Archive for March 2009
When I was teaching Pre-Kindergarten we often did murals for two reasons, the first being cooperation, the second for the benefits that working on a vertical surface offers. Fine motor development is crucial for learning how to write. We often take our hand ,wrists and arm muscles for granted because we use them for so much but young children are still developing and strengthening theirs, this is a great exercise for them.
- Gather your materials. You will need some paper, crayons ( you’ll want washable) , and some stickers.
- Pin or tape the paper on your wall our child’s eye height. Painter’s tape is perfect for this, because it also gives your child a boundary to know not to color past. I keep forgetting to buy more!
- Start with the crayons.
- Next offer up some stickers. When they are peeling off the stickers they are also working out the muscles in their fingers, Use larger ones for beginners and smaller ones as they master the skill. My son worked on his mural on and off for an hour and a half, lots of practice with very little prep!
St.Patrick’s Day is on the way and here is our first lucky craft! I love making collages because they offer wide boundaries and can be a small easy craft or for older children it can go on and on with layers of materials and textures.
- Gather your materials. You will need some cardboard ( cereal boxes are perfect weight) , a marker, green paint or crayons, glue, and various green collage material. I am using pom poms , tissue paper and felt.
- Draw a shamrock on the cereal box.
- Have your child paint or color the shamrock.
- While they are painting take a second to cut the tissue paper, and felt into small pieces.
- When the shamrock is dry,add the glue
- Add your collage materials. There is no wrong way to do this, so have fun !
- Let dry and cut out.
Books!
For few great St. Patrick’s Day Books you have to check out
Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile
This blog is wonderful, the reviews and age recommendations are spot on.
I think you should bookmark this link for sure.
- Gather your materials. You will need some play coins, a marker and a green piece of paper. * For really little guys instead of the paper you can just use a change purse and simply have them hunt for the coins.
- Trace the coins on the paper
- Fill in the numbers, we are doing 10 coins but customize this for your child, more or less whatever works. Make it challenging but not impossible. Having the numbers offers up different options for how to play , you can simply hunt for the coins, and place them on the numbers. You can hunt for them then have your child specifically put them on the number you designate. I tried both and my son liked to choose which numbers to pop the coin on then count them and start over.
- Hide the gold. Can you see it in my picture? Make it obvious at first, with little guys make sure it’s in plain view, the goal isn’t to be a better hider than they are a finder, it’s for them to find them feel pride in it, then tag on a little math too !
- Go searching for the lucky gold .
- Count your gold , and start again !
Who doesn’t love finding something fun? Well these nifty little bottles hold more than just rice and toys, they are a great quiet time activity for you and your child to make together and use over and over again. Next time I am on a plane I am packing one of these!
Jump over to The Entertaining House to “spy” the how to!
- Gather your materials. You will need some cardboard, scrap piece of black construction paper, tape, sharp scissors, 3 metallic pipe cleaners, and lots of markers.
- Draw a simple guitar on the cardboard. Perfection is not required, as long as your child can guess that it’s a guitar you are fine.
- Have your color it with markers. I chose markers over paint because you have to wait for paint to dry and this is a project you want to play with immediately.
- Cut out the black oval for the hole while your child is coloring.
- Tape the oval on.
- Cut out the guitar.
- Poke 3 holes o the neck of the guitar, and 3 corresponding ones at the base.
- Thread your pipe cleaners through , bend and tape the pipe cleaners on the back side.
- Tape over the tape a few times so the pipe cleaners are secure and no sharp bits can peek through.
- Rock out!
Books !
“This Jazz Man” by Karen Ehrhardt is my new favorite book. The book updates the classic children’s song “This Old Man” and inserts all different men in a jazz band, however at the end of the book it explains that each jazz man is actually a real person including Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and more! I love the bios at the end of the book because I want to learn more about jazz too. Ok back to the book, the book itself is a counting book,and my son eats it up, he loves calling out the number and instrument as I read the rhyme. He has had me read it countless times today and I haven’t minded one bit,the pictures by R.G. Roth are adorable, and all in all I just love this book!
