But first!
Read Our Monthly Themes for Play:
for our full list of themes
and to learn why we loveeee monthly themes.
may’s themes:
flowers + gardens + birds + colors
Activities + toys:
See a quick tour of our playroom (and how we store our toys) in this reel.
Here’s how we store monthly activity items the rest of the year.
Magnetic activity for our big ol magnetic chalkboard:
See this reel for why we love a chalkboard (and magnatiles!) near our kitchen.
Books:
Here's the three ways we store our toddler’s books.
We have a little bookshelf in our den, where we do a monthly book rotation. See a quick reel here!
And a gentle reminder that we love to ask for books for holiday/birthday gifts. Here’s the five gifts we love to ask from loved ones.
little book of backyard bird songs (kk’s favorite)
And we love these PaperPie books. Any time you purchase through my PaperPie links, I earn free books for our home library - KK and I send you the biggest hug of gratitude!
1000 things in nature - one of my all-time favorites
baby’s first garden book with finger trails
Art supplies + activities:
Here’s how we store our art supplies + activity books in our home.
magic painting garden book - KK’s favorite
this free potted flower dot marker printable
we use these markers or these dot stickers
We also love to work on these as apart of our beloved Evening Quiet Family Time ritual.
We only offer our garden-themed art supplies during May, our garden-themed month - so we reuse these things year after year. Here’s how we store monthly art items the rest of the year.
A gentle reminder that we love to ask for these things for holiday/birthday gifts. Here’s the five gifts we love to ask from loved ones.
Play dough activity:
PS there are also lots of other great garden/bird/flower-themed play dough ideas on Pinterest!
Also:
Here’s how we store our art supplies and our play dough tools.
Here’s how we store these monthly play dough items the rest of the year.
Here's a post on our favorite play dough, our favorite tools, and when we use play dough.
Sensory bins:
KK loves her two sensory tables! For this month’s sensory bin, I added:
black beans
but I trimmed them + wrapped the ends in floral tape to cover any wire
a plastic shovel from our favorite gardening set
See a quick tour of our playroom with KK’s two sensory tables in this reel.
Here’s how we store these monthly sensory bin items the rest of the year.
We have a separate, simple rice bin - like this Busy Toddler post! - that KK LOVES.
If I feel up to it, this month I’ll add to our rice bin:
a bunch of scoops, spoons
PS there are also lots of other great garden/bird/flower-themed sensory bin ideas on Pinterest!
Here’s how we store these monthly rice bin items the rest of the year.
Play kitchen:
Here’s a quick reel on the 13 things we keep in our play kitchen. And then each month we rotate 2-3 “new” food or cooking toys. This rotation works really well for us!
So in May, I will add…
this taco and tortilla set, as a nod to her Dodo’s birthday
Also:
Here’s how we store these monthly kitchen toy items the rest of the year.
See a quick tour of our playroom with our play kitchen in this reel.
Here’s a blogpost on our DIY-ish Play Kitchen with a Phone and Mailbox.
Resources + other ideas:
Whew!
Want to see photos? Follow me on Instagram - I’m always sharing peeks into our home and our daily life on my stories. I’m always tweaking our home and our routines and our systems to best meet our current needs in our current season, so my Instagram has the most up-to-date photos.
Loved this post? I highly recommend the “play area” highlight on my Instagram!
Read Our Monthly Themes for Play for our full year of play themes.
I created these monthly play themes as part of my baby prep for Baby #2. See the full list of other things I’m SO happy I did to make Joey’s arrival easier here!
And see my Amazon storefront for more of our favorite things.
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