Llama Llama Red Pajama: PJ Sorting

I am not an organized mom. There are a lot of things I wish I was... but when it comes to household chores, there is no structure. One thing that is consistent is that after a long weekend of being home a lot, our house is always a disaster, and Mondays is our day to recover... and pick up. Sometimes laundry is also involved... today there was a lot of it. 

Since I've got Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney on my brain this week... I thought we'd take the semi-boring task of sorting and matching pajamas and turn it into a little game... with a Baby Llama and a Big Brother Llama to help us. 

First we labeled our baskets...

Then we sorted the pajamas into the baskets based on who they belonged to (Baby Llama- my daughter, or Big Brother Llama- my son). You would be amazed at how much fun the task of laundry sorting becomes when you call it something different 🙂

Once the baskets were full... we grabbed Big Brother Llama's basket and dumped it out again and then worked on putting the pajamas pieces together into sets (tops + bottoms together). I knew my husband would appreciate that... since he hates searching for matching pajama pairs and ends up just picking two random pieces (top/bottom) for my son to wear at night... which makes for some interesting combinations.

While we sorted, we talked about... colors, patterns, shapes, images, and we made predictions. We would look at the pajama pants and try and guess what picture would be on the shirt. Then, we'd look for a shirt with that picture on it. Sometimes we were right, sometimes we were wrong.

This activity also worked on functional skills like turning shirts/pants inside out/outside in... does that make sense? At least at our house, that is sometimes tough for my little guy. We practiced turning sleeves and pant legs the right way... and then my son would yell, "I'M AMAZING! I DID IT!"

Who knew Llama Llama Red Pajama could help motivate us to work on so many good language and functional skills... and build some self esteem? 🙂

Maybe one of these days I'll be able to sit on the couch eating bon bons while my kids sort, match, and fold all our clothes?! I'm crossing my fingers right now!

Are you celebrating Read for the Record day on Thursday, Oct 6th? 

We will be celebrating... so join us! Make plans now to read Llama Llama Red Pajama and do something fun. If you don't have the book already, you can read it online here for free. 

If you've already done some Llama Llama Red Pajama activities/crafts or will be doing some later this week, shoot me an email (toddlerapproved at gmail dot com). I'd love to share your ideas on our blog and or Facebook page.

PS- If you have an awesomely organized system you use for doing chores (and possibly involving your kiddos), share that too. I could learn a lot from many of you!