Sneaky Fine Motors: Table Time

What it is:
Stuff on the table to do when kids show up in the morning to get them engaged and not-sad about parents leaving. For my kiddo it's an engaging activity to transition him from being woken up usually from a baby crying. For me, it's awesome while I get breakfast ready and helps the kids strengthen fine motor skills through play. Here is an example of an easy morning table time.

Puzzles out on the table invite play and swapping.

After having done this before, the kids know how to use droppers to put colored vinegar into the tray of baking soda to make fun fizzling hills of bubbles. Fun for them, fine motor skills for them, and they think they're just playing. Yes!

We make 'em, trace 'em, count 'em, hang 'em, and say 'em. Every day. Sometimes by twos. Sometimes hundreds.
 We try to say a lot of numbers daily! Say the house address. Add up the marbles when counting up 'points'. It's awesome! Purpose here is to identify the print number in isolation, and practice the form of writing it (tracing in air, in salt, with playdough, etc.)

All in fun here, we say the letter and its primary sound. In English and German words. I try to find most words that are the same beginning letter in German and English (ex: Hill and Hügel), but not always.

Some shape of the week: Hexagon here (it was H week too. Bonus!). We try to see it in different ways later too, or around the house, etc.

It's quick, dirty, and just part of the daily morning routine during table time and breakfast.

Pre-writing

Kids (boys) sometimes don't fall in love with writing, per say, and it can feel pain-staking and monotonous... or like unto having to crack-the-whip to get anything 'produced'. One fun way to gain excitement for letters (and later reading) is with GLUE.

Draw letters or words with glue using lowercase letters (since most words in books are in lowercase letters), and when writing their name use a capital letter ONLY for the first letter. Otherwise, they will have to learn to write their name properly later with a capital letter followed only by lower case. Do your kid a favor, eh?

We used candy sprinkles.

Capital letter only for the first letter. 

We took paper and Elmer's glue to the park and made kids' names. More and more kids wanted to make their name too!!

We made a name with yarn. A bit tricky for fat little fingers, especially on the curves. That's noticeable in the next picture where just a curvy line was drawn with glue. Only straight portions were attempted. 

Freestyle 'art'

ripped up paper with little fingers (fine motor strength) and then glued to paper

Need Halloween art? Glue + Salt. Add some dollar store glitter glue while you're at it. Note: Red glitter glue and dried black beans on black paper looks a tad gory while dripping and drying. :) Happy gluing (yes, I spell-checked that!)

Name with glue and rice. Note: Do this on a big cookie sheet or casserole dish to catch the extras that fall off.

This was most likely a "letter m" week when we were going through letteroftheweek.com (which I LOVE!) I had my son make mountains (going for form, not actual letters) and I drew little mountain climbers on them.

Build Your Own GeoBoard

 Remember elementary school? The peg boards (geo-boards) that you wrap rubber bands around/through, and basically have a ball for long minutes at a time?

My son is almost four. He is THRILLED to get to play with this. As was the barely 3 year old we babysat today. And when he said, "Look Mom! A triangle!" I was thrilled. Self discovery baby! We talked about rhombus, and quadrillaterals. Pretty rocking learning stuff here. I swear, I should homeschool. Or open my own Santa's workshop for homemade toys. Look for more to come in the "Montessori" toy department. I'm going to save over $500 by making my own Montessori toys(tools). Can't wait!

 My board is 11 nails by 12 nails. All spaced one inch apart. Just use a piece of paper for a ruler, or a rubber quilting square you're willing to ruin in order to mass produce these, or just print off paper with square inches to pencil in dots all across the board. I hoped you could see the dots better in this picture. -sigh-

The nails part was tricky. Didn't want them to go through the board, but couldn't stick up too much. Carpet tacks seemed too shallow for my wood, so I found these babies. Perfect. Also, they have a nice head on top to keep rubberbands from flying off.

Oh, and wait around by the Saw Machine at Home Depot, and ask the guy if you can grab some of his scraps. If he's like Patrick in MY Home Depot, you can have em for FREE!! BOOYEAH!! So I'm making both boards for $4.04. Yesssss!