With Fiance being an artist and my attempts to develop my creative side, it makes sense that we strive to give A different creative outlets with which to express herself. Her favorite is plain old crayons and a large piece of paper. We have a giant pencil box filled with crayons that she just loves to dig through to find that perfect color. It amazes me to watch her creativity flourish. She has gone from random, mindless scribbling to being more purposeful with her strokes. Of course, it LOOKS like mindless scribbling on the page. Watching her draw, I can see that her lines, instead, are more like practice. Any time now, she'll have a masterpiece on display at the Louvre.
I went on a hunt yesterday for things I can use to help A work on her different areas of development. You wouldn't BELIEVE the things you can find at the dollar store that are great for toddler activities. Everything in the store is one dollar, so we were able to get quite a few things. The paper in the above picture is from a large pad of drawing paper we found that is perfect for A. We were using a large pad of Bristol paper that Fiance had left over from art school, but it's mostly run out now and I can't justify paying that much for paper just for her to cover in crayon. Thus, the one dollar pad of large paper will now be her best friend.
Everything above was found at the dollar store as well. We do an activity where she practices scooping and pouring. I mixed together red kidney beans, green split peas, and white rice for her to use. We lay out a king size flat sheet and I let her do her thing with different sized bowls and things to scoop with. The things in the above picture are mostly things to use with that. We got her a set of her own measuring cups and spoons that she can of course use to scoop and pour, but also to learn biggest to smallest. The cottony balls and jewel things, as well as the necklaces are to hide in the mixture for a sensory activity. She can also use them to practice sorting by size and color. I got the pink tub to keep all of the sensory stuff together. The only downside to the tub is that it doesn't really snap closed, so the lid comes off easily. It doesn't really bother me much, though, because it's not something she's allowed to do unless she's supervised so we keep it put up where she can't get to it until she's old enough to do it alone. There is also supposed to be a set of small plastic cups that go in the pink tub but I didn't realize they hadn't been put back in until I had already taken the picture.
This tub (doesn't close well either, but it's put up as well) is where we keep two of her activities to practice fine motor skills. There is a bunny peg game, pipe cleaners, a sugar shaker, and pony beads.
The peg board is pretty straightforward. She has to practice getting the small pegs into the small holes. Also, she loves bunnies, so it works out great!
I cut some of the pipe cleaners in half because they're easier for her to work with. She can practice putting either size into the sugar shaker. She can also practice putting the beads onto the pipe cleaners. We also use the beads to sort colors and eventually we'll use them and the pipe cleaners to learn patterns and sequences.
As always when little kids are working with small things, you should always supervise. Duh. And remember to always have fun!
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