Cat in the Hat dot marker page that I made here. And you can see our Dr. Seuss muffin tin meal here. We also did a Dr. Seuss Hat Pattern Activity here.

Linking up to these great parties!