Finger Strength

As children work on writing, cutting and the variety of other activities that require coordination and strength to your hands, they can become frustrated. It is not always easy to master these skills, but finger strength is vital.

No one wants to just sit and trace letters and numbers all day to increase finger strength, so why not have some fun.

Some great activities to practice:

1) Have you ever considered the strength and coordination needed to hold several small items in your hands and to just sit down one item at a time? It is not an easy skill. To start, we each picked up 5 beans in our hands. Next we set the beans down, one at a time, onto a piece of paper.

2) The same concept as number one, but a little more difficult, is to have the child hold several coins in their hand and then put them one at a time in a piggy bank. This is more difficult because the coins have to be held just right to fit into the small slot of a piggy bank.

3) Monkey bars. This is not just finger strength, but works for your whole hand. You will need to hold your child to keep them safe. Hold around the waist and have them bend their knees while counting to a predetermined number. This also works on the child's core strength.

4) Play dough. Just the act of manipulating play dough requires finger strength and dexterity.

Have fun and give your child a chance to strengthen those muscles!

Homemade Marble Maze

I made this activity for my son this week. It was easy to make and just difficult enough that he had to work on it.

Supplies:
Gallon size plastic bag
Duct tape
Dish washing liquid or Hair gel
Marble or Bead(s)

I opened the plastic bag well and then I cut 4 strips of duct tape. Do not make the strips too long, they have to sit horizontally in the bag.

Now, taking one strip at a time, fold the tape strips upon themselves so that there is sticky side out all around. Put the strips in the bag, alternating the bag edge. For example, the first strip goes one inch from the bottom of the back, lined up against the right side of the bag. The next strip is an inch above the first strip, lined up on the left hand side of the bag.

Repeat this until you have all of the strips in the bag. Once all of the strips are in the bag, apply pressure to the bag to seal the tape to the front and back of the bag.

Now squirt dish washing liquid into the bag, you will have to use your fingers on the outside of the bag to move the liquid along the tape strips to the bottom of the bag. Once you have the liquid in the bag, add in your marble, zip the top of the bag and apply a strip of tape over the zip top to keep prying hands form opening the bag back up and making a mess. I will say, prior to applying the tape along the top edge of our bag, we tried it out first. I could not find our marbles, so I used a pony bead. I then thought the bead was too small, so I added about 5-6 beads.

Now, hand the bag over to your child and let them use their fine motor skills to move the marble along the maze. Encourage finger isolation, by showing them how to use their pointer finger to move the bead along the slippery dish washing liquid. We then proceeded to do this activity, one finger at a time, until all fingers had been isolated.

Tuesday Teachings - Fall Counting

We have been trying to work on our counting skills lately and there is no better time than Fall! There is a vast selection of items to count and make patterns with.

We started with a package of Halloween rings that I purchased for $1.00. Our rings included spiders, bugs, skulls and bats. We worked on several things with these rings: Counting all of the rings, sorting the rings by colors, sorting the rings by shapes and then patterning. For the patterns, I would either use colors to show the pattern or I would draw the shape. My son would then have to figure out which rings matched my drawn patterns and put them all in order.

The next thing we worked on counting was acorns. There is a huge abundance of acorns available right now, so we might as well put them to use. We counted acorns, we poured acorns from one container to another and we used a spoon to scoop acorns from one container to another.

The last thing we counted was leaves. We went outside and collected a variety of leaves from trees, shrubs and plants. Once we were back inside, we counted all of the leaves and then we sorted them by size from smallest to largest. Next, we sorted them by colors and worked on our patterns.

It can be inexpensive and fun to work on counting when you just take the time to look around you and see the abundance of items available. Go on a nature hike and then go home and count your bounty!

Monday Meanderings - Johnny Appleseed Day

In honor of Johnny Appleseed Day, here are some great apple projects to do with the kids.

I would definetly start off with the "Apple", Oreo Truffles. They are adorable and I love Oreo Truffles. These were made by Raising Memories.

Ramblings of a Crazy Woman has a great apple craft. I woudl let the children also tear up the paper to work on thie rmotor skills prior to gluing.

Lilly Cakes made an adorable apple tree with a paper towel tube and some cardboard. Love recycled crafts.

Next we have No Time For Flash Cards with thier adorable apple print wreath. I love this and I love the lesson of not pressuring the kids to finish a project on our time schedule.

Lastly, I am sure we will once again make our Apple Pie Play Dough. We had lots of fun with it last time and have had several friends request some of the yummy smelling dough already this year.

Remember - An Apple a Day, Keeps the Doctor Away!

Tuesday Teachings - Worms, Worms, Worms

This past Friday (July 15th) was Gummy Worm Day! My son's teacher was so kind and invited me into the classroom to do a special segment on worms/gummy worms. I had so much fun and I think the kids enjoyed it too. I am sorry I do not have action pictures of the kids participating in the activities but I did not want to put a bunch of kid's pictures on here with out parent approval first.

First, I purchased 2 inch petri dishes for the whole class. Once I received them, I washed and sanitized them well to make them food ready. I then laid a small gummy worm in each dish and made blueberry gelatin to surround them. Each child then had a gummy worm snack to eat. They really enjoyed this, as how often does anyone eat anything out of a petri dish?

Next we played a game of "Pick Up Worms". I cut up several pipe cleaners/chenille stems into a variety of sizes and we used tweezers or ice tongs to pick them up. This was much like the game my son and I played picking up snakes, I just renamed it. To make it a bit more of a challenge, I put the "worms" in a container filled partway with colored rice.

We also played a rousing game of "Worm in the Apple". All of the kids stood in a line with their legs spread. They were the apples. The child at the end of the line was the worm and had to crawl and wiggle through every one's legs. When he reached the front, he also became an apple and the new last person was the worm until everyone had a chance to be the worm.

I also made up a little sheet for everyone to measure their worm. For this, they used a gummy worm. I taped a seamstress' measuring tape down to the table and we measured each worm a couple of ways. First we just laid the worm down and measured it. Next, we stretched it out as far as we could without breaking it and measured it. This turned into a discussion of elasticity and how even though we stretched the worms, they went right back to their original shape. In addition to measuring the worms in inches, we also had a pre-made measuring stick of "unifix cubes". The kids wrote each measurement on their sheet and at the bottom of the sheet was a box to draw a picture of their worms.

The last activity was probably one of the favorites. I actually bought a container of night crawlers. I put a few in larger petri dishes and gave the children magnifying glasses to investigate them. We wrote down all of the words that they used to explain and describe the worms. In the beginning several kids were hesitant to touch the worms but by the end everyone was letting worms hag out in their hands. At the end of the experiment, we went outside and released the night crawlers into the garden that they have. The classroom is growing tomatoes and marigolds. We explained how the night crawlers would crawl around in the soil and make it loose and easy for the roots of the plants to go down deep and allow the plants to grow happy.

Life Cycle of a Snake

We recently read another of our books in the Life Cycle Series that I purchased. This time we read

Green Snake (Life Cycles) by David M. Schwartz. I still highly recommend this Life Cycle series. We love that there are actual photographs in the books instead of just illustrations.

After reading the book we decided to do a few activities.

First we talked about how most snake species lay eggs instead of giving live birth. We also discussed how snake eggs are not hard like a bird egg. They are more leathery feeling and have some give to them.

We then did an experiment to see how they feel. Since I do not care for snakes and have no desire to go on a snake hunt, we used a chicken egg. I hard boiled two regular chicken eggs. Once they were ready, I put one in the refrigerator and the other I put in a bowl and covered it with white vinegar. We let the eggs sit in their respective spots for 24 hours then we pulled them out to look at them again.

The egg that had been in the refrigerator looked and felt exactly the same as it had when we put it in there. The egg in the vinegar though, had taken on a new consistency. Instead of the shell being hard, it was more flexible. We could squeeze the shell without it cracking and it actually bent in under the pressure of our fingers. My son was fascinated by this.

Why this works: The eggshells are made of calcium carbonate and when the acid of the vinegar touches the calcium it causes a chemical reaction, which you witness with the bubbles coming from the egg in vinegar. The reaction will continue with the calcium turning into carbon dioxide (the bubbles) until the calcium is used up (about 24 hours). Now that you have this soft shelled egg, what do you do with it? Well, you can extend the experiment by leaving the same egg out on a table over night. The next day the eggshell will be hard again. The reason is that it stole the carbon dioxide that we breath out of the air.

The next thing we did was an exercise for fine motor skill development. I cut up numerous pipe cleaners/chenille stems into a variety of sizes and put them in a container. My son had to use tweezers to pick up the "snakes". Once he picked them up, he used the tweezers to sort them a few different ways: by color and by size. He loved doing this and was quite adept at using the tweezers.

Once we had sorted the "snakes" we graphed them a few ways: Longest to shortest, color wise and then how many of each color we had.

Have a great time studying snakes at your house!

Tuesday Teachings - Math Activity

We have been trying to work on our counting skills at my house so I whipped up a little activity for him to work with.

Supplies:
Construction Paper
Marker
Glue
Pipe Cleaner/Chenille Stems
Scissors
Beads

Cut strips of construction paper about 1 inch wide and 2 inches long. You will need one for each number you want to work on. Fold the strips in half and write a number on one side. I cut my pipe cleaners in half since they are originally so long. Now glue the paper around the top of the pipe cleaner with the number facing out.

Once everything has dried, set out the pipe cleaner counters and the beads. The child then has to string the correct number of beads on to the pipe cleaners.

This works on counting and fine motor skills. Have a great day!

Tuesday Teachings - Scissor Proficiency

It is hard to decide when a child is ready to use a pair of scissors as children all develop at a different rate. Watch your child closely and if they seem interested, you can try using safety scissors with them. If your child is not ready, here are some great suggestions to get them ready.

First, there are some things your child should master prior to trying out a pair of scissors. The first skill to learn is "Ripping". I know it puts fear in your heart for your small child to rip up every paper in sight but it is a necessary skill. When the child is very young, use thin, easy to rip items like tissue paper. Show the child how to rip the paper by putting their hands on the top of the page and then your hands over theirs. Now rip the paper together. Soon they will catch on do it alone. This is the beginning stage of working on a tripod grasp and will also strengthen the forearms for later writing and cutting skills. As they get stronger and the tripod grip improves, move on to sturdier items. Some of the things that we kept in our rip basket were magazine inserts, construction paper, index paper and old holiday or greeting cards. I do recommend you keep all of these items in a central location as you do not want the child to think it is okay to rip up all the papers that they see. They need to know that only these papers that you have picked out can be ripped.

Secondly, you will move on to the "Snip" phase. A snip involves using scissors but it requires only one snip to complete the cut. We started our cutting cheap straws that I found at a Dollar Store. If you use straws, be forewarned that the pieces will fly all over the place. For my son, that was part of the intrigue.

When we started snipping, I purchased special scissors for him. The scissors we used did not have spaces for your fingers and thump, instead you put your thumb on top and the other fingers below and just squeeze. These were a huge asset to my son as his muscles were weaker than other kids his age. If you are interested in these scissors they are made by Faber Castell and are available on their Creativity for Kids website. I love these scissors as they are spring motioned and can be used with a left or right hand. If you do not want to use the straws to snip with, try play doh, sandpaper, cooked pasta or herbs. Steer clear of paper for now to give them confidence and excitement.

Lastly, you can move on to cutting with multiple movements. It is best to practice on heavier paper like construction paper or card stock. The paper will be easier for the child to handle thus increasing their confidence. You can find lots of cutting pages on line but until the child is confident, do not give them these pages to work on. Just let them cut the paper any way they please. Once they seemed to have some skill at cutting in multiple movements, draw some dark lines on the papers and ask them to cut on the lines. At first you will start out with straight lines, then lines with one angle, then lines with two angles, etc. Do not get too excited to progress though, be sure the child has the confidence needed to move on to the next step.

Cutting on curves is the last skill they will master. This is the most difficult one. The easiest way to begin learning this is to use items that are already round, like a paper plate and allow the child to cut around the edges.

All during her primary school years she will be working to improve and master her skills. Cutting is not a skill that is mastered overnight. Be patient and understanding with your child to keep them from getting frustrated and giving up.

Straw Painting

This week we have decided to work on our blowing skills. Many children, including my own son have problems mastering the suck and blow functions. This makes whistles, bubble blowing and straw drinking difficult. As a way to combat this we did some art, since art always makes life easier.


You will need:

Paint

Water

Spoons

Straws

Construction Paper or Card Stock

Containers for the paint

Put paint into the containers. We used about 1squirt of paint. Now you will want to add enough water to make it a little runny. In the picture above, two of the colors are mixed with water and two are not. It does not take much water or paint. Using your spoons, scoop some of the watered down paint onto your construction paper. We put 4 colors on at a time before we started using the straws.



Once you have the paint on your paper, pick up your straw and blow through it to move the paint around on the paper. Periodically you are going to want to turn your paper around and blow the paint from different angles.



We had lots of fun doing this. Not only did we work on our blowing skills but we also learned about mixing colors. Since we used four colors, it was fun to watch the colors mix and mingle to create new colors.

Tuesday Teaching - Fine Motor Skills

Making Seed Tapes!

Well, Spring is going strong around here and we have had so much rain that we have not even been able to plant seeds or flowers outside yet. Since I had some seeds sitting on the table and I wanted my son to help me plant them I thought it would be a great time to work on his fine motor skills.

You can sometimes buy pre-made seep tapes but often times they will also contain some weed seeds. It is a breeze and very inexpensive to make your own custom seed tapes though.

Supplies:
Flower, Vegetable or Herb seed packets of your choosing
Paper towels or newspaper, cut into strips about 1 inch wide
Flour - very small amount needed
Water - very small amount needed
Cotton swabs
Wax paper

Put a small amount of flour (about a spoonful) of flour into a small bowl. Add a small amount of water and stir to get the lumps out. You are looking for a glue like consistency. We did use our little whisk to get the lumps out. Once you have that ready, open up your first packet of seeds.

Lay a piece of wax paper over the surface that you will be working on to keep your seed tapes from sticking to the table surface. Read the seed packet to see how far apart your seeds should be planted. I show my son this distance but he gets excited and does not always stick to the recommendation but that is okay. Now use the cotton swab and dip it into the flour glue. Dab it onto the paper towel. You do not need a lot of flour glue for the seeds to stick, less is better. Once you have a glue spot, lay a seed on top. Repeat this for all of your seeds.

We used Red Cypress Vine, White Cypress Vine and Passionflower seeds with no big problems. The Poppy seeds however were TINY! What we did with those is I would just have my son push his finger down into the seeds and the ones that stuck to his finger would be put on each flour glue spot. As you can see, there are several on each flour glue spot but there was no other way for him to get the seeds on the seed tape.

Once you have done all of your seeds, label them somehow. I used a Sharpie and it was hard to write on my paper towel but it is good enough for me to remember for a day or two. Now let the seed tapes dry. Once they are dried, they can be rolled up and put into envelopes of you can not plant them soon. If you can plant them soon, just dig a hole as deep as recommended on the seed pack and lay your seed tape in the hole. For us, we will be planting the Cypress Vines in pots to set on the deck but the other seed tapes will be planted in the flower beds.

Have a great Spring! Get outside and enjoy some time with your kids and with nature.

The Sailboat Project

Have you tried Origami with your kids yet? It is a great way to be artistic and work on your fine motor skills at the same time.

I work for the Child Care Council of Kentucky, a non-profit agency in Lexington. We oversee the Child Care Assistance Program in 71 counties throughout the state and we are also a Resource and Referral Agency serving 17 counties in the state. As we were discussing the services we offer and the families that we assist in finding and paying for quality child care, it got us thinking about those families. The job we do helps these families to stay afloat in their daily lives. When you go off to a job or school, you need to know that your children are being cared for and educated.

When we looked at our records we saw that we serve 15,500 families annually. That is a tremendous amount of people but it is still "just a number". I am personally a "visual" person and 15,500 is not visual to me. I need a visual to go along with that number and that is why we began The Sailboat Project.

We are asking people to help us make 15,500 sailboats this year. That will be one sailboat for every family we serve. What a great visual to see all of these sailboats standing in for all of the families that we help stay afloat each year.

Origami paper is beautiful and easy to fold but it can also be expensive. We would love for you to fold up a sailboat with any paper that you may have available to you. If you have children, let them decorate one side of the paper and then use that to fold a sailboat. Once you have your sailboat completed, write your city and state on the back and mail it to our office at: Child Care Council, Attn: Sailboat Project, 1460 Newtown Pike, Suite 200, Lexington, KY 40511.

You can download the folding instructions by clicking the picture.


Everyone makes a difference in the world, choose to make a positive difference in the live of someone.

Melting My Heart

I remember when we were in grade school the teacher would give us a piece of black construction paper. We would then proceed to cut out a butterfly. Once the butterfly was cut out, we would cut out sections of the wings that we would add color to later with crayon shavings melted by iron.

 I did this loosely with my son except we skipped the paper part. We used a hand held pencil sharpener to get crayon shavings. We used blue, red, pink and yellow crayons. This was a real workout for my son. I forgot how much your motor skills get a work out sharpening crayons!

Once we had our shavings ready, I tore off a big piece of wax paper and we randomly sprinkled the crayon shavings on the wax paper. Next, I put a few layers of newspaper on my ironing board, laid down the wax paper, covered it with another sheet of wax paper and a few more layers of newspapers. I had my iron set to low and then I just ironed over it all. Once it was melted, a few seconds to a minute, I took the iron off and set the whole thing aside to cool.

Next we used a marker and drew shapes on our wax paper and then cut them out. Once they were cut out we taped the shapes to our windows. They would also look great if you poked a hole in them and hung them from a curtain rod.

Tuesday Teachings - Fine Motor Practice

I read lots of Montessori material even though my son goes to a "traditional" school. I like many aspects of the Montessori methods, especially their Practical Life units.

Many of the blogs I read show sorting beads with tongs or chopsticks into shapes with suction cups on the back. The shapes were kind of expensive so I have looked high and low for a different solution. This week, while shopping in a big box store, I found some of those shapes! They were with the tub/sink stoppers and they are bath tub treads. I purchased blue fish and yellow duck shapes. Each package comes with 5 shapes in it.

When I got home I set it all up. I put smiley face beads that we already owned in a small dish and set them with one of each shape and our kid friendly chopsticks on the table. At first my son had no interest in the activity but finally he gave in. We practiced using the chopsticks and will continue to practice but he was able to move some of the beads to the suction cup shapes. This is not an easy activity with the chopsticks so I am now looking for a better tool to use. We eventually went to using his fingers which still worked his pincer grasp. We also worked on only doing one color at a time. I would call the color and he would pick up that color one at a time until they were all used then we moved on to another color.

This is by no means an activity for the really little ones and even my son had to be watched closely at 3.5 years of age. The beads are a swallow hazard and it is better safe than sorry.