Toddler Fun Learning Activities 4

Wanting More

Lil Muallimah these days......"Did you make a new "activity" for me?"


Me: "no not yet"


Lil Muallimah: "aawww why not?


Me : "I'll be making one soon"


Lil Muallimah: " Yayy!! Jazakallah Mamma"


I am just wondering if I will be able to keep up with her desire for MORE!!! :) But I am truly thankful to Allah that, as much as she looks forward to new activities she loves doing the previous ones too. Alhumdolillah!

All praises are for Allah for enabling me and my children to discover and use the capabilities Allah has bestowed upon us.

Here are our NEW "ACTIVITIES"

Fine Motor Skills & Hand Eye Co-ordination

1. Cutting 

Sensorial: Tactile Sense

1. Fabric Boxes

Fine Motor Skills & Hand Eye Co-ordination

Cutting Activity

When a child is able to cut with a scissor well enough it is a sign of muscle strength and strong motor skills. I have always let my kids cut scraps of paper any way they liked to help them improve their motor skills. They do like that. 

Once they are comfortable with a scissor you may want to aid in improving the motor skills. For that, simple snips seem to be much better than controlled cuts.

I usually use the scrap papers I have left from our lapbooking or any other paper project. The ones I am using now are leftovers from our Asma ul Husna craft from Umm Nu'man. I will be posting about that soon Inshallah.

While searching for something else I found this really neat idea on this blog.....Cutting Stickers!!!!! (you will have to scroll down quite a bit). 

Now that's a good way of using all the scraps i have collected. :)

Here's our cutting with scissors tray

Now that is DEFINITELY MORE FUN!!!!!!

This is how it works

Lil Muallimah picks up a strip holds it from one end and cuts with between the stickers. This is simple yet challenging depending upon the childs motor skills as they would not like to cut their sticker :) You can space out the stickers, based upon your childs skill level. 

Cleaning the Cut Ups

One thing I always struggled with was the cleanup after the cuts. Kids don't always like to do it. The idea in the following video works great, as kids like to open and close zip locks and they feel responsible too. It's so funny how the same thing suddenly becomes cool only if you put it in front of them in a different way. As their mother I just need to remember that!

So this is what I came up with. 

Lil Muallimah let's the cut outs drop into small bowl. Once she is done she turns them over into a zipper bag as they are quite precious to her... not trash! :) For me that just adds another motor skill element. Check it out...

She is still working on how to pinch and close the zipper bags :) 

Variation

Making your own Strips

Simply take a paper strip and mark lines on it. You may want to start with ones wider apart. As you notice an improvement in the cuts you can make the lines closer. Or you can leave an assortment of them in a basket for the kids and let them choose.

You can easily make them with a marker on any regular or construction paper but if you would like to print them out, you can print my snip papers below.

Cutting level 1

Cutting Level 2

Cutting Level 3

TIP: You can even print them on colored paper to make them attractive.

The video that helped me.

Challenge

Lil Muallim # 2 couldn't keep himself away from this activity. He infact quickly made his own tray and strips. Not only that he even asked me to make more challenging strips for him. Take a look.

He even ran downstairs to get his own zipper bag and cleaned up without being told.


Alhumdolillah!


I wanted to do cartwheels :)


Sensorial - Tactile Sense

Fabric Boxes

I am sure pretty much every one has some or the other kinds of pieces of fabric stashed away somewhere in the house, especially if you sew. 


I remember as a little girl I always used to enjoy feeling different textures of cloths. So when I saw this activity I was thrilled and wanted my Lil Muallimah to enjoy touching and feeling like myself. I even asked my friends to contribute to our fabric box :)

I found a good explanation for fabric boxes here.

Our Fabric Basket

As you can see I simply cut out 2 small squares 4x4 inches  out of  each fabric and put them separately in 2 boxes. I plan to buy these pretty gift boxes from the $ store for a $ each to contain them. But till I do, I am using this basket that was lying around. 

 This is not simply a matching activity but more of a matching by feeling one. A great one to enhance the sense of touch. Looking and feeling all kinds of awesome fabrics is a true bonus. :)

In the picture below Lil Muallimah is trying to match by feeling the last fabric piece. She was having trouble matching it as it's cut out was a different part of the print. You can even see Lil Muallim # 2 trying to point out where it is........ kids!!! 

Bonus for me

Lil Muallim # 1 and 2 insisted on their turns for this one and they asked to do it blind folded hooo!!! 

pics coming soon Inshallah

Alhumdolillah