Look what I can do

This school year I have moved down into the preschool world. It has been a new and exciting change for me. I've been doing a lot of reading about activities that are appropriate for preschool age. Some of the things I have found that parents do with their toddlers drives me a little nuts because I am big believer in letting kids play and using their imagination at early ages. Pushing learning to read very early is not something that I agree with. However I have come across many fine motor activities and other skills that I do think are very important for little ones to strengthen before traditional schooling begins in Kindergarten. These are often activities that keeps hands busy and having fun but learning at the same time.

As we have been stuck in the house this break due to the chicken pox outbreak, I have needed to find things to keep Shelby Grace busy. Her hands are into everything these days. She also thinks that she is a big kid and often wants to do all the activities that I do with the 3 and 4 year olds at school. So today I pulled out a similar activity for her and was very impressed with her ability and the amount of time she spent playing today.

I got out a bag of red pom poms, a bowl, and an ice cube tray. The initial activity was for her to put the pom poms in the holes on the ice cube tray. She quickly expanded the activity on her own when she started pouring the pom poms from the ice cube tray back into the bowl. I got her another bowl so she could then pour from one bowl into another. I eventually got her a spoon to work on scooping.

Of course she thought it was fun to spread the pom poms everywhere and of course since this table is so small, I might as well lay on it.

Oh forget laying down, let's just sit on the table.

Shelby Grace had a lot of fun today while working on many skills.

*fine motor strengthening
*transferring
*pouring
*problem solving
*scooping
*beginning sorting skills
*climbing
*balancing
*have fun and making a mess! (always a favorite of mine :) )