Pushpins are great for little hands to work on and develop their pincer grip. A good amount of pressure is required to push a pin down onto a board and the more the little hands practice this, the better for them. Its a fun pre-writing activity to keep minis entertained.
I wanted to try a few activities that needed a pegboard and a geoboard. We don't have both, so I DIYed a Pushpin Board, that now serves as both! I mounted it on a little box for ease of use and am very pleased with the results!
This is definitely going down as one of my favorite and most productive DIYs. So much learning is a single toy! This is a long post with tonnes of pictures, but definitely worth scrolling through if you are a DIY fan like me who has a little one at home, who you want to keep busy creatively :)
Here are a few activity sheets for our pushpin board. These are great for developing pincer grip and fine motor skills.
Colour Match - poke the pins on the coloured dots based on colour.
Colour Match
Number Sequencing - wrap rubber band around the pushpins (0-1,1-2,2-3...etc) in order of numbers.
Number Sequencing
Letter, Shape and Pattern Tracing - poke pins along the outlines.
Pattern Tracing
Letter Tracing
Sticker Match - wrap rubber band around the pushpins of similar stickers.
Sticker Match
Count and Match - wrap rubber band around pushpins of pictures with their corresponding number.
Count and Match
The Mini came up with a new activity as well... Random pattern making the pushpin and rubber bands.
Last couple of days we have been doing a few simple fun activities using chart paper, paper clips and clothes clip. Primarily for improving fine motor skills while also reinforcing numbers and letters recognition and colours matching. These tiny little clips or pegs as they are also called, are great for developing a good pincer grip in little fingers.
When I first introduced the wooden clips to my little boy, a few months ago, it was for a name recognition activity. He found it really hard to work them. He was unable to open the clips. His tiny fingers were not ready for them and so I kept them aside for a few months and we used plastic clips for the activity instead.
More recently. we again tried our hands at the wooden clips and this time he was able to work them perfectly! This time around, I first let him work on an activity that used plastic clips, then paper clips and finally we moved on to wooden clips. The difficulty level increased step by step and I am guessing that helped him get the hang of it.
Sharing here, the simple games we played and enjoyed using paper clips and clothes clips.
I love it when I get to re-purpose Mini's old toys and find newer ways to use them. That way, an old ignored toy gets a new life and garners new interest to be played with.
In this DIY game, I recycled one of his early toddler toys. I had got him a set of lacing discs which he showed absolutely no interest in back then. Lacing never interested him and I have since then just kept away the entire set not knowing what else I could do with it.
A few months ago, I took the set out and used it for a super fun Shape Sorting Fishing Game which the Mini really took to and enjoyed. I was glad I was finally able to use the lacing discs in some way. We have since used them for simple sorting activity based on shape and colour.
He loves colours in general and anything to do with colours! So, when I found a fine motor skills activity idea on Pinterest using egg cartons, I just knew I had to base it around colours for my little fellow. Using inputs from the post to prep up the egg carton with skewers, I added in a colour dimension and made it a colour sorting activity for him.
It took me all of 20-25 minutes to make this and kept the little fellow busy for a good amount of time. Along with the straight forward colours, I also coloured one slot in multi-colours just to get him thinking! He worked his way around sorting the coloured discs based on the colours around the skewers and took a while to figure out what went onto the multi-coloured slot :) Soon he decided random discs go onto that slot began stacking discs of different colours onto it.
When the Mini was as little as 15 months old, I had made this Chunky Puzzle for him out of cardboard. This was his first ever puzzle and I was super impressed with the way he nailed it in just the first attempt! Little did I know back then that it was just the start to his love affair with puzzles! :)
So a year later, when the little guy was around 27 months old, I set up this activity for him, which uses only the base of the chunky puzzle and a few lentils and beads. The objective of the activity was colour matching. Transferring of items is an activity toddlers love! So I mixed up colour matching with transferring and made it a dry transfer colour match activity.
The chunky puzzle board had 4 colours on its base - Red, Blue, Green and Yellow. So to match those colours, I used three different coloured lentils and blue beads.
I placed the 3 kinds of lentils and blue beads in 4 separate bowls. Kept a tray under the puzzle board to catch any stray items that may fall off during the transfer activity. I then presented the activity to the little guy, handed him a spoon and asked him to just go ahead and match the colours.
Boy, did he love it.
I was pretty impressed with how neat he was and conscious of not wanting to create any mess by either mixing the differently coloured lentils and beads or dropping them on the floor. It takes a tiny bit of effort to transfer back the lentils/beads back into their cups, but for the fun and learning happening here, I think it is worth it :)
If your mini is as crazy about vehicles as mine is, here is a simple fun colour sorting game you can get them to play! They get to do what they love doing... playing with their little trucks and cars while also learning the different colours!
Just to perk up the fun factor, I added in a 'road' using some foam puzzle pieces. The Mini (a miniature version of a me, with regards to orderliness!) obsessed over the 'road' each time it came apart during the process of play! It was super cute watching him set it right and resume the play only after it was as per his satisfaction.
Here he is zooming away his miniatures onto their respective colour coded parking lots!
And we are back with yet another fun toddler game! So this particular game has two main advantages:
Toddler entertainment.
Mommy workout!
So all you mommies needing a workout but do not have time away from mommying, get down there and play this game with your little ones! :D
I noticed my son loves it when I get down there and participate in the play with him instead of just explaining how it's done and asking him to play. Also, the energy level is super high these days, I need to channelise it productively! Also, lately colour matching interests him a lot, next only to identifying letters.
So, to cater to all these little aspects, I set up this little colour match game in our balcony. It just needs a few colourful plastic balls and tiny colourful baskets. The game caught my little guy's attention and we had a fun filled hoppy time playing this!
Watch us hop around and play in the video at the end of the post. After a few rounds of playing, you can see the mini's hopping turns into scraping against the wall! :D
Yup it definitely was tiring! That day, mommy needed a nap too! :)
The Mini has been quite fascinated by colours, just like any other two year old. Colour matching activities interest him a lot and I have been putting together a lot of simple little games using our bunch of colourful plastic balls, play-dough, Popsicle sticks, his toy cars or whatever else that I can find around the house.
Being a baker Mumma, I have a fair bunch of baking material stocked with me at home. So this particular activity needs a 6 cavity muffin pan. However, if you do not have a muffin tray but do find an equivalent item, maybe six paper cups, six steel cups or whatever you feel will suit the requirement, feel free to use it. Early learning is all about simple fun stuff for me, using simple items and nothing expensive or specially bought material.
My son was 25 months when I introduced this activity to him. He couldn't get the hang of it at the first go. He just had fun with grasping the balls and placing them randomly in the muffin tray :) Its fine. If an activity engages a toddler for a good amount of time, it is time well spent. Eventually after a couple of attempts, he got it and enjoyed doing it over and over. Try it with your little one!
