Sorting and Transferring

My little Miss E. is becoming very interested in money lately. I thought I had a few more years at least before she helped herself to my purse... Just kidding! She is fascinated in the different value of coins ("paper money is so boring, Mummy!") and the images on them, and she loves to count and stack any loose change she can get her hands on.

As it happens, we have a vase where we keep all our silver coins - 50 cents and under, for the non-Aussies, - so I hauled it out and gave Eden three containers for her to sort the different denominations into; one each for 5 cents, 10 cents and 20 cents. Eden felt that the dodecagon shape (12-sided) of the fifty cent piece made it special because it wasn't round like the other coins, so she put them in her music box. Ahem. Nice try, honey.

Christmas Activity

Looking to keep your tot's hands busy as you frantically wrap pressies? Grab two sheets of paper, write 'Big' on one and 'Small' on the other, and give your child a stash of those ribbon gift-bow thingys in two sizes (big ones and small one, as you may have guessed). Easy-Peasy-Mac-and-Cheesy!

Shell Sorting

I bought these little drawers for an alphabet activity (which I've yet to set up - stay tuned though!), and in the interim they have served as the perfect foil for Eden's sorting exploits. I have a big container of beautiful shells which we both love to touch, look at and talk about, and which Eden loves to sort into these drawers.

Nursery Rhyme Sequencing

If you're tight on time, this is a cinch to prepare. It took me less than five minutes! All I did was take one of Eden's fave nursery rhymes, Incy Wincy Spider, and break it down into four 'events'; Incy Wincy climbs the water spout, gets rained out, the sun dries him off, and then Incy Wincy climbs the spout again. Draw simple illustrations of each scene onto cardboard, cut into cards, and presto! You're done! 

Your child's task is to put the pictures into sequence. To make it simpler, you could begin with only two scenes; or, you could sing the song with your tot as you help them put the scenes on order. To add a bit of difficulty, you could add more scenes; or, you could choose a longer/more difficult nursery rhyme; or, you could have two rhymes (2-4 scenes each) and mix up the pieces so that your child has to sort the cards by song, and then by sequence. I put the pieces into a ziplock bag, and take it with us when we're out and about.

Muffin Tray Sorting

A ziplock bag with pom poms, wooden teddies and colourful spiral pasta + a silicone mini muffin mat = sorting fun! We're having dinner at a restaurant tonight, and I'm hoping this is another activity that will keep her occupied for a while. I'm going to throw in a pair of mini tongs to use as well. Simple, but effective. Better than plastic toys, that's for sure!

What Do Pom Poms and Ice Cubes Have In Common?

Answer: Ice cube trays of course! 

I can practically see eyebrows being raised as I write this, but it's true. One of the best activities I do with Eden is to set her up with some empty ice cube trays, a bag of pom poms and a pair of mini tongs. She sits happily and transfers the pom poms from one tray to the other with the tongs (great for fine motor skill development), or sorts them into the trays by colour or size, or decides that the pom poms are my lunch and that Mummy needs to be a good girl and eat all of it, thank-you-very-much.

Actually, pom poms are a great item to add to your little box-of-tricks, they could be rabbit tails for puppets, decorations for party hats or clown hats (dress ups!), your littlie could try blowing the pom poms from one point to another with a straw, you could put a whole bunch of them in a bag of netting as a tactile bag for babies, or you could put some in a small plastic bottle for babies to play with - it's very visually stimulating for them. Be careful around babies though, brightly coloured and small pom poms may look like fun to chew on...and I'm pretty sure they're not. Keep away from the bubbas unless they're in a sealed bottle or bag.

Pasta Sorting

If you feel stuck for time, this is a great toddler activity that your child can do whist you cook dinner! I simply put a handful of three different types of pasta into a bowl and gave her three containers to sort it into. Put a bit of each type of pasta into the containers, so they get the idea, and let them sort out the bowl! For an older toddler, give them a pair of mini tongs to use for transferring the pasta; it really helps with their fine motor skills.
After a while, Eden decided she had sorted the pasta enough, and it turned into a pouring game. I went with it, and added a jug, a measuring cup and spoon and a plastic bowl. She loved it, and so did I (not a toy in sight = happy mummy)!

Fruit Baskets

An important skill to teach your child is sorting. It helps them to develop logic, to categorise items, to rationalise, to identify common characteristics in items and more. There are so many ways to introduce your kids to the concept of sorting!

One idea I had when Eden was about 18 months old, was to cut out the shapes of two baskets from brown paper, and then cut out shapes of bananas from yellow paper, and apples from red paper. I stuck the 'baskets' into facing pages of a scrapbook, mixed the apples and bananas up in a container and glued one apple to one basket and one banana to the other. I sat with her to help her glue - a skill she hadn't quite mastered at that age, - and she very quickly had pasted all the red apples into a basket and piled the bananas onto the other (but she didn't want to glue those "nope, is icky Mummy", go figure).

Other sorting activities we've done include:

• a tub of pegs and a platter with four compartments: she sorted them by colour
• our clean socks off the washing line: she sorts them into Daddy's, Mummy's, hers and Ava's
• canned food in the pantry: I have no idea what rationale she has here, but she often rearranges them into an order which obviously makes sense to her
• disposable nappies: she piles them into her pull-ups and Ava's nappies
• random papers, catalogues, flyers, etc: she sifts through them and stacks them into an order that I can't figure out, but gets upset if I change it!
• junk box: I keep a large nappy box full of yoghurt tubs, food boxes, caps from drinks, and other recyclables that we often use in our crafts/playtime, and she likes to sort that out into categories. Sometimes, I ask her to put the boxes in order of height.

There are so many ways you can incorporate sorting into your daily activities, and it's amazing to see your child's mind at work, figuring out a logical way to group things. I am constantly awed by how complex Eden's mind is ("these shoes are for the princess, these shoes are for Dirt Girl..."). If you present your munchkin with the opportunity, I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised at how well they grasp the concept of sorting. And maybe you can set them loose on that cupboard you've been meaning to tackle...