Tag Archives: fine motor skills

Aug11

Yellow Sensory Tub

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IMG_1314I gathered lots of yellow things from about our house and popped them into one of our sensory tubs yesterday. I was surprised by the amount of yellow things we just had lying about. There was a plate, bowl, spoon and fork, as well as some yellow lids, a silicone chocolate mould, felt shapes, plastic frogs, wooden pegs, a pom pom and pipe cleaner. And of course, the yellow sensory tub wouldn’t have been complete without a banana and a lemon.

Putting yellow things into the bowl.

Putting yellow things into the bowl.

Baby T went straight for the banana (he loves them) and tried to take a bite right through the skin. He was very happy when L peeled it for him, it quickly disappeared and he wasn’t interested in the skin. Then he took everything else out of the tub to look at it carefully. He put everything into the bowl and gave it a mix with the spoon. He tried to spear the pom pom with the fork, and he enjoyed banging the pegs against the plasticware.

Trying to pick up the lemon with the tweezers.

Trying to pick up the lemon with the tweezers.

We spoke a lot about the colour yellow, and the textures and shapes of the different items as Baby T explored the tub. L and A tickled him with the pipe cleaner, and pretended to make the frogs jump onto his head. Baby T really liked the lemon and the big plastic tweezer scoop, and spent a lot of time playing with these items. He tried to pick the lemon up with the tweezers many times, but it was far to big. He also took a bite out of the lemon… He wasn’t impressed with the taste, but he still wouldn’t let the lemon go.

Going for a big bite.

Going for a big bite.

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Jun25

Paper Lanterns

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IMG_0727Paper lanterns are a quick and easy craft activity, great for rainy days!

A cutting her paper.

A cutting her paper.

The kids each picked out a sheet of coloured paper and folded it in half lengthways. They cut into the paper from the folded edge, parallel to the short side of the paper, until about 1cm from the non-folded edge. The cuts continued at roughly 1-2cm intervals down the length of the paper. Though A’s cuts were a little wobbly, she was very careful not to cut all the way through.

The cut paper.

The cut paper.

Once the cutting was finished, they unfolded their sheets, and with the folded edge facing out, they curled one short edge around to join the opposite edge in a circle. We used sticky tape to secure the two edges together, but staples or glue would have also worked. The kids used some strips of paper in other colours as handles for their lanterns, attaching them with tape to the top.

A's big lantern.

A’s big lantern.

We had a packet of coloured squares too, which we used to make some mini-lanterns. L thought these little lanterns were very cute, and has hung some of them in her room.

Having the packet of little squares out led A to ask about making a flame for inside her lantern. She picked out some orange and yellow squares, and scrunched them together to form a flame. I helped her tape her flame into the base of her big lantern.

A's lantern flame.

A’s lantern flame.

The flame inside the lantern.

The flame inside the lantern.

 

 

 

 

 

Talk of flames led to talk of campfires, and next thing I know, L has made a fire from red, orange and yellow paper squares, and A has cut up a piece of black paper to form the sticks of a camp fire. A carefully arranged her sticks, and then placed the fire on top of them. She put her little puppy toys next to the campfire and pretended that they were having a little rest next to the warm fire. I love it when the kids have some spontaneous pretend play.

The campfire.

The campfire.

The puppies enjoying the warmth of the campfire.

The puppies enjoying the warmth of the campfire.

Jun5

Button Rainbow

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Feeling the buttons.

Feeling the buttons.

A made another rainbow today, this time using buttons. We have a big jar of old or odd buttons that are great for crafting with. A tipped the jar all over the mat, and enjoyed running her fingers through the buttons. She looked for unique or special buttons, such as shiny ones or particularly large ones.

Sorting into colours.

Sorting into colours.

She sorted the buttons into piles of like colours in preparation for making her rainbow. This was a good sorting activity for A, where she sometimes had to decide what colour a particular button was. For example, she had to decide whether some of the buttons were more orange and should go in the orange pile, or were they more red and go in the red pile. Picking up the buttons and placing them was also good for her fine motor skills.

Placing the buttons.

Placing the buttons.

A laid out the buttons on a piece of paper to form her rainbow. She started with the green buttons on the bottom because green was the least numerous colour, which she could tell from the size of the pile. Then she worked her way out through the colours. She didn’t glue the buttons down though, so she could reuse them for something else later.

Once A was finished, she packed up all of the buttons very carefully back into their jar.

May16

Mosaics Rainbow

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This rainbow was made using cardboard mosaic squares. A made arches of glue and then placed the squares onto the glue to create the rainbow. It took a while for her to do this, but I think it is a lovely rainbow.

Placing mosaic squares.

Placing mosaic squares.

This turned out to be an excellent activity for A’s fine motor skills, as she had to pick up a single mosaic square, and then carefully place it where she wanted it. Sometimes she had to lift a square up and place it down again if she missed, or move them about in the glue to get them into position. She was getting a bit tired towards the end of the rainbow, and I helped her finish the last arch of red squares.

Sticking on some clouds.

Sticking on some clouds.

A chose to make clouds using cotton balls. She packed the cotton balls in so the clouds are very fluffy.

When it dried, the paper under the rainbow became a bit crinkly where the glue had dried. As is A’s tendency, she did use rather a lot of glue, but it looks fine on the wall next to some of her other rainbow pictures.

May9

Pom Pom Rainbow

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A is into rainbows at the moment.IMG_9867

Sorting pom poms.

Sorting pom poms.

I got out our tray of pom poms, which contains many pom poms in various sizes and colours. A first sorted through them to find the pom poms she wanted to use, placing them in piles of like colours. She chose to use six colours in her rainbow, and to place it on clouds. The clouds are made of cotton balls as A thought they were fluffier, and more cloud-like than the white pom poms we had.

Placing a line of pom poms.

Placing a line of pom poms.

A asked me to place a line of craft glue on her paper in the shape of a rainbow. She carefully placed the pom poms onto the line of glue, one at a time, making an arch in one colour. Then she worked on the next colour, and the next until she had her rainbow complete. Placing the pom poms using her pincer grip was good for her fine motor skills.

Sticking on the clouds.

Sticking on the clouds.

Once all the pom poms were placed onto the paper, A put some glue at the bottom on each side of the rainbow. This is where she placed the cotton ball clouds. I thought it looked very good like this, but A decided that it needed some birds (some birds turned into a lot of birds!).

We have put this one up on our wall. It looks a little lonely at the moment, but we are planning to make some more rainbow pictures to go alongside it.

Rainbow picture with birds.

Rainbow picture with birds.

Apr7

Paper Plate Hot Air Balloon

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IMG_8949There was recently a Hot Air Balloon Festival held near us, so we have been talking about hot air balloons a lot lately. This led to some hot air balloon craft using a paper plate and some cardboard.

The basket attached to the balloon.

The basket attached to the balloon.

The pegs attached to the passengers.

The pegs attached to the passengers.

We used a rectangle of cardboard to make the balloon’s basket, and we attached this to the paper plate using string. A drew a picture of herself and one of her friends to be the passengers. I carefully cut around them, and we glued tiny pegs to the backs of these pictures, and left them to dry.

Placing the cardboard mosaics.

Placing the cardboard mosaics.

Adding more mosaics.

Adding more mosaics.

I had a bag of cardboard mosaics, which are little squares of coloured cardboard, great for decorating art and craft projects, or making pictures with. A brushed Clag glue all over the inside of the paper plate, and then she stuck the mosaics squares on randomly. We had to leave this to dry for a while.

A used the little pegs on the back of her passengers to attach them to the basket. We hung the balloon in her room and her passengers can go for a ride in the breeze from the window.

 

Apr7

Painting Pillow Cases

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3D glitter fabric paints.

3D glitter fabric paints.

3D fabric paint with glitter, oh we had to try that! It came in a pack of six colours with easy to use nozzle applicators. I bought some cheap white pillow cases for the kids to paint on, and I placed some thick cardboard into the pillow case to prevent the paint from running through to the other side. I used pegs around the edges to keep the pillow case flat while the kids were painting.

The tubes only needed light pressure to squeeze the paint out, but A was a little heavy-handed at times, and her paint went on very thickly. She didn’t like the look of this, so she took a paintbrush, and spread the paint out over the pillow case. This made a glitter rainbow that she was very pleased with. She asked me to squeeze more paint out in lines all over the pillow case, and she used the paintbrush to mix it. She had lots of fun doing this, though it meant that the 3D look of the paint was lost.

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Almost finished.

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Spreading the paint.

L preferred to paint a picture on her pillow case. She drew mountains and hills, the sun, grass and herself standing next to her trampoline. She was much better able to control the flow of paint than A, and she even mixed some of the colours to create new colours.

L painting her picture.

L painting her picture.

Once they were done painting we left the pillow cases to dry. We could have painted on the other side after a few hours, but we chose not to. We followed the instructions on the paint pack, leaving them to dry for a couple of days prior to washing them. Once they were washed and dried, the kids put them on their pillows. Due to the 3D nature of the paint, it is raised a little and the kids said it feels funny to sleep on. This is why I asked them not to paint on both sides. They can have the painted side on display during the day, but at night, they just flip the pillow over and sleep on the smooth, unpainted side. They are both happy with this.

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Apr5

Wooden Beads

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The pile of wooden beads.

The pile of wooden beads.

A found a little box of wooden beads and laces while we were tidying up her room. She asked to do some beading with them today.

Sorting the beads.

Sorting the beads.

She tipped them out into a pile, and then sorted them by colour. There was also a few bigger beads with flowers on them, and A placed all of these ones together. Once she had them in separate piles, I gave her some little cardboard labels on which I had written the French words for the colours. She read each one, and then put the label next to the correct pile.

Sorted beads with French labels.

Sorted beads with French labels.

A placed the beads onto the laces, making patterns with the colours. Once she was happy with her string of beads, we hung them up in her room.

Bead pattern.

Bead pattern.

Apr2

Yarn Dolls

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I remembered making yarn dolls when I was a child, and I wanted to try it with the girls.

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Wrapping the yarn around the cardboard.

Wrapping the yarn around the cardboard.

First I cut some sturdy cardboard up into two rectangles to use to wrap the yarn around to make the body of the doll. I started each child off by winding the yarn around a few times, and then they continued to wind it until it was as thick as they wanted it to be. Once that was done, I helped them remove the hank of yarn from the cardboard. From this yarn we would make the head, body and legs of the doll.

 

 

Tying yarn around the body to form the head.

Tying yarn around the body to form the head.

The body with hair, head, body and legs.

The body with hair, head, body and legs.

L cut a few pieces of yarn off the ball to use to tie around the hank of yarn to differentiate the hair from the head, and the head from the body and the body from the legs. L tied her knots, but A had difficulty, and asked me to help her do this part. Once the yarn was tied around the body at the top of the legs, we split the yarn beneath this into two roughly equal parts, forming the legs. A small section at the base was also tied off to form feet.

Arms ready to be added to the body.

Arms ready to be added to the body.

To make the arms, the kids wrapped some more yarn around their cardboard, but this time, around the shorter sides of the rectangle. This hank of yarn was also not as thick as that of the body. Once we had removed this yarn from the cardboard, a small section on each end was tied off to form the hands.

We carefully threaded the arms through the body of the doll, and secured the arms in place using another piece of yarn wrapped around the doll’s chest in a criss-cross under the arms and around the back. We snipped off all the loose threads from our knots, and then the dolls were done. L left her doll just as it was, but A added some tiny googly eyes to her doll, but not other facial features.

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Mar30

Bottle Doll

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A is crazy for dolls of all sizes and shapes. She does a lot of pretend play with them, in particular she likes to give them baths…. which are not always so pretend. She carries them around, takes them on outings, and to bed. A asked if we could make some dolls for craft, so we gave it a go. I remembered using a soft drink bottle to make a doll when I was a child, so we started with making a bottle doll.

The doll's head.

The doll’s head.

We had an empty mineral water bottle that we washed out, and removed the label from. I cut out an oval of pink foam for the doll’s face, and A glued it to the top of the bottle. A decorated her doll’s face, giving her googly eyes, and using a marker to make a mouth and a nose.

IMG_8631I twisted two pink pipe cleaners today to make one long one, and I helped A to wrap this around the bottle to make some arms.

Then A got down to the very serious business of dressing her doll. She decided her doll should be wearing a shirt and a skirt. She chose to make the skirt from red tissue paper and blue honeycomb mesh, and the shirt from gold honeycomb mesh and pink crepe paper. I helped her to poke the doll’s arms through the mesh and crepe paper of her shirt. I held the shirt and skirt shut at the back while A taped them together. She is getting much better at removing tape from the dispenser without sticking it to itself now.

Adding hair.

Adding hair.

Once she was dressed, it was time to “make her pretty” according to A. She didn’t like the bald look her doll was sporting, so she added some curly doll’s hair to the top of the bottle and around her face.

Placing her necklace.

Placing her necklace.

A also used some stick-on gems to giver her doll a necklace, some earrings and a little watch.  She found a thin pink ribbon in the craft box and asked me to make her a bow to place in the doll’s hair too.

Adding the final touches.

Adding the final touches.

As a final decoration, A placed a small blue feather as a pendant on the doll’s necklace.

A made a bed for her new bottle doll beside her own bed that evening, so she would be comfy and warm, and ready to play first thing in the morning.

 

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