Fine Motor Pumpkin Play

You only need 3 things from the Dollar Tree to set up this fine motor play activity!

I was challenged to find items from my favorite store that would build fine motor skills.  Fine motor skills are the small muscle movements that are the same muscles that are used during writing.  

Materials:

• styrofoam pumpkin
• pipe cleaners
• drinking straws

Setting up the play invitation:

Cut the pipecleaners into sixths.  We found that these smaller pieces were easier for small hands to push into the styrofoam versus our original 1/3 length.

Gather the cut pieces of drinking straws that your child has been cutting in their cutting box. Place these into a bowl or cup.

Place all 3 items on the table for your child.

How to play:

See what your child does with the materials.  Children may choose to label the colors as they stick them into the pumpkin.  They might count how many pipe cleaners they push into the styrofoam. 

My daughter strung the straws onto the pipecleaners.  She liked matching the color of straw to the same color of pipe cleaner.

Why this is beneficial:

This activity helps children develop their pincer grasp.  This is the same grasp used to hold a pencil.  This also strengthens children's eye-hand-coordination.

Play-based Learning with Dollar Tree Fall Leaves

 

If I had the choice, I would most likely choose real versus fake leaves.  But these are great, reusable indoor activities to do this fall.  Go grab a package of these leaves from your Dollar Tree:

There are endless possibilities!  You can use these leaves as is!  Just set them out as part of your loose parts or your sensory table.

If you want to extend play, throw them in a basket with a pair of tongs and some Uno or Skip-Bo cards.  

Invite children to draw a card and place that many leaves on the branch.  This same game can be played outside with REAL leaves, too.

You can further extend play, by writing the letters of the alphabet on the leaves.  I used a permanent marker, but make sure you protect your writing surface.  The marker does bleed through very easily. 

I chose to write the lower case letters.  You could buy a second pack and write the capital letters.  Then you could invite your child to match the lower case to the capital letter leaves.  

What are you going to do with your leaves?

DIY $4 Paleontologist Dinosaur Sensory Bin

Do your children LOVE dinosaurs?  They will love this easy sensory bin!

My oldest son has wanted to be a paleontologist for years now! He is convinced that he is going to find dinosaur bones some day!

 This may be THE easiest sensory bin set up ever!  And it gives you another excuse to shop at my favorite place...the Dollar Tree!

Shopping List

• 2 bags of beans
• 2 packages of Halloween bones

**I added some dinosaurs that we have at home from our small world play, but guess what...Dollar Tree has some, too.

Invitation to Play

Empty the bags into your sensory table or bin.  We have a very large sensory table.  My husband made it from an under the bed storage container.  These 2 packages did not completely fill the bin, but my daughter did not mind!

My suggestion is to let your children explore!  When interest wanes, you can add in materials like the plastic dinosaurs.  You can add in shovels, scoops, tweezers, and paint brushes.  What other materials would you add?

My daughter instantly began "feeding" the dinosaurs the bones.  She was practicing one-to-one correspondence by give each dinosaur one bone.  There are so many math applications!

What a Dog Trainer Taught me about Children

 

We have an adorable, yet very naughty Yorkshire Terrier.  His name is Motu and is almost 11 months old.  We enrolled Motu in a Doggy Training School course.

 

I visited his school last week to see his halfway progress.  The trainer took me to the room and asked me to hold Motu’s leash.  She proceeded to stack a dog kennel and a backpack against the door.  Next, she buckled a pack of treats around her waist.  She was ready to show me what Motu had learned so far. 

As soon as he was unleashed, Motu ran around the room sniffing.  To my dismay, he even hiked a leg and peed on the wall.  The trainer didn’t say a word.  She took a stack of paper towels and cleaned the wall.  She waited for Motu to stop running around the room.  When he was calm, she called for him to come to her and she praised him.  She told him to sit and he did.  She told him to lay down, but Motu was too busy sniffing the rug.  She tried a couple more times, but realized that he was too engrossed in smelling the rug.  She rolled up the rug, and now Motu was more focused.  He laid down on command. He even went to his bed when she told him to.  In the middle of the showcase, dogs barked from another room.  Motu ran to the door.  The trainer explained that she had to put the kennel and backpack there to prevent Motu from wiggling under the door crack.

You have read this far and are wondering how this relates to young children, right? 

Knowledge of Development

The trainer knew that some of the behaviors Motu was displaying are normal dog behaviors, instinctual even.  It is normal for a dog to sniff and mark their territory.  Motu is not developmentally ready to break those habits, so she ignored them and focused instead on the skills he could learn.  The same is true for toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners.  We need to know what their developmental level is and what we can appropriately expect of them.  In a preschool classroom, we should not expect a 4 year old to sit criss-cross-applesauce to listen to a story.  Is it so wrong if a child lays on his stomach instead?  Are we more concerned about the skills of sitting or the skill of listening to a story?  We need to decide what skills we are wanting to focus on.

The Environment

One of my favorite early childhood gurus, Lisa Murphy, says that adults should “control the environment, not the child.”  Motu’s trainer did this.  She barricaded the door, because she knew from past experiences that the large crack caused a distraction. She did not scold Motu when he marked his territory, instead she rolled up the rug so he wouldn’t be as likely to do it again.  In your home or classroom, how does this apply?  We arrange furniture to prevent “run ways” that entice children from running.  We provide calming corners for children who might need to take a break during the day.  We create a visual schedule for nap time, because we know that some children do not know what to expect.  We control the environment, not the child. 

So take it from Motu’s trainer:

• Know what to expect developmentally from children
• Identify the most important skill to teach
• Make changes to the environment in order to set the children up for success

Pool Noodle Stringing

We are always looking for fun water play ideas for our play group sessions.

This is an easy, inexpensive idea that takes the fine motor skill of stringing beads and makes it larger than life. 

Materials from the Dollar Tree:

2-3 pool noodles

Nylon rope

Butterfly nets

1. Grab a few Dollar Tree pool noodles!

2. Cut with a serrated knife.

3. Tie one “noodle bead” to the end of the rope. This will stop the beads from falling off as the child strings them.

4. Fill a pool with the noodle beads and a little water.

5. Let the catching and stringing begin!

This is a great gross motor and sensory experience. 

Phase 1 of Projects

 

Phase 1: Starting Phase

By this point you have already chosen an interest topic. It is best if this topic is able to be seen and explored by your child.

Birds are a great topic (so funny that I chose this because I am deathly afraid!), because you can go out your backyard to watch the birds. You can go to the store to purchase bird feeders. You may even be able to go to a pet store to see domestic birds.

Dinosaurs would not make the best project topic. Children are not able to see real dinosaurs. That does not mean that you cannot do anything with dinosaurs during your early childhood program. You can include dinosaurs in your center areas.

Once you have your topic, you will want to find out what the children already know about it. A topic web is the perfect way to record children’s ideas. Put your topic in the middle, and list all the categories shooting out from it.

I have gotten so used to making topic webs, that creating the categories sometimes comes naturally to me. It may be easier to grab a large pad of sticky notes. 

Every idea that your child comes up with, record on on note. Pretty soon you will have a bunch scattered around. 

Then you and your child can create categories of similar ideas. Here I combined like items for: 

* How they move

*What do they make

* Kinds: Which ones go in the water, which ones go on land

* Body parts

* Where do they live

Then you can transcribe these onto a topic web. 

Another tip: I find it helpful to also do an adult topic web. Are there things that I can think of that may be useful in the future of the project?

Questions

Make a list of questions that your child has about the topic. This can be done at a separate time. Or you hey may think of questions as they are completing the topic web. You will revisit this list often. I find it helpful to have it visible during project work.

Children’s Personal Stories

You can encourage children to recall their personal experiences with the topic. Throughout project work, encourage children to represent their ideas through drawings, writing, dramatizations, or constructions.

You can even share your own personal stories about the topic.

Adult Planning

At the end of this phase, you will start planning how children can investigate their questions. Is there are place you can visit in orders to see the topic first hand? This is called field work.

Is there an expert the children can talk with?

You can also use secondary resources.  These would be books, posters, pamphlets, videos, or websites.

Speech Bubble Writing

This idea came to me as I was reading There Is a Bird on Your Head by Mo Willems during this week's Atelier@Home read-aloud.  There are a few children in the program (including my own) who are reluctant writers. 

This Piggy and Elephant book uses speech bubbles throughout. It is the perfect way to distinguish between the pictures and the text.

You can get a copy using my referral link: https://amzn.to/3lBgcXH

I grabbed a stack of sticky notes and cut out speech bubble shapes.  I made sure to keep the sticky part, so children can adhere it to their own drawings.

I placed these in the Art/Writing center and showed my children how the bubbles are the same as the author used in the book.

My oldest son made this picture.  Pretty clever.  Those asteroids will get you every time :)

This trick teaches children that writing has meaning.  It also gives them an authentic opportunity to practice writing from left to right and top to bottom.

Need more ideas for reluctant writers, check out this post.  Want to work on name writing?  Go here.