Fine Motor Activities
This is one of my favorite classic Valentine’s Day Crafts for little kids and toddlers. It’s simple for toddlers , fun for older kids and is gorgeous no matter how you do it. I also love that working with eye droppers requires some great fine motor and coordination skills so it’s more than just a pretty craft !
- Gather your materials. You will need some coffee filters ( 2 per heart) , ribbon, markers, double stick tape, scissors ( ours are pinking shears) , eye dropper, water, dish, something to protect your table and something absorbent like paper towels or a old cloth towel.
- Start by cutting your coffee filters but folding them.
I love using pinking shears because they make it that much prettier.
- Time to color. My daughter did dots but go wild any design will work. Make sure kids know that their designs will change.
- My daughter colored a bunch .
She was just in that sort of mood. Usually toddlers are quick to be done so if your child does 3 dots and declares they are done do not fret. That happens here all the time too. A trick to make many of these when attention spans are still on the short side is to not separate the filters keeping 2-4 all in a pile and coloring those. The color will bleed through . Another way to extend the activity without forcing is to offer a new color of marker as the interest starts decreasing.
- Add water!
Talk about it spreading and the water mixing with the color and how the dry filter absorbs it like a towel absorbs the water on their body after a bath. Using every day references to learn new words and explain new experiences is a great tool for learning.
- Let dry .
- Choose pairs. You can even sneak in some simple math ” Can you find 2 hearts?” She was gleefully helpful with this. You can’t tell from the pictures but she was actually really taking her time making pairs. I was fascinated in a way only parents can be fascinated with their own kids
- Add tape and ribbon.
- Sandwich together and repeat. Find the right place to hang them to add a little love to your home. Ours are in the window that faces the driveway and every time I drive home they are the first things we see from the car.
My son is a good student but like most new writers he needs to work on his fine motor skills . He enjoys writing now but I still like to sneak in some fine motors skills in with activities he loves like rhyming. This rhyming activity uses novelty to keep kids interested. The rubber bands and pegs are great because it takes a lot of patience and fine motor skill to carefully place them on the correct pegs. This was just enough novelty for my son to be eager and interested even after a long day at school.
- Gather your materials. You will need a shoebox or other sturdy box ( we used our Kiwi Crate) , push pins , elastics, a sheet of paper, glue stick or double stick tape and a marker.
- *Before doing anything make sure that the push pins are secure when you push them into your box. Test out how far apart you can make the push pins and stretch your elastics so they stretch but aren’t so tight that that pull the push pins out and turn them into projectiles.
- Write out a list of words on the right side ( we did Christmas themed words but obviously do what works for your kids). Write a second list on the left of rhyming words.
- Tape or glue onto your box.
- Add push pins remembering to keep them not too far apart.
- Add a kiddo
to start matching these words up. 
This is a fast activity but it’s designed to be. It’s a splash of learning not a long lesson. My son really liked it and I plan on making more with different themes , spelling words etc…
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It’s been a while since we have done an Alphabet For Starters activity. This is our popular series of alphabet activities that aim to introduce and play with letters in simple ways for beginners. This one was a true “Throw it together” activity. I was on a conference call for the first half sitting on the other side of the table jotting down notes while she played. When I saw what a hit it was I grabbed my camera and started clicking. This combines letter recognition, color mixing and fine motor all in a super simple activity.
- Gather your materials. I have no photo because this wasn’t planned at all but you will need a container for water, an eye dropper, some coffee filters, a plate to protect your table from the running colors, markers and coffee filters. Have multiple coffee filters on hand because kids love this.
- Start by writing letters on the coffee filter.
- Ask your child to find their favorite letter.
I like saying this instead of ” Find f, find r…” because in my experience it leads to them deciding which letter to find next and naturally declaring which letter it is. Drop the water on using the eye dropper and watch it disappear. My daughter LOVED this. ” It’s gone Mama!” 
She made multiple ones and helped me choose which letters to write. - After my call was done I gave her the markers and she made her own letters on some coffee filters.
When kids are learning to write even at the very early stages never say to them ” That’s not a B it’s a scribble, here let me make you a real B.” 
Their writing is a B it’s just in the early stages of development and by encouraging them their development will get there slow and steady as it is meant to.
Alphabet Books
Eating the Alphabet: Fruits & Vegetables from A to Z
The Sleepy Little Alphabet: A Bedtime Story from Alphabet Town 
My daughter is a natural color matcher. Although you most often see her in her PJs my daughter is a stickler for matching accessories and can be heard saying ” It matches , look Mama dat toy matches me dress!” often. I knew she would like this activity but I was still happily surprised by the concentration she showed while doing it .This activity not only for color recognitions it is great for both fine motor development and eye hand coordination too.We called it a turkey feather match since we’ve been talking a lot about turkeys and Thanksgiving but you could do this any time of year.
- Gather your materials. You will need some styrafoam ,colored feathers, permanent markers in colors that match your feathers. That’s it!
- Start by making dots on the styrafoam with the markers.
- Invite your best color matcher to do their thing!
I showed her how to do the first one and then she was off! 
- She pointed out extra dots that we had no feathers for. Luckily I hadn’t put all the feathers out and was able to get a few more for her to match.
- And she did.
It’s getting to that time of the year when our time outside is limited by bad weather ( we still go out, just don’t stay out as long) and I am looking for new and frugal ways to engage my kids on long days . This idea came from nothing other than staring at my supplies and thinking ” I wonder if this will work?” and it did. Using corks and buttons to build with is fun but add in some Velcro dots and it’s even more fun. After playing I realized how multi-sensory this activity really is with the texture of the Velcro both soft and spiky, the sound of it pulling apart, the hard buttons and the softer corks. Did I mention we had a blast with them too?
- Gather your materials. You will need a board or shoe box lid, some self adhesive Velcro dots, big craft buttons and corks.
- Start by putting Velcro dots on the shoe box lid, I only gave her hook dots. I like using a lid like this so that any corks that fall don’t roll too far away and create frustration. Peeling the stickers off and placing them on the lid is fantastic for fine motor development.
- Press them on well.
- While she did that I put them on buttons and corks. I put one hook and one loop dot on each cork and some buttons got one of each , some just got loop dots.
Ideally try to give it 24 hours before playing after putting the dots on. If your child is insistent as mine was ( what 2 year old wouldn’t be?) you can give them only a few and then return to the rest after 24 hours when the adhesive is at it’s strongest. In my experience none of the dots came off the buttons at all even right after popping it on. The natural corks didn’t fare as well, they stuck fine but when we went to reposition a handful came off. - Play ( now or later) .
- Don’t they look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book?
- She loved the buttons !
Byron Barton Books about Building
Building a House 
Machines at Work
