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.
After our first counting activity, the Pompoms and Muffin Tray Counting activity, I figured the Mini loves counting! So, to keep up with his interest, I planned to do more of such easy to set up and fun activities that involved counting.
So before we go over to the activity, wanted to share an awesome hack I found out recently. I have had an eye on the easel paper roll that is most commonly used for toddler art and craft work. I love the long roll of paper that can be cut to any size and spread over on the floor or wall. But honestly I found the easel paper rolls that are available in India a bit too expensive for my kind of use! I was on the lookout for something more economical. On a recent visit to a packaging and paper cups/plates store, I found this long roll of paper that he was selling. It was meant to be used a dining table liner at functions and parties. It looked longer than a regular easel paper roll only slightly thinner. Also, it was more greyish than white, but who cared. It costed only Rs.70! Without a second thought, I bought it and there you see is our very own easel paper roll for our very many activities and fun times ahead ! :)
So, coming back to this activity, I used a strip of my version of the easel paper roll, a marker pen, sticky notes and our favorite white board. It took me all of 10 minutes to set it up and kept the little one entertained and occupied for about 30 minutes! :)
Transferring activities are a huge hit with toddlers. They love transferring things from one container to another, one place to another. My boy is no different and has always enjoyed moving things around. We have done a lot of transferring activities before.
This time around, I introduced tongs to him to enhance his pincer grip. As a preschooler, he is gearing up to soon begin writing and the usage of tongs is one of the many little activities that help the little hands to get ready to start writing. They help strengthen the finger muscles and pincer grip that is needed to hold a writing tool, the right way.
Also, I gave a structure to the transfer activity this time by combining it with some basic counting. My Mini knows his numbers well. But associating the quantities to each number is something he is just about learning. So these days I try to give him a lot of simple fun counting activities to help him understand the association between a number and the quantity it defines.
This fun transferring activity requires him to associate the number written on the muffin tray with the number of pompoms he is required to fill each slot with. All along while using the tiny tongs! It was a huge hit with him and he enjoyed doing this over and over again. Easy to put together and perfect for little ones just beginning to learn counting. Have fun! :)
This was an impromptu activity that I set up for the Mini one day when he had a holiday from school. Our favourite white board and wooden numbers come together in this one. And to add in some sensory fun, a tub of toor dal/lentil was included. I knew the little guy would love this one... and he sure did!
We had earlier done a Number Hunt and Match sensory bin activity similar to this. It was loved by the little fellow that I wanted to do it again, but gave it a little twist this time. This fun little activity mainly revolves around number recognition and number matching. The objective of the game was to hunt for the hidden wooden numbers from the tub of lentils, find the same number written on the white board and erase them with the white board eraser! The sensory tub and the white board eraser add on to the fun element in this activity, making it a learn while you play activity!
If your Mini is as crazy as mine is about jigsaw puzzles, then this one is for you!
I noticed my little one's fondness for puzzles right from a very early age. I introduced him to knob and chunky puzzles at around 16 months and he immediately took to them. He would ask for them everyday and keep himself busy solving them. And then slowly we moved onto 2-3 pieces jigsaw puzzles at around 22 months. By the age of 25 months he was loving solving 9-12 pieces puzzles.
Apart from these little jigsaw puzzles, we also have a couple of floor puzzles which are 24-36 pieces and the Mini and I do them together every now and then. Very recently, at the age of 33 months, he has begun doing these bigger puzzles all by himself. It is such a joy to watch him get so engrossed in finding and fixing the pieces of the puzzle together and the delight in his eyes when he completes the puzzles! :)
We have a good collection of jigsaw puzzles to suit my little boy's interests. Vehicles being his primary interest, most of our puzzles are based around them. He loves doing them over and over again and is not yet bored of any of them! I however felt, a little bit of variety would help and so wanted to try adding in more range to our current set of puzzles.
I came across this idea of drawing a picture on plain puzzle pieces and actually making your own personalised jigsaw puzzles! I wanted to try that too only, I did not know where to find plain jigsaw pieces. One day, it just occurred to me that most of the puzzles that we have, are plain at the bottom! I could just flip over the puzzle and use the bottom side to create my own jigsaw puzzle there.... and so that what I did! :D
I used the backside of two of our little 12 pieces wooden jigsaw puzzles to make new puzzles. I drew some basic shapes with different coloured markers on one and wrote numbers from 1-12 on the other. The little guy is happy with these new additions to his puzzles collection :)
I have come across a lot of 'sensory' activities that are set up for babies and toddlers to develop their motor skills and enhance their exploratory instinct. The sense of touch provides a beautiful and different perspective of learning to little ones that I understand helps their little minds develop well. I had personally not given it a try yet but have been wanting to.
So a few days back I ordered a 5 kilo bag of toor dal by mistake instead of a 2 kilo bag! Just seeing so much of toor dal at home, made me realise it was time to set a sensory activity for the Mini! :D I did not dare to venture out using flour or rice or anything else that I felt will be a problem to clean after. Toor dal seemed doable to start with.
I was apprehensive of how my boy will take to this game and if he is not going to really understand the game and would instead just make a mess! Well, I took a chance and I am so so glad I did. He loved it and spent a good 1.5 hours!
This little game that I set up for him involved hunting the appropriate numbers hidden in a bin full of toor dal and matching them onto a sheet of paper. So by playing with this sensory game, his hand eye coordination, concentration and sense of touch is improving.
First he did the hunting and matching game about 4-5 times on repeat! And then he went onto doing some transfer activity using a spoon and another bowl. It was such a treat watching him pick little bits of dal and dunking them back into the tub! Nope, he did not create any mess, he was very very careful about it. So proud! :)
Oh, the next day he introduced his little dump truck to the bin of toor dal! :D
Read on to know how to set up this game and how else you can make use of this little sensory bin set up.
