Cotton balls and Q-tips

Objective

To further develop fine motor and sorting skills for my toddler

Materials

• cotton balls
• Q-tips
• Two containers (one for the cotton balls and one for the Q-tips)

Like many toddlers, my daughter likes to play and explore objects that are not necessarily toys.  A couple of weeks ago, she found the Q-tip holder in our bathroom and dumped out all of the Q-tips.  I watched what she did with them.  Instead of just dumping them and moving on to the next activity, she began picking up the Q-tips. One by one, she put them back into the container, making sure each one was flat and fit back into the holder correctly.  She managed to put them all back and then proceeded to dump them back out and do it all over again.  She must have spent a good half an hour doing this. It was amazing to me that she was so focused on this and was practising attention regulation despite the distractions near by.

She also gave me inspiration for this post.  This activity could be used to develop fine motor skills, sensory exploration as well as sorting.  I set out the cotton balls, Q-tips and put containers for each of them so she had separate containers if she wanted to sort.

Here is what I used:

What are your toddler's favourite bathroom accessories?

Continue reading →

Making a mark

For the past few months, Bean has been really interested in painting and scribbling.  She will do it with just about anything that she knows will make a mark.  Non-toxic crayons and washable markers are great for little hands.  For some variety, I tried letting my daughter "paint" with water on the Buddha board.  It was very novel to her at first (a few months ago).  It allowed her to draw lines and designs and within minutes the water dried to leave a fresh board for her to paint on again.  I loved it because it was relatively mess-free yet still allowed Bean to be creative.

Just a few days ago, I was writing on a chalk board we have in our kitchen.  Bean saw me and immediately wanted a piece of chalk to do the same.  Our chalk board hangs in our kitchen and is not in the most child friendly of places.  I decided to get some black construction paper and tape it to the floor and let her draw on it.   Both of these activities promote physical development in fine motor skills by holding and using tools and using them to make marks.

Continue reading →