Fine motor – threading leaves

Our living room looks out onto some pretty large trees and Lottie is fascinated with them.  They have a lot of ivy growing up them and so we collected a few of the leaves and made our own super quick and easy threading set.

I used a hole punch to make two holes in each leaf and then just wrapped the end of some wool with sticky tape to stop it fraying.

That was it! Our threading set was ready to go…

Lottie only managed to thread the wool through one of the holes in each leaf but in time she’ll be able to thread it through both holes to create more of a garland effect.

Easy, quick and free! What more could you want!

Supplies and Suppliers:

Leaves

Wool

Hole punch

Sticky tape

EYFS links:

PD: fine motor skills

UW: plants

 

Sensory bin – searching for treasure

We recently went to an activity park for a day out with the Grandparents and while we were there Lottie had a go on a panning for gold game.  You basically sieved wet gravel and had to find ‘gold’ – needless to say we found absolutely nothing! But it did give me an idea.  Here is my own version – searching for treasure…

It’s basically our sensory tub filled with black rice (see this post for how to dye rice) and some plastic jewels half hidden amongst it.  Easy peasy, quick and simple!

Lottie loved just searching for the jewels randomly but after a while I encouraged her to sort them into different piles according to their colour (great chance for some colour vocab to come out!)

She then tipped them all back in and started again!

In hindsight I put way too many jewels in, it was far too easy to find them.  When we next do this tub I will put far fewer in and make it a bit more of a challenge.  I also want to find a sieve with large enough holes for the rice to pass through so Lottie can actually pan for the jewels.  It would also be great with bits of fool’s gold (iron pyrite) hidden in – I will definitely have to do this next time!

Supplies and Suppliers:

Rice – dyed black (see this post for a How to guide)

Plastic jewels – http://www.tts-group.co.uk/sparkling-diamond-counters-assorted-colours-100pk/1010102.html

EYFS links:

CL: communicating

PD: fine motor skills

Maths: shapes (colours)

 

Sensory bin – kinetic sand

Lottie loves this sensory bin and we get it out a lot.  It’s easy and quick to put together and so much fun.  You can make your own kinetic sand (and I will post up the recipe I use in a later post) but you can also buy it.  I bought the sand used for these pictures and it’s great, it holds its shape well but is a lovely texture to squish and squeeze too!

If you’re unsure what kinetic sand is, it’s mouldable sand.  It can be used to build shapes easily and never dries out.

We simply have the sensory bin with the sand in the bottom (I used 2 packs here (3lbs) and to be honest we could have done with another 2 but it was enough) and then a variety of beach toys, scoops, spoons etc.

Silicone ice cube trays work really well with kinetic sand.  We bought some from Ikea very cheaply and they make flowers, fish and starfish shapes.

I absolutely love kinetic sand, not just because Lottie plays so well with it and gets so much from it, but because I love playing with it too! If you’ve not tried it yet, have a go, it’s a definite family favourite!

Supplies and Suppliers:

Kinetic sand – either homemade or bought (the stuff used in these pictures is from here: http://www.toysrus.co.uk/toys/cra-z-sand-1-5ib-box-set/TRUP1900440001)

Assorted spoons/scoops/jugs/pots etc

Beach sand toys

Silicone ice cube trays

 EYFS links:

PD: sensory exploration, fine motor skills, manipulation

UW: exploring the world

 

 

Sensory bin – just rice – unintentionally!

For this sensory bin my initial plan was to have a deconstructed aquarium consisting of the blue rice in the tub and all the other aquarium themed bits just around the side. My vision was that Lottie could choose what bits she wanted to use and then make her own aquarium.

This failed spectacularly! She totally ignored all the aquarium items and just immediately started playing with the rice on its own. I grabbed a few spoons, measuring cups etc and that’s all she wanted to use!

She spent ages tipping rice from one container to the next and this gave us a lot of opportunities to explore measures and use mathematical language: Were the cups empty or full? Which spoon was the smallest/largest? What happened when we tipped a larger cup into a smaller cup? etc etc.

She then decided to fill up some of the larger scoops using only a spoon to pick up the rice. This was entirely her idea and it held her interest for a long period of time. It was a fantastic activity to develop her fine motor control and to help develop her wrist and finger muscles – all good preparation for when she (in good time – she’s not 2 yet!) learns to hold a pencil correctly.

Although this sensory bin didn’t start out as I intended it to at all, Lottie had a great time and I’m sure got far more out of it by using her own imagination to develop her play.

Supplies and Suppliers:

Rice – coloured blue and white (see this post for a How to guide)

Assorted spoons/scoops/jugs/pots etc

 EYFS links:

PD: sensory exploration, fine motor skills, co-ordination, control, manipulation

Maths: measures

 

 

Sensory bin – sticks and leaves and nature bits

Today we had a nature themed set up. We’d been for a walk in the woods recently and while we were there we collected some leaves, fircones and sticks. I put them together to create a very easy but entertaining sensory bin.

My daughter loves her little peg people (more detailed post about them to come!) and so we made nature homes for them. I found a lovely wooden hamster house in our local pet store and I’ve been desperate to use it in something. Turns out the peg people fit into it perfectly!

We just added the collected natural items and some leaves for the floor. Oh and some adorable little crochet trees (handmade by myself – link at the bottom!).

This was really easy to set up but kept Lottie amused for ages. Especially when she discovered she could take the roof off the house and see the peg people inside!

We also had great fun using the sticks to push the fircones along the floor. We raced each other and Lottie loved it. It was great for developing her fine motor control (and a bit of competitiveness too!).

Supplies and Suppliers:

Assorted leaves, sticks, fircones etc

Peg people or dolls house people

Crochet trees: www.littlelottielouise.co.uk

Hamster house: http://www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/feature/woodlands-homes-tunnels/woodlands-pickles-cottage

EYFS links:

PD: sensory exploration, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, co-ordination, control

UW: imaginative play, exploring the world, plants

 

 

Sensory bin – dinosaurs/our own Jurassic Park

My LO is currently obsessed with dinosaurs. I think it probably stems from George in Peppa Pig (“dinosaur, roaaaaarrrrr”) so I decided to make her her very own Jurassic Park. She’d picked up some plastic dinosaurs in a gift shop a few weeks earlier and these dinos had been everywhere with us since (and I mean EVERYWHERE!)

I used a few pieces of bog wood bought from our local aquarium supplies shop, some fircones we collected, black coloured rice, plastic jewels, some little handmade volcanoes and her four beloved plastic dinosaurs.

Lottie enjoyed the feel of the rice, she let it run through her fingers for ages. She also loved the noise it made as she sprinkled it back into the tray from high up.

She then discovered she could pour the rice from one ‘volcano’ to the next. You can just about see from the photo that the volcanoes were made from egg carton bits, turned upside down and dribbled with red, yellow & orange paint to look like lava. Oh and I also drew some black rocks on with a sharpie – gotta love the detail!

Much fun was had by all with this one… and there were lots of shouts of “dinosaur, roaaaarrrrrr” as she played!

Supplies and Suppliers:

Dinosaur toys

Bogwood/sticks/wooden bits and pieces

Fircones/leaves etc

Rice – coloured black (see this post for a How to guide)

Plastic jewels – http://www.tts-group.co.uk/sparkling-diamond-counters-assorted-colours-100pk/1010102.html

Egg cartons – cut up and painted

EYFS links:

CL: communicating

PD: sensory exploration, fine motor skills, co-ordination, control

Maths: space, measures

UW: imaginative play, exploring the world, animals

 

 

Sensory bin – under the sea

I absolutely love tuff trays but we live in a flat and sadly we just don’t have the room for one.  I managed to find a decent sized plastic lid in a garden centre (I think it’s the lid for a seed irrigation tray but I may be wrong!) and so we use that as our tuff tray/sensory bin.

This week’s efforts have been sea themed.  We are very lucky to live near the sea and we visit it a lot.  I wanted to bring a little bit into our living room so I made this:

I used blue and white rice as the base (see next blog post for how to colour rice using paint), some bits of bog wood bought from our local aquarium supplies shop, some wooden and plastic fish and sea creatures, two plastic aquarium plants and some plastic ‘jewels’ (see end of post for list of suppliers).

Lottie loved it! She spent a long time running the rice through her fingers and feeling the different textures.

Fantastic messy fun! We explored a lot of the different textures and colours together and she started to role play the fishes swimming about.  I also encouraged her to pick up the jewels and collect them in a pot to help develop her fine motor control.

Supplies and Suppliers:

Rice – coloured blue (see this post for a How to guide)

Bog wood/sticks/wood pieces

Plastic fish (ours are just bath toys)

Wooden penguin – http://www.babame.com/HOLZTIGER-Penguin_p_2567.html

Wooden crab – http://www.babame.com/HOLZTIGER-Crab_p_2563.html

Plastic jewels – http://www.tts-group.co.uk/sparkling-diamond-counters-assorted-colours-100pk/1010102.html

Plastic plants

EYFS links:

CL: communicating

PD: sensory exploration, fine motor skills

EAD: imaginative play

UW: imaginative play, exploring the world, plants, animals