Fine Motor Skill : Threading Practice

This "project" is inspired by a mummy in a mummies group.

Materials:

• Paper / Coloured paper
• Hole Puncher
• Stickers (tapes or recycle picture from magazines/used books)
• Shoelace
• (optional) Laminate machine & Laminate pouch

Steps:

1. Cut out the "base" shapes.

2. Stick stickers or glue any pictures on.

3. Laminate it to make it more durable. If you do not have the machine you can use thicker quality paper or you can also stick paper to a recycle tissue box.

4. Using hole puncher, punch holes all around the "base" shapes.

*Do not leave toddler alone with shoelace, supervise each play session and keep shoelace away from child whenever it's not in use*

My little one loves it.

She have had 2 sessions with it and it's quite fun seeing her tugging at the long shoelace.

I like that it's easy to make and doesn't cost much.

Short entry today.. can't wait to start on my next project/activity. :)

Fine Motor Skill : Homemade Paint for Toddlers

I love art but I'm terrible at it. If there's anything that I did as badly as history, it would be art (okay maybe and social studies too?)

My drawings always end up looking way different from what's in my mind and my projects always looks like I didn't put in effort on them. *You will get to see my artwork at the end of the post and you will know I am not lying. lol.

I remember that when I was young my mother hates it when I paint cause the paints are so expensive and I always makes a mess. She would line newspaper on the floor and I would work on  the newspaper, but somehow the paint will get on the floor, the walls and even on my face, hand, legs and hair. The newspaper would also give me dark patches on my hands and legs.

Oh don't get me started on the favourite paints always running out before the other colours. Or when you're painting and then you realise you run out of paint or the paint is so old that it has dried up..

~

Fast forward 18 years, today I'm preparing paint for my little one to explore and play!

Just like the play dough that I blog about recently, this recipe for non toxic paint idea came from the mummies online too!

Using simple kitchen ingredients to make non toxic paint !

Materials:

• Flour (plain/all purpose flour)
• Salt
• Water (Warm-hot water)
• Cup/Bowl/Palette
• Something to stir
• A Sieve
• Food Colouring (I use Yellow, Blue and Red)

Steps:

1. Mix approximately 1/2 cup Flour and approx. 5 spoonful of Salt together.

2. Slowly add in 1/2 cup of water (I prefer to use warm-hot water) while stirring with (spoon/chopstick/anything)

Stop when you feel that it's just right (thick liquid just like paint)

3. Using a sieve, pour the liquid through the sieve to the container for the paint.

This step ensure that there is no lumps of flour in the mixture that is not mixed well.

4. Drop a few drops of food colouring in the mixture and stir it till the colour is even. If the colour is too light just add more food colouring. You can also mix the colours to get another colour. :)

Here are some photos in case you're not too fond of words..

Flour + Salt + Water

Remember to sieve it if you want a smother paint.

I use 3 small containers to store the paint as each time I make the paint I can use it for about 2 sessions of art and craft with my cutie pie.

Food Colouring

I let my toddler help me with stirring in the food colouring.

If the colour is not to my liking I would add more drops of food colouring.

and carrying on stirring..

3 Primary Colours

If we are doing painting with paint brushes I would pour them onto a palette for us.

It's good for making more colours too.

If we are doing sponging art I would use old paper plates

(yeah still I keep paper plates leftover from buffet in 2012-2013)

*For sponge I purchase the cheap ones from Daiso just for her to play.

Usually she gets to work on her own, sometimes I do a "sample" and she would attempt to follow.

Once it's done, sun it or just let it dry on it's own..

Hers look very watered down because she kept cleaning her brush in the small bowl of water I placed there for her to wash her brush.

I try to let her do her art on her own because that's how she would get to practise using her hands.

By the way we are actually painting a happy cartoon SUN, in case you can't tell..

Yeah.. I wasn't joking when I say my art is not very good...

Would you try this with your little one? Let me know? :)

Fine Motor Skill : Homemade Dough for Play

I love playing play-dough when I was a kid but unfortunately it's quite messy and expensive so I didn't really have much chance to play with it.

Thankful for the internet, for google and also to all the mummies who shares information online, I found out that you can actually make non toxic play dough with kitchen ingredients!

Materials:

• Flour (all purpose flour)
• Salt
• Water (lukewarm water works better imo)
• Big Bowl
• Food Colouring (optional*)

Steps:

1. Mix approximately 1 cup Flour and 1/2 cup Salt together in a big bowl.

2. Slowly add in 1/2 cup of water while stiring or mixing with your hands/fork.

Stop when you feel that it's just right (mushy, not watery)

3. Keep kneading it until it's ready to play, if it's too wet add a bit of flour, if it's too "flour-y" add a bit of water.

4. Drop a few drops of food colouring in the dough and knead it till the dough changes to the colour that you want. This is optional, no need to add food colouring if you are okay with white dough. :)

3 Primary colours (Yellow, Blue and Red) is all you need.

You can mix the colours to get different colours.

Eg Yellow + Blue = Green

Yellow + Red = Orange

Red + Blue = Purple

From another playing session:

I did the dough-man and she gave the it legs! lol.

Also did the numbers and held her hand to trace them.

Previously I made her some cards with shapes and their names in English/Chinese, decide to take them out so she can fill up the shapes (e.g. see star and heart which was done by me lol.)

Then she decide to fascinate me by making little pieces of dough and placing them on the points on the shapes instead. (Other than oval and circle which has no points so she placed the dough randomly, the rest are right! 3 points on triangle and 4 points each on rectangle, square and rhombus.)

Cutie pie loves playing with them and could play whole day. Usually I would make them in the morning/noon and she will play for a few sessions throughout the day. When it's time to eat I would keep them in a box and so that it will not dry up so fast. :)

Fine Motor Skill : Alphabets Wooden Peg Level 1

I am always looking out for things that helps my little one develop her gross and fine motor skills.

Inspired by this post, I decide to do something simple for my little one to train her little fingers and work on her fine motor skills.

Toddler's Age : Approximate 27 months old.

Materials:

• A5 Paper
• Printer
• Wooden Pegs (1 pack of 28 Big ones, $2 from Daiso)
• Pen/Marker to write on the Pegs
• Laminate Pouch and Laminator (optional*)

Steps:

1. Print out all 26 Alphabets on a piece of A5 paper.

( I choose A5 as it's easier for my toddler to handle.)

2. Laminate the A5 paper.

(Optional, but good to have as the paper will not tear that easily so you can reuse it many times!)

3. Write each of the 26 Alphabets on both sides of the Wooden Peg and you're done! :D

It's her first time seeing wooden pegs and touching them so she was naturally really excited! I had to quickly show her how I pegged 1 peg on so she can start "playing".

She fumbled for her 1st wooden peg as she couldn't really press on the tiny peg and I help by showing her how the peg works again.

For the 2nd peg she wanted to give up and ask me to put it in for her. I refuse and told her she can do it. She tried again a few times and managed to put it in.

By the 3rd peg she is able to do it with me as the "assistant" holding on to the laminated paper for her to peg it.

By the 5th peg she could hold the paper and put the peg in herself.

After the first few pegs she decide to peg random alphabets instead following the list. Eg. she choose letter S to peg on letter S and I just let her be, as long as she complete the task properly it doesn't really matter which pegs she decide to peg first..

Finally done with the whole set of 26 alphabets! She got distracted a few times but managed to complete it with me monitoring/encouraging her.

This is fun for my toddler and yes she can regconise most of the alphabets, even with my ugly handwriting! She did mistake my L for 7 and U for N though. Would probably let her play a few more times before I give her the Level 2 wooden pegs. :D