During the holidays, there is a big need for scissors….mostly wrapping all those presents! Today the children practiced their scissor skills by cutting fringe for their place mats. Starting with scissor safety, the boys and girls used their fine motor skills to make one cut snips create fringe to glue to the end of the place mat. The children were so proud of how successful they were with all of their snips!
Because we cannot go outside, we worked on our gross motor skills inside!
Gross Motor skills are important for major body movement such as walking, maintaining balance, coordination, jumping and reaching and throwing.
Fingerplays help children to develop their cognitive small motor, memory, and language skills.
Fingerplays also offer a way to learn about poetry, which is an extremely valuable and delightful experience for children. The beauty of fingerplays is that they can either soothe and calm children or stimulate their intellect and imagination.
Our preschoolers turned our classroom into Santa’s Workshop today as we turned red licorice and white yarn into a candy cane! This is no ordinary candy cane….it’s a number nine candy cane! In order to make this yummy creation, the children had to follow step-by-step directions, use their fine motor skills to twist, and use number recognition to create the number nine. It was a quite a treat to work on so many skills in one fun activity!
Pencils and crayons are not the only materials we use for pre-writing skills. The children were given M&Ms to work on fine motor skills by outlining the first letter of their name.
Sparkles anyone?! Activities with sequins, or anything sparkly for that matter, are always exciting. Digging through to find the exact color and shape that you want is excellent fine motor practice. Using the tips of their fingers, each child grasped and place sequins to trace his/her name. As we outlined the names in glue, the children were also able to practice tracing their names. Each child was very focused as they paid close attention to their sequin details!
Reinacting real life in the dramatic play area is very helpful in strengthening socialization skills and respecting others.
The fun part about gingerbreads are decorating them! Today, we traveled to our favorite nation, the imagination, and had a fun time pretending to decorate our gingerbreads. Using number recognition, the children pulled a number, then put their one-to-one correspondence skills to work by putting the corresponding number of buttons on the gingerbread. Working with the numbers four through nine really helped the children focus on their counting skills.
What better cookie to have to celebrate the holiday season than the traditional gingerbread cookie? Today, the children helped to measure, pour and stir our ingredients. We discussed wet and dry ingredients, smelled some of the ingredients (molasses anyone?!), and talked about getting the dough to just the right consistency to roll and stamp. The children enjoyed all of the stirring involved and cracking the eggs, but I think kneading the dough, stamping out the gingerbread, and decorating topped their list! Everyone brought home a festive, tasty treat!
‘Tis the season for gingerbread! Ms. Courtney spiced up our fine motor skills by having the children cut out their own gingerbread houses. The children worked on following lines while holding the paper with the other hand. There was more fine motor practice when the children were eager to color their very own houses!
Creative Tots has specialized in the private education of both toddlers and preschool age children for over 15 years. We began in the heart of Madeira and now also have a new Mason location. We are specifically designed to focus on early childhood development for children ages 18 months to 5 years.
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