Hair Brushing Tot Tray

Here's a really quick and easy to set up practical life tot tray for toddlers. Just put some dolls with long hair on a tot tray along with a hairbrush and let your little one set to work. They will get to work on the practical life skill of hair brushing while having fun with their dolls. 

Marshmallow Transfer Tot Tray

As part of our Arctic theme this week we did this fun tot tray!

First off, how cute are those polar bear pajamas? Charlie got them as a gift from her great grandma and they are just perfect for this themed week. 

So, we got out the blue tot tray, some cool colored bowls, and some clear plastic tongs. These tongs were sold in a pack with quite a few of them. I'm not sure if they were from Dollar Tree or if I had found them somewhere else. 

I filled up one bowl with marshmallows and then instructed my daughter to transfer them to the other bowl with her tongs. This is a practical life skill that's good for fine motor. My daughter's fine motor skills are honestly so great and have been for a while now from doing these activities. I keep her doing them just because she finds them fun and I think they are educational and like I said it's a practical life task. As a reward she got to eat a few of the marshmallows!

Fine Motor Tot Tray

I'm just gonna share a super simple tot tray to do with colored rice. If you have some colored rice, just put it in a bowl and give your little one a spoon and another container to put it in. When working on fine motor skills with preschoolers the littler the spoon/opening of the container the better as they are advancing in their abilities. I really love the glass jar with tiny wooden spoon I got from Hobby Lobby. It has a little hook for the spoon and a wooden lid as well. Really good quality and wasn't very expensive.

Making a Healthy Rainbow Pizza Together

My daughter loves helping out in the kitchen. We love making new, fun AND HEALTHY things together. This time we decided to try a rainbow pizza. I'd seen a few recipes, but ultimately created our own (and no we don't have a blue, indigo, violet on this pizza rainbow).

I think it's so important to allow kids the opportunities to work with you in the kitchen. They can learn so many skills they will need their whole lives like measuring, mixing, preparing, etc. For the rainbow pizza my daughter was actually able to be a lot of help. She sprinkled the flour on the pan, spread the pizza sauce on the crust, sprinkled the cheese, and added on the toppings.

This is what it turned out like once it was finished!

Healthy Rainbow Pizza with Kids:

Ingredients:
- Flat bread pizza crusts (we get the frozen kind from Trader Joe's) you could make your own, or even use another type of pizza crust I suppose. Flat bread is delicious though.
- Pizza sauce (make your own, or use one with minimal processing and ingredients, the more veggies in it the better!)
- Shredded cheese. (we're dairy free and we used a soy cheese mixture)
- Broccoli florets, chopped
- Yellow pepper, chopped
- Orange pepper, chopped
- Grape tomatoes, cut in half

For the temperature to bake it at and cooking instructions such as those you should refer to the instructions for your pizza dough.

Of course for the toppings you spread on the sauce, sprinkle on the cheese, then put the toppings on in a rainbow order. Don't forget to let your kiddo be involved as much as possible!

Carafe & Measuring Cup Rice Transferring Tot Tray

This tot tray is a great one for practical life skills.

All you need to set it is:
- A tray
- A carafe
- A liquid measuring cup
- Uncooked rice (coloring and scenting the rice is optional but does make it more interesting, ours was blue cotton candy).

Present it with all the rice being in the carafe. You'll be amazed at how quickly your little one will grab the neck of the carafe and pour the rice from it. They can spend as long as they want transferring the rice back and forth again and again