Play Doh Fine Motor Work

Play doh is a great activity for working many learning areas. You have sensory, art, creativity, colors, and fine motor work. You can easily add in even more.

When I had only one child who played with toys and made messes, I thought play doh was such a huge mess and cinged when that activity came to the forefront. Now it is my favorite! The children sit in one spot and play for an extended period. Sure, little bits of play doh get stuck to the counter and spread on the floor, but the reality is that it is so much easier to clean up than toys spread around the toy area. 

Right now, we are loving using toothpicks with our play doh. You flatten out the play doh, take your toothpick and practice whatever needs to be practiced. You can write letters, write names, do math problems, draw shapes, and draw pictures. We love play doh! 

Hibernating Polar Bear

This is a fun winter craft. This is an art project that works fine motor skills and adds sensory input.

Supplies:

• Blue or black construction paper
• White paper
• Crayons
• Cotton balls
• Glue
• Scissors
• Polar bear printable

Activity

Have your child color the polar bear. Cut out a white mound of snow. Have your child glue cotton balls to the snow. Your child can color the construction paper to have snow and snowflakes if desired. Glue pieces on.

Beach Scene

This is a great sensory art project for summer!

Supplies:

• blue paper plate or blue paper
• foamies or other fish stickers
• little shells
• sand
• glue
• paper cut out like a castle

Activity:

Glue sand to castle paper. Glue sand on plate along with little shells. Add fish stickers to the blue "water."

Y is for Yarn

Last Monday, I talked about the simple activity of creating letters filled with something that starts with that letter. I showed you "G is for Grass." For Y, we did Yarn. 

Another benefit to this activity beyond letter recognition and beginning sounds practice is that it provides a tactile experience. That makes this a great sensory activity also!

L is for Leaves

This was a fun activity that incorporated a fun fall hunt, fine motor skills, letter review, sensory, gluing practice, and lots of teachable moments on the walk!

Before the walk we talked about:

*Color of changing leaves

*Items that represent fall

*What to collect, what to avoid

Then off we went! We collected pine needles, pine cones, crunchy leaves, leaves that are just changing, acorns, dried branches, and anything else that represented fall.

For this activity it's best to make sure you collect some crunchy leaves.

We played some I/eye spy games:

"I spy with my little eye, something squirrels collect!"

Then at home, with a previously prepared Ll paper, they crunched and smashed the leaves, and sprinkled them like glitter over a glued surface.

L is for leaves. Enjoy!

Pizza Pizza!

Kaitlyn (4) started preschool this year for the first time. For her first homework assignment, her teacher gave her this slice of "pizza" (the white triangle) and told her to decorate it like a pizza. 

We talked about all of the things we could do to decorate it. Kaitlyn's favorite pizza is cheese pizza, so she wanted to make a cheese pizza. We decided shredded paper would be fun. I shredded up several pieces of paper. Then she put glue on the pizza and pressed the shredded paper on. 

For toppings, you could use buttons, felt, magazine cut-outs, pipe cleaner, etc.--whatever you can think up. It was a fun project that brought in some sensory activity to it. 

Pudding Sensory Bags

Ignore my shadow, please. :)

An easy way to practice writing and drawing shapes, letters, lines, numbers, and more!!

Working on addition? Give them a problem and let them draw the answer!

Call out a word and have them write the beginning, ending, or entire word!

Call out shape attributes and have them draw the answer (I'm thinking of a shape that has 3 sides and 3 angles).

Supplies: pudding (I used already prepared snack packs), zip lock or other zip closed bag.

Put the pudding in the bag, flatten the air out, and you are ready to go!

My daughter used a Q-Tip (her idea) for easy writing...and she was right! It's even easier that way. :)

Have fun...and don't forget to save one for snacking. :)

Sensory Ocean/Beach pictures

This activity works for babies (touch and feel), all the way to elementary aged kids! You have lots of options...

*Paint the ocean

*Paper towel paint

*color the ocean w/ markers

*Use the side of a peeled crayon and make the water

Once the water has been drawn/painted, start adding details...

*We added shells collected from a previous vacation

*spread glue on the bottom (we used fingers) and sprinkle w/ sand

*Add glitter to wet paint/glue for a sparkly effect

*Use pom-poms for anemone, collected sticks for seaweed (or ribbon, pipe cleaners, etc)

*Make fish out of construction paper to glue down, or use fish stickers

*Finally, stretch out some cotton balls for clouds.

The idea is to use as many sensory (Touch and feel) items as possible. Dig around drawers, craft boxes and see what could substitute for items under the sea. If I'd had green streamers, I would have added those for sea weed.

For young children, make a small version yourself and let your child touch it, and talk about how it feels (scratchy, rough, smooth, cool, soft, etc).

Balloon Hacky Sack

I first must praise my camera. That is an awesome picture. I love my camera. I am no photographer and look what my camera has produced. I also love sunny days that help my camera.

Okay, so today we had our library craft day. This fun Hacky Sack ball was one of the crafts we made. 

Age Range: 

This is great for children of all ages. As long as you trust your child with balloons and small seed-like things, you can do this with your child. At the activity, children one and up were doing this.

Materials:

• Balloons
• Scissors
• Funnel
• Hard wheat or bird seed. You could also use small plastic pellets.

Activity:

1. Choose three balloons
2. Cut the "neck" of the balloon off of two of the balloons right where it juts out from the round part of the balloon. One of these will be your outer edge of the hacky sack, so may sure your favorite color will be one of these.
3. Stretch and blow up the third balloon. Then release the air. This is just to stretch it out.
4. Put the third balloon over the small end of the funnel.
5. Fill the balloon with the seed/wheat/pellets. We used hard wheat, but if you don't own that already, I would do one of the other options.
6. Work it all in so it is out of the neck.
7. Cut the end of the neck off, but not the entire neck. Just the bulky end part. 
8. Fold the remaining neck so it is flat against the balloon.
9. Put one of the two cut balloons over the balloon now full of seeds. Put the neck portion of the filled balloon into the second balloon first so that the openings are not next to each other.
10. Repeat with the final balloon. You can always use more balloons if you want to.

You now have a fun ball to play with! I don't know about you, but my kids love balls. 

Painting With Texture

Last month, Brayden had a "night of the arts," which is akin to "Reflections" (we have a PTO instead of a PTA). 

The theme was treasures, and being a 5 year old boy, he naturally wanted to paint a picture of a treasure chest on a desert island.

He decided to make it a bit more interesting, though, by adding some texture. For the "gold," he used glitter. For the sand, he went to our sandbox and literally took sand. He applied some glue, then rubbed sand on the paper (yes, messy). I think it turned out cute and I plan to try to work more texture into our painting. It combines sensory with art. It was lots of fun!

Christmas Lamb

My version

Playgroup was at our house this week. Our learning area of focus happened to be the letter "L." I wanted to do something Christmas-y and was having a hard time with L. I was stuck on T for trees or R for Rudolph. I have lots of ideas for those! But L...

I did some brainstorming and was a bit disappointed in myself that it took me that long to think of "lights" and "lamb" as well as "Lamb of God." Okay, plenty of L things for Christmas. And thus, this idea was born.

AGE RANGE: Definitely works for 3 and 4 year olds. I also did it with a 5 year old (Brayden). I would guess most 2 year olds could do it. You might be able to get an 18-24 month old to participate, but watch closely because of the glue. If yours is like mine, she might try to eat it.

TIP

I have finally learned to make my own version before asking children to create it. Then they can see what they are doing without trying to see what is in my head.

SKILLS TAUGHT

• Religious discussion of Lamb in Christmas story
• Sensory skills
• Fine motor

SUPPLIES

• Paper to put stuff on
• Cotton balls (I used 10 per picture)
• Black paper for face
• Black marker/crayon for legs
• Glue
• Glitter for star

ACTIVITY

For the younger children, you might want to do the glue/glitter star yourself and let dry a bit before starting the activity. For the older children, you can let them do the star. 

After the star is on the paper, put an oval of glue on the paper and glue in the oval. Then have the child put the cotton balls on the glue. Have the child glue a face on, then draw legs on. Let dry completely before hanging up.

Be sure to talk about the lamb's role in the story as well as the emergence of a new star and what that meant. We also read The Something Wonderful: A Christmas Story by Karen Hill. It stars a little lamb, so it goes perfectly with this activity.

Brayden's version

Outdoor Fun: Mud Paint

My toddler, with her "I'm ridiculously happy" face.

In The Everything Toddler Activities Book by Joni Levine, one of the fun outdoor activities suggested is Mud Paint. One thing I know for sure....my toddler + dirt + water = some seriously messy fun.
Here are the steps:
1. Find some mud, or better yet, show your child how to make mud. Use a spoon to help make the mud a creamy consistency.
2. With the spoon, place a blob of mud on a piece of poster board for your child to finger paint with. For older kids, let them make their own consistency (thin, thick, etc) and use different things to paint with...leaves, rocks, paint brushes, fingers, toes...the possibilities are endless.

If you don't have poster board, I think it's fun to get an old white sheet and paint it. When you are finished, let it dry, shake it out and wash!

After a few times, my girls got creative and started painting each other. It was hilarious! My youngest likes to dig in the mud so much we made her a mud bucket, especially for her digging pleasure. :)

American Flag Pattern Acvitity

This is an idea I came up with to learn about the flag and patterns. This activity works in colors, sensory, counting, patterns, shapes, and history all in one.

SUPPLIES

• Red pipe cleaner
• White pipe cleaner
• Blue construction paper
• White crayon

PREP

• Cut the blue construction paper into a paper 6 inches by 4 inches
• Cut three pieces of red pipe cleaner to 6 inches each (my pipe cleaner was 12 inches, so I just had to cut it in half)
• Cut three pieces of white pipe cleaner to 6 inches each
• Cut four pieces of red pipe cleaner to 4 inches each
• Cut three pieces of white pipe cleaner to 4 inches each

 

ACTIVITY

1. Draw 50 stars in the upper left corner. Kaitlyn (three) drew several by herself. They were more like scribbles, but that is okay. Count to 50 out loud. We put a few pieces of pipe cleaner down so we could see what our space was to fill in with stars. You could also draw a line and have your child fill in the rectangle.
2. Put the pipe cleaners in place to show the pattern of the stripes. This is a good time to talk about why we have 50 stars and why we have 13 stripes and other interesting facts surrounding the American Flag you would like to introduce.
3. Once you have the pipe cleaner in place, point out the pattern. Go through the 13 stripes saying, "red, white, red white..."
4. Remove the pipe cleaners and have your child put them back in the right order. For older children, they can do it on their own. Kaitlyn needed me to tell her which color started first.

 

This is an activity you can keep in a baggie in with your learning activities and pull out when you need your child occupied for 5-10 minutes.

Easter Basket Sensory Activity

This activity was born out of my need for several things. First of all, I wanted a fun sensory activity for my children for this season of the year. My kids love sensory activities--especially my nearly three year old daughter. Second of all, I had a need to justify the use of another Easter basket. I don't know what it is about these things, but I have a weakness. I love them. My husband wanted me to downsize our collection (I guess since I cam home with two new baskets a couple of weeks ago), so I found myself analyzing the need for each basket.

This is a nice sensory activity for this time of year because, as you can see, the basket can double as a decoration.

AGE RANGE

18 months and up

SUPPLIES

• Easter Basket
• Easter grass
• Treasures to put inside. I put bunnies and eggs. For added excitement, you can put things in the eggs

PREP

• Fill your eggs with treasures if you intend to
• Put your treasures in the basket buried under the grass

ACTIVITY

Allow your child to dig through the grass to find the treasures. You child will want to do this over and over again. It is as simple as that.

Texture Bags

Super easy and fun! Great for babies, toddlers and preschoolers.
Materials:
Double zipper sandwich bag
Hair gel, pudding, applesauce, yogurt, washable paint....basically anything gooey. :)
Glitter (optional)

Activity:
Put 1/4 - 1/2 cup of gel/pudding in a sandwich bag and zip tightly, removing most of the air. Flatten bag so that it's a drawing surface.
Let your child play!

Ideas:
Babies will enjoy just squishing. I have to keep an eye on my baby because she's a fan of chewing on these bags.
Toddlers: Play guess the shape/letter, let them try to draw with their fingers, decorate the bag, make dots and have them count them. Hand prints were a winner with my girls. She even figured out how to do a face print. :)
Preschoolers: Great for practice writing letters and drawing shapes. Bigger bags seemed to be more fun...larger drawing/writing surface. You can also make a letter sound and have them draw the appropriate letter, call out a word and they can try to write the beginning consonant, etc. Be creative!
You can also mix colors of paint for a swirl effect in the bag. It's also a good change to talk about what happens when you mix colors like blue and yellow!
If using pudding, yogurt, applesauce or some kind of food, I would really recommend hanging on to the bag for long. If you choose paint or gel, the bags are good for some time! I keep a few bags stored in my activity cabinet.

Sensory Activities

My children love to do sensory activities. Give them a container full of beans and they will be entertained for days. I recently saw this idea for beans and hearts on No Time For Flashcards. Both children have enjoyed it; Kaitlyn has loved it. She plays with it several times a day. I keep it in the kitchen so she can play with it while I am in there.

You can do lots of different things for sensory activities. You can make them similar to this one and add whatever suits your theme for the week. You don't have to use beans. You can use things like rice, sand, and packing peanuts. Brayden's preschool teacher filled her tub with sand during dinosaur week and the children looked for dinosaur bones.

After you fill it, give your children items like spoons and measuring cups to scoop, pour, and dump.

Yes, there will be spills. Personally, I wouldn't' do sand in the house because I am OCD. That is what we have a sandbox for. But I don't think there is anything wrong with it if you will have sand in it in your house. You can teach your children to pick up the beans and packing peanuts as they spill or when they are done playing. Messes clean up :)

One warning, if you have carpet that is plush in the least, I don't recommend you use beans on it. We learned that the hard way about 8 months ago. We found beans in the carpet for months! I now do this on hardwood floors.

Tub Painting

When you've been trapped inside due to weather or for whatever other reason, sometimes you need to liven the routine up a little. We've been known to throw in an extra bath time during the day. Nothing like a little body painting to chase away the midwinter stuck-inside-too-long blues. At least that's the motto in this house. :)

An easy (and cheap) way to make bath time, day or night, a little more fun is to make bath finger paint.

I let Charis help mix it together using measuring spoons. The measurements don't have to be exact. I add more or less of any ingredient to get the consistency of finger paint.

Recipe:

1 T cornstarch

2 T liquid soap (shampoo, body wash, etc)

food coloring

Mix cornstarch and soap together. I usually double or triple the recipe. Then add a few drops of food coloring to get the desired color. Last time I did it I did 2 T cornstarch and 3 of soap and it turned out fine.

So far it hasn't stained anything and washes off the walls perfectly. Great time to work on colors or cause and effect from mixing colors!

Shopping

Now that I have 2 kids, one of the tougher jobs on my list is grocery shopping. Well, shopping in general. I have not yet mastered the art of managing two children, one grocery cart, a crowded grocery store, checking off a list, reading labels, and keeping on budget while teetering oh-too-close to either a nap time or meal time. Don't get me wrong--my girls are remarkably well behaved in the store, even with a mom on the brink of a meltdown. You may have seen me out and about...you know, the one answering the thousandth "What's that?" question from a toddler while trying to see which items are on sale and removing the cart strap from the baby's mouth for the umpteenth time. I may or may not be crying. *wink* On a good day you'll see me humming to myself, trying to enter in to my quiet place where I can actually remember what's on my list. Or where I put my list. Anyways...

So is it possible to learn AND shop at the same time? Sure! Here's a few things you can do while you are out shopping to help your toddler or pre-toddler learn, have fun, and possibly allow you to get some shopping done without having to resort to "The Quiet Game." :)
For most of these, it helps to have a Shopping Notebook set aside that you use especially for the store.

1. Stickers-- Peeling stickers is a great fine motor activity. Chances are your child will/does love stickers. They don't have to be expensive, either. Local dollar stores have a pretty good selection generally. If you come prepared, draw lines or shapes in a notebook and have them put the stickers on the lines/shapes you've drawn. (A little hand-eye coordination work).
Another sticker option is to call out body parts and let them stick them on. "Put a sticker on your knee. Put a sticker on your elbow."

2. Pre-printed lists- This takes a little pre-planning, but is totally worth it at our house! Here are 2 options:
*Print off pictures of items needed. I use Google Images, cut and paste. I also put them in order of the aisles at Wal-Mart. For example, I know I start in the back of the store with dairy. So all my dairy items are at the top. You can then ask them "What's next?" "What's first?" "What's last?"
*As you shop, call out items on the list and have your child check them off, or mark through them. It will take them a little while to find them and then mark through them.
For older kids, you won't need to call out anything. Just let them observe and check it off!

3. Coupon sorter: Get your coupons ready and as you get your item, let them look through a stack and see if there is a coupon for that item.

4. I spy: This is a personal game, not one they play with you. Draw or print off a picture of an item and glue it on the top of one page (example: a shirt). Then make a column of colors, like a red shirt, blue shirt, green, etc. As they go through the store they have to see if they can find these things, and then check them off. As you wait in line, help them finish off the list and see how many they've gotten.This is a good chance to work on colors, observation, and tallying.
*For older kids, see if they can find more challenging things, like something sweet, grumpy people, happy people, a kid with a toy, a baby with a bottle, etc.


5. I got this idea from Parenting Magazine--
"Honk if you love..." (or quack, whatever) Choose a funny sound and an object. Whenever you see the object (a teddy bear, a circle, a baby) you both have to make the sound. They'll be very focused on looking around and making the funny sounds. It makes shopping fun for us. :)

6. Again, from Parenting---
"Posers in Waiting"--Both of you strike a pose and hold it until the line moves, like making a face, stand on one foot. The person that stays still the longest gets to choose the next pose.

7. Can you find..
*Someone that has the same color shirt on as you?
*Someone with mommy's hair color?
*Someone with something in their cart the same as ours?
*A mommy shopping with 2 kids, like us?

8. Texture talk- As you bag up your produce, ask them questions. "Do you see a food that looks bumpy? How does this feel? Is this soft or hard?" You can even involve them in the process of choosing your food. "I'm looking for bananas that have NO brown on them. Can you find some bananas that don't have any brown?" or "See how this apple has a little spot on it that feels soft. We don't want that one. Check this apple and see if it looks good." "When we pick out a cantaloupe, you can smell this part. If we can smell cantaloupe, it might be a good one. Do you smell anything?"

9. And finally...the Quiet Game. Or the Still Game. Personal favorites of mine when you just need a moment. Pretty simple--see how they can sit perfectly still or perfectly quiet. *Aaaahhh...*

How about for the babies? Talk, talk, talk. Tell them what you are doing, what's on your list, what you see.

Happy Shopping!
Any tricks in your bag? Share!!

Texture Cards

Materials:
-4 small "cards" made of construction paper or foam paper
-glue
-something rough (sand, rice, or salt)
-something soft (cloth or cotton balls)
-something bumpy (beans or just something to make the foam paper bumpy)
-sharpie

Preparation: (kids above 2 years old can help with this)

1. write 4 types of texture on the cards (rough, bumpy, soft, smooth)
2. spread glue on the rough card and sprinkle sand, rice, or salt over it, then tap the card over the trash can to get the excess off. Set aside to dry.
3. spread glue on the soft card and spread something soft over it. Set aside to dry.
4. for the bumpy card either glue beans onto it or simply poke indentations in the foam paper to make it feel bumpy.
5. the smooth card stays the way it is.

Activity:
-let your child examine each card and tell them what each card is.
-have your child close his/her eyes and tell you which texture card they're feeling without looking at it.

Extensions:
-This could be a part of a bigger unit on the 5 senses or parts of the body. This would be a great way to discuss the sense of touch, skin, or hands.
-ask your child to find other things that feel bumpy, rough, smooth, or soft. They could go on a scavenger hunt throughout the house to collect real objects or simply draw pictures of them.
**this activity would be good for a child with sensory processing disorder to gain controlled, small amounts of experience with different textures on their skin.

Pouring

Materials
-3 small cups
-1 cereal bowl
-water
-lentils, beans, rice, or cereal

Preparation
-fill the small cups halfway with the lentils (or beans, rice, etc)

Activity
-place the bowl in front of your child and pour one cup of lentils into it to demonstrate. Explain verbally as you do so.
-hand your child a cup of lentils and help him pour it into the bowl
-give the 3rd cup and allow your child to try to pour it himself
-repeat as many times as you like
-repeat with water as well. You should start with a small amount of water at first so it's not too heavy. If your child is very young or uncoordinated you may want to only use 1/4th a cup of water. My son is 15 months and he managed to pour half cups of water fairly accurately with just a little accidental spilling.

Extension
1) discuss concepts of empty and full
2) use a smaller container to pour into or a larger container to pour out of (like a pitcher). You can even use a funnel.
3) children 18 months and older can pour a half cup of water from a pitcher into their own cup. As they get better at it fill the pitcher with more water than the cup can hold and they will have to learn to stop pouring before it spills over.

*If/when your child spills have him help you clean up. When Tobias spilled the water I handed him a dry washcloth and we mopped up the spill together, he thinks this is tons of fun and it teaches him to be responsible for his own activities and messes.

Skills
fine motor skills
practical life skills

Resources Used
Tot School Blog
Montessori from the Start by Paula Polk Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen