Toy Storage

As Sophia is growing, so is her collection of toys. I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that she’s losing interest in them despite them being age appropriate. We obviously can’t afford to supply a constant stream of new and different toys (which I don’t think would teach her good values anyway). I think it’s a case of having too much choice.

So this morning I decided to sort her toys into four piles. I made sure there was a good range in each pile and that each contained at least one ‘favourite’ toy.

I’m going to have a four-week rotating system where each bag will come out on a Sunday and she’ll have a week to play with the toys before they're put away and the next bag comes out. Hopefully only seeing certain toys every four weeks will help her to play a bit more purposefully with them! She’ll have access to her books and toddle truck all the time as I think they’re important.

We store Sophia’s toys on the bottom two shelves of our bookshelf as she can see all the toys and choose which she wants to play with.

The toddle truck holds her books and she enjoys taking them in and out.

I usually use the big bowl to contain her smaller toys, just to keep them neat but from now on I’m going to fill it with small manipulatives. At the moment it contains these small Christmas and animal knitted figures which I was given last Christmas. The kind of things I’ll put in here are things like blocks, small bean bags, giant beads, natural objects such as large pebbles, pine cones, large sticks etc.

To the right of the shelves lives her treasure basket and a bag of library books which she can only look at when supervised (otherwise she’d chew on them!).

I’m hoping that this system will work a bit better for us!

Discovery Bottles

Sophia is into everything at the moment! She loves playing with new and interesting objects so I decided to make her some fun and inexpensive discovery bottles.

I washed out some ordinary, clear drinks bottles and filled them with various things. Some ideas are…

• Dried rice or pasta - you could even add food colouring to make it more fun
• Bits of ripped up foil – the sound the foil makes is quite soothing and the reflections of light provide an interesting sensory experience for your baby
• Beads – making a musical bottle
• Bells – these would be perfect for a festive bottle along with some glitter
• Cut up pipe cleaners – different colours and lengths
• Off-cuts of different types of ribbon – these can be bought very cheaply on ebay
• Pom-poms – different sizes and colours
• Oil and coloured water – the separation of liquids will intrigue your baby
• Water beads – these can be picked up in florists or home ware shops
• Shower gel and small objects – you could use tiny animals or sequins to float in the clear and colourful gel

You can use just about anything in the bottles to stimulate little minds. For older children a nice idea would be to add in objects beginning with a certain letter to promote their literacy skills or numbers and shapes for some maths development. They really are very versatile and budget friendly!

**Safety note: I would recommend gluing the bottles shut and checking them regularly to make sure they are safe.**

Little Pleasures

I’ve learnt that when it comes to Sophia (or any baby for that matter!) you don’t need fancy toys or expensive days out, though they are very nice! You can make your own fun doing ordinary, everyday things.

We’d been stuck indoors all morning and the sun came out. I decided to grab her mat, toys, my camera and some bubbles and head into the garden.

We had a lovely time playing, singing, tickling and watching the bubbles in the air. Sophia loved every minute! She grabbing big chunks of grass and trying to eat them! Luckily I managed to stop her before she actually did.

Try as I might I just couldn’t get a good photo of Sophia looking at the bubbles. Every time I blew them she kept closing her eyes as you can see…!

I hope one day Sophia will look back and remember these simple but special memories of spending time just playing and having fun with her mummy.

Sophia’s Play Area

I thought I’d do a little post on Sophia’s play area. It’s in our living room.

In it she has…

• Play mat
• ‘Boppy’ cushion
• Basket of toys
• Shape sorter
• Fluffy rabbit (bought by Daddy for her before she was born)
• Selection of books
• ‘Treasure’ basket (post coming soon!)

Sophia definitely doesn’t stay on the mat much at all but I think it’s nice for her to have a ‘base’. We have to put cushions along the hearth as it is very hard and we’re scared of her banging her head.

By the end of playtime it looks nothing like this as she takes everything out of the baskets and moves things around and sometimes even rolls herself up in the blanket! However, this is how I set up her area each time she goes up for a nap so she knows where to find everything again when she comes back down.