BBB - Star Week

Brain Building Boxes

 Xander is 19.5 Months

 These are the boxes from last week, so they happened during our Star Week and our Space Theme.  I try to have the activities link in when I can, but don't feel constrained by making them fit.  I don't intend all of the activities to be done independently.  Most requiring scaffolding from me.

Star Cookie Cutters (Nesting/Sizing)
This box had five different star cookie cutters.  Xander loves his nesting blocks so much and stars are his favorite shapes, I thought he might enjoy nesting the stars.  He really liked these, but nesting them was much harder than expected.  We also did some size sorting.  He understand the concept of biggest and smallest, but had trouble with three in between.

Solar System Planet Match
I got this solar system matching activity from 2 Teaching Mommies.  Xander liked talking about the planets and watching me match them up, but didn't feel like doing it himself.

Space Toob Matching
During our Bee Theme, we used Xander's toob to match insects.  He LOVED it, so I thought we would try again with space.  This box had some cards I made to go with his Space Toob (in my Space Printables).  He did enjoy it, and I would love to say that we used it all week long.  However, Xander is in a throwing phase and tended to throw the figures, leading me to put them away.  So we got it out a lot, and enjoyed it up until it got taken away.

Spooning Pom Poms

This box had a star ice cub tray, some pom poms, and a spoon.  He had a bit of trouble scooping the pom poms (so did I) because they tended to stick together.  He was very good at getting them into the stars though!

Pattern Blocks

This box had the rocket template to go with his magnetic pattern blocks.  This week he was more into playing with the shapes than actually matching them up.  I was happy to just let him play while we talked about the shapes and colors.  Tot school is supposed to be fun!

Cutting Food
He loved his cutting food so much last week, I went ahead and left it out another week.  Just one of the benefits of having more space for tray/box activities!

Puzzle of the Week

No idea where this week's puzzle was from.  I just chose it because it had a starfish and we read a couple of books on starfish to go with the shape of the week.

One of the shelves also had this great star maze (I couldn't find a link for the star, but here is a butterfly with a similar concept).  There are little magnetic balls inside and a magnetic stylus to move them.  He enjoys playing with it, but sometimes get frustrated if he drops the balls.