We try to have at least one arts and crafts tray on our shelf always available, but lately, I wasn’t very creative. For the last two weeks, we had a magnetic board on our shelf so my little human can draw. Before that, we had a tray with papers and some crayons. And before that, we had a mini chalkboard with one chalk. Lately, we have been doing a lot of activities for language development, but I wanted to think of a new opportunity for L to be creative and to help in the creation of something that will decorate our home.
Setting up a “Save the fishies” activity
In a hobby shop, I saw some nice fish stickers and immediately pictured my little human sticking them on a blue paper. So when I came home, I drew ”under the sea” scene on a piece of blue paper. Also, I prepared fish stickers so L can ”return fishies to the water”. I just partially stuck them on the edge of a container. It was pretty hard to peel the stickers off, so I knew that for L it would be almost impossible.
Let those sticky little fingers work
At first, my little human didn’t figure out how to stick a fish to the paper. Stickers just kept sticking to his little fingers and that really frustrated him. But since this was the first time we worked with stickers, he just kept trying because this sticky feeling under his fingers was completely new to him.
When he had enough of this new sensory experience with sticky fingers, he asked for my help. I took his hand and slowly stuck a few stickers on paper. I did that with his hand while he was holding a sticker. After a few tries, he decided he is ready to try alone. And he did it!
Summary
Resources: stickers with sea motive, paper
How to: draw waves on a paper, prepare stickers in a way that you partialy stick them on a container, start sticking them on a paper
Focus: fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, even sensory play if sticky fingers are new experience
A note about stickers: they can be easily put in noses, ears, mouths or sticked in hair so don’t leave your child alone with stickers.