Showing posts with label fine motor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fine motor. Show all posts

Toddler fine motor activity. Pompoms and chopsticks

Apr 27, 2014


My toddler (aged 2.5 currently) enjoys all activities that utilise small loose parts. He loves manipulating and transferring materials (moving an item from one place to another), which is fabulous for developing the fine motor skills that will aid him in future tasks, such as writing.

Today was a simple activity that takes a minute to set up but can keep toddlers entertained for well beyond that.

Ages: 18 months+
(See tips at the end for simplifying or extending to suit your child's needs)

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Simple DIY colour sorting and fine motor activity

Feb 22, 2014




As a way for my son to learn to identify colours, practice sorting and further develop his fine motor skills, I made up this quick and easy DIY colour sorting game using a recycled ice-cream container. If you don't have one, you'll have to eat some ice-cream. All in the name of parenting of course.


Age: 6 months- 2 years +
(N was approx 18 months here. See bottom for tips to simplify or extend to meet your child's needs)

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Activities for kids to help develop Fine Motor Skills

Feb 18, 2014

Follow us on Pinterest for tons of great kids activities and ideas.


Welcome back to TUESDAY TOTS

Brought to you weekly by Learn with Play at home (that's us), Rainy Day Mum,
and One Perfect Day



This week we are showcasing

"9 Fine Motor Activities for Kids"

These great posts came from last weeks Tuesday Tots linkup and most are suitable for children aged from about 6 months up. When it comes to toys and activities to develop fine motor skills, you will find that you don't need to buy anything special. Here you will find a fun range of ideas and activities that you can make or put together yourself, generally using stuff you already have at home.

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DIY Fine Motor Activity for Toddlers Plus New Toddler Snack Review and Giveaway

Aug 12, 2013

This post is sponsored by Nuffnang.


Feeding toddlers can be challenging. Because of their smaller stomachs, they need to eat smaller meals more regularly and it's not uncommon for parents of toddlers to be heard complaining that their child is always hungry!
I found feeding toddlers to be the hardest stage, as depending on how many teeth they have, some foods can still pose a choking hazard, plus constantly coming up with new and interesting foods that they're willing to try and won't make a huge mess with, is definitely a challenge.
To help save myself time, I ended up making a Toddler Food Ideas List with a whole lot of suggestions of different foods that I could provide for my toddler. The idea of having this list on hand was so that I wasn't constantly reaching for convenience foods every time I was confronted with, "Eat! Eat!!" There are times though, when being able to quickly reach for something convenient and easy would be really handy, but previously, I've not been happy with the range of snack type foods available for kids, especially toddlers.

When I discovered that Mamee, (who I'd become familiar with as a teacher for making canteen friendly snacks for kids), were making a new toddler snack to be available in the baby aisle of Woolworths, I was delighted to give some a try. (So were the kids!).

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Fine Motor Activities for Kids

Jun 4, 2013

Are you following us on Pinterest?


Welcome to  TUESDAY TOTS for this week.
Brought to you by Learn with Play at home (us), Rainy Day Mum,
Growing a Jeweled Rose and One Perfect Day


This Week:
Learn with Play at home is featuring

Fine-Motor Activities for kids


These great posts all came from last weeks Tuesday Tots linkup
where we featured "Ideas to keep kids Active. Gross Motor Fun"


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Length, Measurement and Patterning with Playdough Snakes.

Jun 1, 2013

Length, Measurement & Patterning with Playdough Snakes. Hands-on, Playful Maths for kids.


Welcome back to the "Playful Maths" series brought to you by


Together, let's make MATHS FUN!

............................................................................................................

Last week I shared a Playdough Flower Mat.

This weeks Playful Maths Activities also uses the sensory material Play dough (playdoh). 

In this activity we are focusing on length, measurement and patterns.
Other skills involved include fine motor, comparing and ordering.

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Cutting Practice for Kids. DIY Contact Paper Bracelets or Cuffs

Mar 21, 2013

cutting practice, cutting activity, collage, contact paper, crafts for kids


My daughter loves snipping so I thought I'd give her some more cutting practice
with this "Invitation to Create" Contact Paper Cuffs.

This activity is also great for encouraging creativity, problem solving and fine motor skills. 


Ages: 2+
(See the Handy Hints at the bottom for ideas to Simplify and Extend to suit your child)



Materials: Contact Paper (Sticky back plastic), variety of paper, sequins (optional), scissors
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Pom-pom Colour Sort & Count. Early Maths

Mar 7, 2013

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For me, there's not many manipulatives as fun as pom-poms for kids!

They're soft and fuzzy, small and light, coloured and shiney and textured. Delight!
(I wonder if anyone's every written a poem about pom-poms? haha)



This activity couldn't be any simpler to do and set up but is lots of fun and holds plenty of learning!


Use this activity to learn more about colours, sorting/categorising, counting, numbers, estimation, one-to-one correspondence (1:1) and  developing fine motor skills.


Ages: 2+
(see Handy Tips at the bottom for ideas to modify to your child's level)

Materials: Coloured pompoms, divided containers
(I deliberately started with only 1 container with not enough spaces for all the colours to see what she'd do)



It didn't take long before she realised that she didn't have enough compartments to sort the amount of different colours.



I then gave her another tray (just a muffin pan) so she could continue her sorting



Picking out those pom-poms was great for developing pincer-grip



She was happy about all the extra compartment she had and started to divide the lights from the darks.



When she'd divided them all I asked her which colour pom-pom she thought she had the most of? 
Which did she have the least of?



I then had her test her guess by counting the pom-poms. We practiced one-to-one correspondence (1:1) by moving each pompom from one side to another while counting aloud.



Handy Tips

- Simplify this activity by providing fewer pom-poms and colour options to sort and count. Start with 2 or 3 different colours and 5-10 pom-poms of each colour and work your way up.

- Extend this activity by having children guess which colour of pom-pom there is the most of before starting. Graph the results at the end to find out how close the initial guess was.

- Mix it up by doing the same activity with different manipulatives like blocks, legos, buttons, counters etc

- Talk with your child about what they are doing and naturally follow the conversation about colours and numbers. Use descriptive words like fuzzy and soft to help them develop their language.


Here are some more of our fun NUMBER activities for kids




You can also follow our Playful Maths series.



Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Valentines Creation Station. Arty Hearty

Jan 31, 2013

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We're not huge on Valentine's Day here but where there's an opportunity to get creative and entertain the kids, we'll take it.

I set up a simple Creation Station for my daughter and that's it. 
The rest is up to her...


Ages: 2+
(M has currently just turned 4. See the handy tips at the bottom to see how to simplify or extend to meet your child's needs)

Materials: Cardboard heart cut-outs (I pre-cut these from recycled cardboard), oil pastels, cut-up coloured paper squares, glue, sequins, hole-punch and washi/patterned tape.
(Aussies, the tape is difficult to find. The dotty ones are more fabric-like and I found them at a $2 shop and the fluro ones are from Micador and are at Big W and Officeworks. I've seen other varieties at Spotlight too)



Some of the recycled cardboard had large ridges. She was drawn to those before the other hearts.
(Use an opportunity like this to use new and descriptive language. In context it will help your child to learn)



Other than assisting to cut off some of the bits of tape (the dotty fabric type tape was too tricky for her to rip off or cut) she worked away unaided and was a constant flurry of activity.



She'd not touched the hole-punch so I couldn't resist



Suddenly, this needed to be hole-punched (haha)



A good hour of work



Affixing the hearts to various parts of the house was enjoyed by her as much (if not more) than even decorating the hearts in the first place.




On her own she rolled out some of the tape and stuck all the hearts along it in a line, stuck it on the wall, and was done.



Handy Tips

- Simplify this activity by providing materials that your child will be able to manipulate on their own. Some simple sticking and pasting or colouring with oil pastels is a nice place to start

- Extend this activity by introducing new and varied materials for use decorating the hearts. Whilst allowing the child their own creativity, you could still challenge them to come up with a variety of different mixed media pieces.

- Use whatever materials you have on hand and repeat with different combinations of materials for different results

- Talk with you child about what they are doing and experiencing to help them consolidate and understand the processes they are going through and the experiences they are having.

- Mix it up by challenging your child to join their hearts together using nothing sticky at all. Provide some more varied materials like string, cardboard for cutting etc and watch them problem solving and investigating.



Here's some more ways from us to get creative
(click the picture to go to the post)
  playdough activity, open ended, sensory activity

  kids activities, DIY kids room decor, kids craft


Happy playing,
Debs :)

Look where else we are :)
New Here? Subscribe to get all activities sent directly to you
Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Check out our Newest PLAY collaborative!
The P.L.A.Y Group
(click the pic to go follow our pinterest board)

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DIY Personalised Initial Shadowbox

Jan 21, 2013

This post is sponsored by Digital Parents
 kids activities, DIY kids room decor, kids craft


I bought some little resin embellishments/buttons off ebay a while ago and have been trying to think of a cool way to use them. After our recent Alphabet Party I've had letters on the brain, so making a Personalised Initial Shadowbox for my daughter's room seemed like a good idea.

The great thing with involving your child in a project like this is that you're encouraging letter recognition, letter formation, fine motor skills, spacial skills, creativity, discussion, problem solving and more!

All whilst making some cool kids room decor or even as a great gift idea.


Ages: 3+

Materials: Embellishments (buttons, broken/small toys, old jewellery, little odds and ends, resin shapes, scrap-booking supplies etc), cardboard lid (painted black or colour of your choice), craft glue, lead pencil, Scotch Restickable Strips (for mounting)



Use your pencil to draw in your letter. 
Apologies for all the rubbing out marks on mine.

Tip: Use a ruler for straight lines or cut out a template of paper first. You could make the outline on the computer and print it out for a perfect shape or just go freehand.. just make sure you have an eraser.



Glue inside your letter. It's a good idea to try and trace the outline so that it's clear for children where they will be sticking.



Time for sticking! Talk about putting the larger embellishments on first and how to fill the gaps.



Practicing the pincer grip to pick up small items.



Problem Solving. Here is a small gap. What could fit here? Finding something appropriate.



When we filled in all the gaps with the resin embellishments we decided to use some sequins to try and fill in the little gaps. 
(I also tossed up with the idea about using glitter for the gaps instead... perhaps on our next one)



When it was all dry, I stuck on some Scotch Restickable Strips...



And just pressed it against the wall. 
I love how it sits flat up against the wall unlike if I used hooks or sticky-tac etc. and can come away with no damage unlike pins.



We love creating unique decor for our rooms. It gives them that nice home-made, different touch from all the store bought items and gives my daughter something to feel proud about.

You can see the simple spotty lanterns that me made.



I love how the box lid provides such a simple frame for the piece. You could, of course, always make the same thing on a piece of paper and frame it for an even more professional look.





Did you enjoy this project? Feel free to share it with others.



Scotch Restickable Giveaway for Australian Readers*
*this giveaway is now closed and the winners have been notified.

3M have generously sent me one of their full range of the Scotch Restickable products (as pictured below) to send to an Aussie reader. 
To enter, simply leave a comment on this post telling us what you'd be sticking up with Scotch Restickables.


I also have 20 samples to send out to the first 20 Australian Readers to leave a comment on this post.



Product Info:

• The Scotch Restickable Mounting range is a unique and innovative 
light weight mounting product (This is the heaviest thing I've hung with them. I'm using them mainly for photos, drawings... all that sort of stuff.)

• Scotch Restickables can be washed with soapy water, rinsed and air 
dried to restore stickiness to be used time and time again  (I really love this about them!)

• Unlike other light weight mounting products, Scotch Restickables sit 
flush - allowing you to display your artwork proudly  (no more blu-tac bumps!)

• When removed Scotch Restickables remove cleanly and will not 
leave oil residue on the surface area, making it a risk free product to 
use when it comes to decorating 

• The Scotch Restickable Mounting range is available in a variety of 
sizes, tabs, strips and sheets 

• The Recommended Retail Price is $4.95. (not much considering you can use them over and over again)

• Can be purchased at any Officeworks or Bunnings store nationwide 




Terms and Conditions
- Apologies but this giveaway is open for Australian Residents Only
- The competition ends Tuesday 29th January, 2013 at 9pm (EST)
- The winner of the full range of Scotch Restickables is chosen based on originality and creativity
- Entrants will need to provide a valid email address
- Winners will be contacted via email. If you have not left a valid email address for us to contact you with, someone else will be drawn instead. Winners will need to get in contact and provide their postal address within 48 hours or the prize/samples will be reallocated.




Happy Crafting,
Debs :)


{Disclosure: this is a paid post for 3M sponsored via Digital Parents Collective. We received a Scotch Restickable range to review for this post. Opinions expressed in this post, as always are purely my own}





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