Here is a great way to work on fine motor skills. Picking up water beads with tongs. They have to squeeze the tongs just hard enough to pick up the bead, but not too hard or the bead will break apart. They really loved the challenge, although I did have some that just wanted to squish the beads. So, you kinda have to know your kids to know if this activity will be a good fit.
I had them transfer the beads from the tray into the small container. For even more of a challenge, you could have them transfer the beads into something with a smaller hole, such as an empty plastic water bottle.
This really took a lot of concentration. Sometimes children want to use both hands, so make sure you let them know if you want them to use only one hand or both.
What do you do to practice fine motor coordination with your kids?
We just wrapped up our plant study that lasted about a month. Some of the topics we covered included:
Where can plants grow?
What are the parts of a plant?
Does a plant need soil to grow?
What do you need to do to plant a garden?
Here is my original post about our garden center. We have done so much since then! Here are 10 of our favorite activities.
1. Tracking the growth of our plants.
The different seeds we planted included pinto beans, sunflowers, marigolds, and forget-me-nots. As you can see, some starting growing much faster than others. Each day the children looked to see if their plant was coming up yet and we made a list.
Here is a closeup of what they looked like toward the end of the study when we sent them home.
2. Writing nature words.
3. Nature walk at our living habitat.
The children pointed out lots of things they saw growing. This was also one of the ways we investigated our study question: Where can plants grow?
They documented what they saw on mini clipboards.
We discussed different environments including wetlands.
4. We used the felt board to sort some laminated photos of plants growing in different types of habitats.
5. We talked about how fruits grow on plants and graphed our favorite one by writing names.
6. We did a chart of different questions relating to our previous experiences such as:
Have you ever made a bouquet of flowers?
Have you ever seen a plant growing in snow?
Have you ever been to a greenhouse?
Then we counted the amount of each answer to see which was the most and which was the least.
7. We filled our sensory table with water beads.
8. We filled our sensory table with sand and soil.
9. Gluing seeds in the center of a sunflower. I can't honestly take credit for this one, it's my nephew's artwork from preschool. But it is a great idea and if I would've seen this sooner, we would have done it as well.
10. We read some great picture books about plants and gardens which you will definitely want to check out if you are doing a plant study.
Thanks so much to everyone for linking up! I was pleased to see so many new blogs linking up last week and hope you are all back again this week! It would be a lovely 31st birthday present to see 31 or more link-ups this week, so tell all your friends!!!
CAUTION! Before I begin, I want to warn you that these water beads are not meant for children to play with. The pack even says keep away from children. I am not sure what they are made of or how harmful they may be if ingested, so please use these at your own risk!
I have been seeing these water beads all over the blogosphere and wanted to try them out. I happened across some the other day at Joann's, so I decided to get some to make a sensory bin for my son.
Here is what I used: Bath Fizzy: $1 in dollar section of Target
Water Beads (about half a pack): 2.99 at Joann's
Medicine Dropper and Scoop: About $1.50 at Walmart
Here are some close-ups:
As you can see, when I added the bath fizzy, the beads began to absorb it and shrink up. They were floating in the water, so I drained some of the water out. I am not sure how much scent there actually was since the beads were absorbing it!
He LOVES pouring and the duckies are also faves of his!
He had lots of fun until he began to smack at the beads and make them fly all over the room, so we had to call it a day :)
