Introduction to Science: Small World Sensory Science Lesson: Construction

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My two littles and I are using the Small World Sensory Science Lessons to learn more about the world around us. Working with sensory bins and activities involving beans, oats, pom-poms, rice, and other sensory materials, we will be exploring such topics as farms, oceans, and ponds.

Using the lesson on Construction, we explored digging and building with trucks, cars, and beans, painting with tire tracks, and sweeping up our mess of lentils and beans.

Kitchen table set up for exploration. 

I put out a variety of beans on different sized trays and plates and provided them with some toy vehicles and plastic lids and caps to scoop up the beans. My daughter was content for a while just placing the beans in the front end loader as well as picking up any of the beans that fell onto the floor.

We also practiced sweeping with a broom and dust pan since my 4 year old accidentally knocked over the plate of lentils.  

My daughter remarked on more than one occasion how 'shiny' the beans were as she played with them. When we were all done, we poured all the beans into a big plastic container for future lessons.  

Having the foil down on the tray, made for very easy clean up.  I would highly recommend this method. In the future, we will do some of the other activities suggested in the lesson and read books about construction vehicles.  

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Preschool: Fine Motor Skills

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There are many ways to help young children develop fine motor skills.  Some of the best ways are for them to practice moving objects of various sizes from one container to another.  Here are a few activities we have done together. 

Beans 

We have a variety of different sized dry beans for the kids to use for crafts and activities.  One day I took a couple of trays outside, some different size containers, and the beans for the kids to explore. They spent the majority of the time moving them from one place to the next.  

Materials 

• dried beans
• trays 
• funnel 
• containers 
• broom 

Seasons Bottles 

I had my toddlers help create our Seasons Bottles by putting appropriate items into each of the four bottles.  My daughter really loved putting the items in the bottles but she couldn't figure out why she was unable to get them back out. 

Materials 

• clean, plastic bottles
• pom-poms
• snowflake sequins
• fake leaves 
• shells
• ribbon
• raffia 

Our Other Activities 

Icicle Ornaments 

A is for Alligator 

Additional Resources 

Mess for Less' Q-Tips and Straws Activity 

The OT Toolbox's Teach Kids How to Button the Fun Way 

Teach Me Mommy's Threading Shapes 

The Imagination Tree's Cardboard Beads 

I linked up with the following blog(s):

Busy/Quiet Boxes - Felt Ribbon and Snake

In order to promote my toddler's imagination and quiet activities, after discovering the idea of busy or quiet boxes online, I scoured Pinterest for ideas that I could put into action.

If you are unfamiliar with busy or quiet boxes, they are quiet, simple and can be implemented in a number of ways. A box can be created for each day of the week (or just the weekdays), bags can be created for each separate activity so you can pick and choose when to share certain activities, or bags can be created that can be taken out to restaurants and shopping trips.

Ribbon Serpents

To assist our toddlers in developing their fine motor skills, I found several different activities that incorporated the idea of weaving and buttoning.  I choose two (button snake and chain) after reviewing several blogs that presented different ideas for using felt, buttons, and chains (Felt Button Chain Quiet Activity; Car Ride Activities (Felt Chain); and Button Snake).

For now, as children build their fine motor skills, they might only move the felt along the ribbon and not actually thread it. Or a child may be able to unbutton the separate pieces but not put them back together but children will quickly progress as they build the appropriate skills.