There are so many different and inexpensive ways to create activities that work on fine motor skills. I started making toys for my son that involved pushing or dropping items into a small hole or slot when he turned one. The above photo shows one of my sons favorites. I upcycled a shoe box and poked holes into it. The activity is to push the marker into the hole. He loved doing this over and over when he was younger.
The second picture shows another activity to work on fine motor skills. I purchased the plastic paint can and the craft sticks at Michaels craft store. This activity was more of a challenge for my son because he had to hold the craft stick in the correct position to get it into the slot. He enjoyed this activity too because he could watch the colorful sticks collect into the can.
When my son turned two, I wanted to create fine motor activities on a smaller scale that took more concentration and effort to complete. I cut up colorful pipe cleaners for my son to drop into a plastic drink container and into a plastic creamer container. Both have small round openings so these containers worked out perfectly. My son did a great job with these activities as well. I like these toys because it is so easy to just open the containers, dump out the pipe cleaners, and start up again!
It is so simple, quick, and inexpensive to create any of these activities for children. Working on fine motor skills is so important. Besides being important, working on fine motor skills can be so much fun for little explorers too!
-Deborah
Heading over from Imagination Tree's Sharing Sunday. My youngest would love these activities, especially the marker one. I'll have to try that out with her!
ReplyDeleteWe get so caught up in the purchased stuff - its great to see you getting creative with 'at hand' repurposed materials! Love it!
ReplyDeleteI also came here via Sharing Sunday @ Imagination Tree!
Neat!!!! I completely agree with Teachers Ink - I LOVE the creative ideas you have. Children do too! That's what they want. My daughter will pick the crayons/construction paper over a "talking toy" any day of the week.
ReplyDeleteCould you tell me how you cut that nice, neat slit in the metal top of the can? What tools did you use? I tried it today and of course it was difficult to puncture, and then when I did it was a slit with very sharp, jagged edges. Thanks so much!!! Love your website.
ReplyDeleteThank you all for the wonderful comments. Creating exciting sensory experiences and learning toys for my son is so much fun for us both. It is amazing how easy it is to create quality items from upcycled materials.
ReplyDeleteTo Anonymous: I am so glad to hear that you are trying the craft stick drop activity. If my memory serves me correct, I took a knife to create a slit. I then kept it in the slit and moved it left and right a few times pushing on the sides keeping any jagged edges from coming up and out of the top of the can. Hope that makes sense!
Thank you for your reply! You must have much better knives than I do, lol! I'm going to ask hubby to use a metal file to remove the sharp edges I created yesterday. My 4.5 year old son loved the velcro craft stick shape building activity and the pom pom sorting activities. Thank you for sharing all your ideas and making them so easy for us non-crafty types to recreate. Best, Sarah
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