Do A Toy Rotation With Me #13
November 11, 2024
For some background introduction information on toy rotations see my first toy rotation blog at by clicking the link.
Last week’s toys and books:
Last week we had out all of the Christmas toys. It was super fun, but honestly it was too much, and I think we are both a bit overwhelmed by the mess. I was super happy to start cleaning it up today. The only things I am leaving out are the Penguins (because I have penguin related plans), the magnatiles (I don’t feel like we explored those enough), the Lovevery shape puzzle (puzzle week), and everything from the Kiwico crate (we just got it this week).
This week’s toys and books:
The themes this week are puzzles and things that I can say the word drop when playing with.
Ball Drops (Lovevery) – I pulled out all of the ball drops this week. We can work on the word drop to go with our D basket. We can work on up and down.
Shape Puzzle (Lovevery) – Aryi did not gravitate towards this much last week. He mastered it the first time he did it. I was wondering if I displayed the pieces separately would he relate, so I am trying that. It is also in theme as it is a puzzle.
Circle Puzzle (Lovevery) – This is in theme as it is a puzzle. It has been masted, but maybe we can find new ways to make it fun this week.
Cylinder Puzzle (Kiwico) – See circle puzzle.
Car and peg people (Kiwico) – We just got these a few days ago, that is why I am leaving them out. I also thought we could use the word drive with this toy to go with our d basket.
Translucent color blocks (Kiwico) – These we also just got in a crate. Aryi loves these so much. He has become a great little stacker. He has been experimenting with half circle blocks stacking upside down.
Garden Puzzle (Lovevery) – See circle puzzle.
Winter and Penguin books (Knowledge Crate) – We have penguin plans this week with our knowledge crate, so I am leaving all of the books that came in the crate out.
Pete the Cat books (Library) – I got these because Aryi loves Pete the cat. These are great. Just got them a few days ago, so obviously they will stay out.
Writing Tablet (Amazon) – I think this might stay out forever as a clean way to write.
Star Drop (Kiwico) – Again, we can talk about the dropping with this toy.
Penguins on ice (Knowledge Crate) – This goes with the knowledge crate activities for the week.
Magnatiles (Amazon) – I don’t think Aryi got enough chances to explore these last week, so they are out again.
Shape puzzles (Kiwico) – They fit the puzzle theme. Aryi loves these.
Coin Drop (Kiwico) – More dropping.
Ball Drop (Kiwico) – More dropping.
Locking door box (Lovevery) – This is great for fine motor skills. We can talk about Doors since they start with a D. We can talk about opening and closing and in and out.
Lovevery Blockset, Lovevery Books, Hello, World! Books, Flashcards, Kitchen Balls, and Playgym are out as always.
Letter Basket:
This week I switched out our Cc basket for a Dd basket. The videos I will be playing are The Good and The Beautiful ABCs and ABC sounds, the Letter Dd from ABCmouse, How to write the Letter Dd from ABCmouse, Alphabet Surprise Turn and Learn Letter Dd and David the Dog from Easy Peasy All-in-one Homeschool. These are the links for those songs in the order I wrote them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o76-2avrSNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSSWnhSsclk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2IEwUFCKzg
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AuJP_G-ujjc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnpdQsrhGp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE4LlUos-ec&list=PL81a939DdP7jh5M_8ZgWvBpV1mOA8wtVN&index=5
I say the letter and show it to Aryi. Then I will say the letter sound. This is a D and it says DDDDDDD. We go through words that start with the Letter Dd. I pull out the items as we go through the words. For Dd, I have a dog, dog flashcard, dragonfly, Dd flashcard, 3 dinosaurs, a drum, drumsticks, a duck, 2 dice, and a D block. I have an alphabet puzzle with letters A-D out. I will let Aryi Identify the letters from a few pieces and he can place the letters in his alphabet puzzle as we say A is for AAAA, B is for BBBB, C is for CCCC, C is for DDDD. We can read whatever related books Aryi wants to that day. I have 4 Alphabet books; ‘abc’, ‘Once Upon an Alphabet’, ‘A is for Apple’ and ‘AB See”. I have books that feature Dd words; ‘Dino Block’, ‘T. Rex’, “Dragons Love Tacos’, ‘Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumbs’, ‘Baby Dance’, ‘Leo Loves Daddy’, ‘I Thought I Saw A Dinosaur’, and ‘Rumble, Rumble, Dinosaur’. I got some of the Dd word books from the library. This is a great way for us to practice our Dd sound when Aryi points to the things in the book and says what they are. Then we can do a Dd related coloring page or craft. I get some of these crafts from education.com and Easy Peasy All-in-one Homeschool. I also just make some crafts myself.
This format has been working well for us. Aryi thought we were playing and reading books like always, but we were learning too. I plan to have this basket out for the next two weeks and move on to Ee. This has been working so well that I decided to introduce a number basket as well. Aryi comes to me and says basket, basket like 5 times a day. He enjoys this so much. To him it is play, to me, he is learning.
Number Basket:
I decided to add a number basket to our rotation. Obviously since this is the first week we are starting with 1. I do not know what else to add to this, but thought this was a great start. If you guys have any ideas, please comment below.
I have number flashcards, tactile number flashcards, a block with the number 1, and a peg board with the number 1 and a hole for 1 peg to go in. I also have all of our number and books in here: ”Numbers”, “How Many?”, “Counting with Barefoot Critters”, “Big and Little”, “Let’s Count”, “Baby Math”, “See, Touch, Feel Numbers”, “Poppy’s Surprise”, “Few and Many”, and “Pop-up Peekaboo Numbers”.
You can check out the related Youtube video by clicking the link below.