I’m always looking for new ideas to play with Sawyer, while developing new skills. As I mentioned before, I’m not a fan of the TV, so we’re all about hands on play in our house. I’m constantly picking my brain on h ow we can use things around the house for games and activities. Good old Pinterest inspired this game.

I call it, muffin tin seek and find.

Taking some of Sawyer’s small toys from other games and activites, I filled a muffin tin with “treats.”

A little girl from his School bus set, a small frog, a sock, some puffs, a frog card from a matching card set and an oversized rubber jack.

While it seems like a mish-mosh of items, it was actually carefully planned. We are currently learning the color green (he knows green, red and blue — sometimes yellow and purple!), so after we uncovered the items we sorted them and put the green items together. He also loves saying the word “frog,” so I thought finding two of those would be an easy “win” for him. I find that while teaching new words is important, it’s more important to validate and celebrate what he already knows — Bean get’s SO excited when he knows a color or word so celebrating that and allowing him to shine provides positive reinforcement and keeps him coming back to the game (where we sneak in new words and colors.) If it’s not fun and if we’re forcing him to learn, it won’t work. It’s all about making it a positive experience and not pressuring him to get something right. If he doean’t recall a word or color, it’s never “noooooo, that’s not it! Instead, we redirect and say “of course, yellow! That’s a yellow block!” There’s a difference.

I used differnt lids and textures to conceal the goods.

The puffs, of course, were the first to be discovered. That’s my boy.