Decorate a Tree Activity

The girls love this simple Christmas activity. The reindeer basket holds a variety of small ornaments. The girls enjoy decorating the tiny tree over and over again. Thanks to Itty Bitty Love for the great idea!

Tweezing Beads

Tweezing beads is a classic activity to help develop the finger muscles needed for writing. Here Julia is picking up beads with the tweezers and carefully placing them in a mini ice cube tray. Thank you Laura from My Montessori Journey for the ice cube tray!

Collage Box

Creating collages is a popular activity around our house. We use this compartmentalized box to hold various collage items. Our current materials are sequins, small shells, aquarium rocks, feathers, googly eyes, died pasta, paper and foam confetti, popcorn, and a string of beads.

My two year old uses a paint brush to spread a little glue to attach her items to her paper. Collage is a great sensory and fine motor experience for toddlers. The materials offer a variety of textures for her to explore. She develops finger muscles as she picks up and carefully places the items on her paper. As she decides how to arrange the items on the paper she develops spatial reasoning and problem solving skills.

Five year old Julia uses a bottle of glue to adhere the items. Sometimes she creates pictures from the collage materials and other times she enjoys just gluing to items to her paper. Below are some of Julia's creations:

Very Hungry Caterpillar Extension

Like many little ones, Lauren loves to hear The Very Hungry Caterpillar again and again. I am happy to reread it because I know that repeated readings of favorite stories builds a love of books, increases comprehension, and motivates the child to pretend to read the book independently. The following activity allows Lauren interact with the book in a meaningful way and practice counting skills too!

Materials:

• fruit pictures (from dltk-teach) printed on card stock


• green yarn


• green button


• The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Preparation:

• Cut out and laminate the fruit pictures. Punch one hole in each piece.


• Cut a four inch length of yarn. Tie a button to one end and wrap a piece of tape around the other end.
  

I place each piece of fruit on the ground as Lauren and I count them. I give her the "caterpillar" (green yarn). As we read about what the caterpillar eats, Lauren feeds her caterpillar by lacing the yarn through the hole in the fruit. We count each piece as she laces it onto the yarn. Lauren loves this activity and chooses to do it a few times a week.

Egg Lacing

The girls had fun developing fine motor skills during this project.

Gather construction paper cut into egg shapes, hole punch, scissors, tape, and yarn.

For young preschoolers, punch holes around the perimeter of the egg about one inch apart. For older preschoolers, draw dots on the egg to show where the holes will go. The child punches holes over the dots. Cut a length of yarn. Tape one end of the yarn to the egg. Wrap a small piece of tape over the other end of the yarn to create a needle.

The child laces the yarn through the holes in any pattern she chooses. When the child is finished, tape the other end of the yarn to the egg.

Great work girls!