Skip to main content

Stringing Beads with a Toddler

One of this month's activities included beading. I thought that this would be a great activity to work on fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. I decided to use pipe cleaners to make the activity easier for a toddler. I should have purchased larger beads as well but hindsight is 20/20. Jake's first experience started with pure excitement! He loved the bowl of colorful beads and could not wait to see what  we were going to do with them!
I beaded the pipe cleaner with about 5 beads for him as he watched. I then handed it over to him to check out. He studied the pipe cleaner and the beads and then picked up some beads from the bowl. He tried to take a handful and just put them up to the pipe cleaner to get them on. I had another pipe cleaner I picked up to use to show him how to get the beads on. He was very studious as he watched but did not have the coordination.
Next, I decided to change my plan so he did not get frustrated. I took my pipe cleaner and stuck it into the bowl of beads. It was sturdy enough to pick up one or two beads just from being pushed into the bowl. He saw my exaggerated success so, of course, tried himself. Using this method he was able to be successful. I allowed him to do this for a short time.
Finally, I added about 10 beads to my pipe cleaner and handed it over to Jake. He looked at the beads again and started taking them off one by one. I feel that this is a skill that still strengthens motor skills and hand-eye coordination. He let the beads fall to the ground when he took them off so we will continue working on this skill and work to take them off and put them into the bowl.
Before we were finished Jake did continue to try to get one bead on at a time with his fingers. He displayed that he really wanted to be able to do this! This shows me that this skill WILL be accomplished before long. We will continue to practice this month and I will keep this activity as part of our Structured Play time next month as well!
Even though the beads were not ideal, the activity was worthwhile. By being flexible and modifying the activity Jake did not become frustrated with the skill he could not master. This was an excellent learning experience for both of us! :)

Comments

  1. We have done something similar with macaroni. I take the pipe cleaner and she put the macaroni. We done a beautiful garland.
    I sent you a mail a time ago, have you received it???

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Play to Write- Week 3

We participating in a Wednesday Play Group called Play to Write over at Cherrios and Lattes . This is week 3- Write/Spell Your Name.  We started this week's practice with some name tracing. Cherrios and Lattes provides the printable for some dotted letters. She suggested doing rainbow writing with this sheet. I showed Jacob but he was more interested in writing all the Jacobs. I started by modeling on the first name. Then I held his hand and we did it together. Finally I let him do the last three on his own with only my verbal prompts.  He took this very seriously and was very proud of himself! I was surprised at how much he liked doing this activity. He has a long way to go but he did pretty well! One thing I had to repeat was not to go around the o and a more than once. He wanted to go around and around. This is an activity that I think he will want to do again! The next activity was Missing Letter Name Practice. We started by singing a little song I sing for Jak

Name Writing Practice

Jacob did a little name writing practice today. He was asked to trace the dotted lines to write letters for his name. This is good practice with spelling as well. I had him say each letter as he wrote the letter.  As you can see he is very choppy and not exactly on the dotted lines. His motor skills are not quite sharp enough yet to be able to hold the crayon and he especially loses control as he works on towards the end. We also did a Missing Letter Name Practice. Both of these ideas came from Cherrios and Lattes ' Play to Write, Write to Read. These are good ways to practice names and writing. He gets very angry if he thinks he made a mistake. See the scribbling. I have to reinforce that it is ok to make a mistake and that everyone makes mistakes but we just keep trying. Practice is the only way to get better. When this happens I cannot help but think of my former students that did the very same thing and proceeded to throw fits and give up. I hope to help Jacob ge

Building Good Readers

"Your boys are such good readers! I wish mine loved to read like yours do! How did you do that?" Can parents build good readers? How do parents build good readers? This might seem like a daunting question, a task too difficult to tackle. But truly, it does not have to be.  As our children grow and become readers on their own accord they often feel that they do not need or want parents to read to them. It is very common for this to happen, but as their parents, it is our job to push back.  Readers are not born, they are made.  We must find times to read to our children. That might mean reading aloud looks different as they get older. Maybe instead of before bed; you are reading at the dinner table, as they are playing, or during snack time. The point is to share books that will pique their interest and hold their attention. You might have to choose books you might not otherwise choose. The key to reading aloud is to m odel reading for them and to show them th