ANOTHER FINE-MOTOR ACTIVITY

THIS WEEK:
More fine motor skills development. Last week we worked on pouring. This week we will develop these important muscles by using tongs. My daughter (almost 2) is all about strawberries lately. That is what I absolutely LOVE about this age. It is so easy to let her interests lead our learning. The whole world is new and unknown to her and I get to be the one to help her explore it. So, we have gone strawberry picking, made polka-dot-strawberry shakes (way yum) see this post for recipe, planted strawberry plants in our garden, read books about strawberries and have drawn pictures of strawberries, phew.

For a fine motor strawberry activity, I put some red "fuzzy puff balls" into one of those plastic strawberry containers from the store. I then placed the container on a tray, with an empty bowl and a pair of tongs. The tray serves to define her workspace. The tongs I have are somewhat large but she was able to make them work. Eventually I'll find a smaller pair but I'm glad I didn't put off this activity because I didn't have all the "perfect" materials, she wasn't bothered.

First, I showed her how I used the tongs to pick up each puff ball "strawberry" in turn and put it into the bowl. I picked up every single one, emptied the bowl back into the container and handed her the tongs. She jumped right in and she LOVED it!! She enjoys this activity so much that I have used this as a grab and go activity by putting everything in a tote bag, and she works on it during her older siblings swim practice.