What’s on Frida’s shelves (20 months) 

If you are rolling your eyes at yet another shelf post – hear me out. 

Sometimes I go for months without really adjusting Frida’s shelves, but sometimes I find myself changing them up every few weeks. I really do try and “follow the child” – if Frida is using something and engaged by it, I leave it. If it’s not grabbing her attention, or she’s showing a preference for something else, I switch it up. 

This is why her recent bug theme shelves  have been replaced by a block and building area. Frida’s interest in imaginative play has really stepped up a notch, and I noticed she was suddenly far more interested in her blocks and building materials. Our house isn’t very big, so if I have to be strict about rotation if I want to be give Frida areas like this which are dedicated to one kind of play. 

On her block and building shelves she has: 

• Grimms large rainbow
• Grimms natural bridges 
• Early Learning Centre blocks (which I’ve split into natural and coloured)
• Grimms toy cars
• Grimms nesting boxes
• IKEA train set
• Wonderworld sound blocks (here) 
• Grimms 1001 nights building set (this is her favourite at the moment)

Frida also has a basket of blocks in our dining room. 

As well as a few open ended toys and her art shelves, I’ve also put out for Frida: 

Kinetic sand + Schleich animals 

This is one of Frida’s current favourite activities – she really loves making “footprints”. I decided to put it out with just a cow and calf, but Frida likes to use her other animals too, and enjoys making “ear prints”, “tail prints”, and “nose prints”. 

This is predominantly designed to just be a fun activity, though it has a bonus effect of teaching her about different objects making different size and shape prints. 

This work is downstairs with her art materials (read: messy materials), as I want to try and prevent kinetic sand from spreading all around our home! This is proving so popular that I think we’ll try the same thing with playdough soon. 

Cat purse + zip bag + Holztiger cats 

Great for fine motor skill practice and spatial awareness. The cat purse is still too stiff for her to do up herself but it’s great for seeing which cats will fit in, and the zip bag is good for zipper practice. 

Knobbed puzzle 

I had put her knobbed puzzles away for a while, but thought it would be good to see if they sparked her interest again. I’ve separated the pieces from the board so that the work isn’t presented as already complete. 

So there we have it! I’m anticipating that the block area will be sticking around for a while, but I’ll be following Frida, so don’t be hugely surprised if you see another shelf update before the year is out…