Toy Rotation 15
January 25, 2024
For some background introduction information on toy rotations see my first toy rotation blog at by clicking the link.
We had so much fun with our Mardi Gras and Valentine’s Day baskets this week. I will link those below. Aryi loved them. I wanted to keep them out but also kind of consolidate and move them over so we could add back in our music kit. The number basket was a hit. I do think I need to add in 2 and 3 because 1 hasn’t been making much sense by itself. The mini shape theme toys were also a hit. Aryi has gotten so much better at the shape shorter than last time I had it out. Penguins did not get played with. They gotta go this week. The bus and Pete the cat books were also a hit.
This week I have a mini theme of Poppy the panda. I brought out all things Poppy.
Poppy books (Kiwico) – Aryi was never a huge fan of these when he was little, but I thought he may start enjoying them more now.
Poppy squeak toys (Kiwico) – These were super fun when Aryi was little. He loves the squeak noise. I thought it would be fun to bring them back out. I like that you can put them in and take them out.
Bus (Kiwico) – This pull bus has 4 pegs that go into the 4 slots. They have numbers on them, but also dots with the corresponding numbers. This is a great toy for counting practice.
Poppy pull back car (Kiwico) – Aryi never understood this. The way you have to pull back to go forward. I think this is something we can work on at his current age.
Poppy napkins (Kiwico) – Aryi loves to pull napkins. I usually bring out the Lovevery napkins if I am pulling out napkins. It is just better quality. But, with the poppy theme, I thought it would be fun to pull this one out.
Poppy beads (Kiwico) – This just went with the theme.
Poppy stacking cups (Kiwico) – I have not pulled out stacking cups in a while. I am hoping we can have a lot of fun with these.
Flashcards (Lovevery) – I just threw these out because we don’t have any E word flashcards to go in our basket this week.
Mega blocks (Gift) – I decided to just stick these on top of the shelf because I find that when it is cold and we are staying inside more we need more activities and having something like this not readily available, but out visible and can be brought out has helped.
Music set (Lovevery) – Aryi loved this the first few weeks it was out, I thought we would bring it out for some more fun.
This week we are switching to an Ee basket. The videos I will be playing are The Good and The Beautiful ABCs and ABC sounds, the Letter Ee from ABCmouse, How to write the Letter Ee from ABCmouse, Alphabet Surprise Turn and Learn Letter Ee and David the Dog from Easy Peasy All-in-one Homeschool. These are the links for those songs in the order I wrote them below.
I say the letter and show it to Aryi. Then I will say the letter sound. This is a E and it says EEEEEEE. We go through words that start with the Letter Ee. I pull out the items as we go through the words. For Ee, I have an elephant lovie, elephant quilted animal, wooden egg, plastic eggs, eagle, Flashcards, Letter Ee block, and the number eight. I thought we could also point to our ears and eyes and pretend to eat since all of those are e words. I have an alphabet puzzle with letters A-E 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, and so on. 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; ‘Egg’, ‘The Earth Book’, ‘Can You Move Like an Elephant’, and ‘Eddie Elephant’s Exciting Egg-sitting’. I got some of the Ee word books from the library. This is a great way for us to practice our Ee sound when Aryi points to the things in the book and says what they are. Then we can do a Ee 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 then doing a review basket for A-E, so come back for that. 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.
I am keeping this number basket pretty much the same. I have number flashcards, tactile number flashcards 1, 2, and 3, a block with the number 1, 2, and 3, and a peg board with the number 1, 2, and 3. I also have all of our numbers and books in here: ”Numbers”, “How Many?”, “Counting with Barefoot Critters”, “Big and Little”, “Let’s Count”, “Baby Math”, “Poppy’s Surprise”, “Few and Many”, and “Pop-up Peekaboo Numbers”.
You can check out the related Youtube video by clicking the link below.