This morning my little human found a plastic bottle in our car and decided to bring it home with him. Since he showed great interest in this particular bottle, I decided to turn it into appealing activity.
Setting up a “Craft sticks drop” activity
I washed and dried the bottle, pulled out a few craft sticks, and put everything in front of my little man. He immediately started to drop sticks into the bottle. It still amazes me how dropping objects into containers comes naturally to children.
At first, he had a problem because the bottle kept falling when he touched it with a stick. Then he figured out that he needs to hold a bottle with one hand while dropping the sticks with the other. Ha! Some problem-solving skills on work here.
Our sticks were colored so every time he dropped a stick, I mentioned the color of a stick just so he can start to familiarize himself with colors. After he dropped all his sticks into a bottle, he needed to solve a new problem and figure out how to get the sticks out of the bottle.
This activity helps to develop eye-hand coordination and practices fine motor skills. As an alternative to craft sticks, we also tried to use some straws.
Summary
Resources: craft sticks, empty plastic bottle
Focus: eye-hand coordination, fine motor skills
How to: just pick up a stick and drop it in a bottle
Alternative: straws instead of crafts sticks