My daughter's playroom

My daughter is 10 months old and is so interested in everything. I want to share some of the highlights of my daughter's playroom. First, I rotate toys -- especially the stuffed animals. They usually don't get played with too much unless we are singing a song about that animal or practicing animal sounds.

I store her toys in easy to dump containers that I bought at the dollar store. I use flimsy shower caddies that work great as she still chews on everything. They hold just enough toys. I also found large round containers that are nice since there are no corners to bump into. I categorize her toys in the containers as soft books, soft toys, plastic toys, balls, plastic blocks, large beads, soft blocks and soon to come cars. She know where to find them and my hope that it will teach her how to clean up when we get to that phase in a few months.

I recently found a Sesame Street place mat at Walmart for $1 and taped it to the wall at her level. She walks over and talks to it several times throughout the day. I tape interesting pictures onto a gate that is partially covering the cold air return. Right now I have pictures of children -- she walks over and says hi to them once in a while, too. I also had a board book that I tore apart and laminated because it was falling apart. I hung those up in the playroom, too. She loves looking for the pictures.

I have a tunnel that she loves to crawl through and I placed the boppy pillow in it as an extra challenge as she seems to like to crawl over things.

When I was student teaching I made a felt board. I bought a large piece of felt from the leftover bin of cloth at JoAnn fabrics and hot glued it to a large piece of a foam board. I have cut out ducks and frogs that we sing to. I just prop up the felt board for now so she can only look at (not touch for now). I also have a pre-cut felt board with farm pieces that I got from Oriental Trading Company years ago.

One of her favorite toys is this exersauser piano, but we only use the piano part now. It plays songs and we sing along. She always goes over to play the music and dance or jump.

I have a walking toy for her to use that she gets stuck in the corner and has to problem solve how to get it out. Or she yells for help. We're working on the yelling part.

There are several stand alone toys. Shape sorters, Alphabet pal, toys that pop up, rock n' roll ball, and more.

My goal for her playroom is that she can move to the next toy in a safe environment with giving her lots of choices. I do think she would be happy in a room with the just stacker cups, Funny how the simplest things are the most favorite.