Hands-On Learning : Free Printable Laundry Letters

http://www.myjoyfilledlife.com/2013/05/08/laundry-letters-letter-recognition/

This activity shared on My joy filled life website is good your child’s letter recognition, fine motor and visual skills development as well as eye hand coordination and pincer grasp. Sarah has shared a free 8 page printable for this activity. The freebie has 8 pages of download, 7 pages that have shirts with alphabets printed on them as well as a page with blank shirts ( no alphabets printed on them). Download, print it and laminate it and then cut out shirts. You also need clothespins/clothes clips, 26 of them, one each for the alphabet.  Now you are all set to enjoy this activity with your child.

Follow the link shared above for detailed instructions and different variations you can try with the game.

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Hands-On Learning - Salt, glue and Watercolour Experiment

http://www.cbc.ca/parents/play/view/art-science-salt-glue-watercolour-experiment

I hope you are trying out all/some the activities I have shared on the Hands-on learning series of posts with your child. This simply amazing activity is a big hit in our home. Me and my son had loads of fun doing this experiment. So, here I am, to share this with you guys. I found this activity on the Happyhooligans website and wanted to try it right away. You need glue, salt , pipettes/droppers and water colours/food colours mixed in little water for this hands-on learning fun which helps develop multiple skills like attention, eye hand coordination, fine motor skills, visual skills, pincer grasp ( to operate the dropper), colours – identification, all this while creating an awesome art work. Thanks Jackie for sharing this.

The link above will take you to the cbc website with details about this activity. You can try shapes, alphabets, numbers in this activity. Let’s take a look :

My son loved spelling his name in this activity and colouring it :

http://happyhooligans.ca/salt-glue-watercolour-art/

Its pretty amazing, isn’t it? Since liquid water colours are not available in India, we tried Camlin Professional Water colours which come in tubes and we can dilute it to get the required consistency. There are 18 colours in this pack and each colour comes in a 9 ml tube, plenty for us.

 

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Hands-on Learning - Yarn Wrapped Rainbow

                    http://www.schooltimesnippets.com/2014/03/fine-motor-yarn-wrapped-rainbow.html

This really cute art work helps develop a lot of skills in your kiddo while having fun and creating an art work. It helps develop fine motor skills, eye hand coordination, colour matching, visual skills, thinking skills and pincer grasp.

Follow the link above get detailed description of the activity. Its really easy and can be done with readily available materials. You need cardboard/even breakfast cereal boxes will do, crayons/sketchpens, cotton and yarn. We didn’t have yarn at home, so we used embroidery threads instead.

Want to develop your child’s cognitive skills while having fun with this activity. Read on! We tried the same activity by adding the colour coding component to it. Instead of drawing the colours on the cardboard, we numbered it, 1,2,3,4 and 5 with gaps in between. And on a separate paper, assigned colours to the numbers : 1 is red, 2 is blue, etc. So my son had to wrap the yarn (embroidery thread in our case) by decoding the numbers. This helps develop critical thinking skills and problem solving skills in your child in addition to all the other therapeutic benefits from this activity. Do give it a try and share your feedback.

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Hands-On Learning : Free Printable Gingerbread man Shape Matching

http://www.powerfulmothering.com/gingerbread-man-shape-matching-busy-bag/

This activity from Powerful Mothering website comes with a free printables. One page has a blank gingerbread man and different shapes are given at the bottom.  The other printable has six pattern cards with different shapes arranged all over the gingerbread man. The kiddo has to match up the shapes similarly. If you don;t have felt, try taking the printout on paper and laminate it ( for durability) like us. My son enjoyed this activity and made a few patterns of his own too!

This helps identify shapes and develop visual skills, thinking skills, eye hand coordination and fine motor skills. I am sharing the link again for your convenience. The free printables are at the end of the post in the link.

http://www.powerfulmothering.com/gingerbread-man-shape-matching-busy-bag/

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Hands-On learning : With Straws

Today, let’s explore some fun activities with straws, yes drinking straws, that are available easily anywhere. The more colourful the straws, the merrier! If your child or student has difficulty mastering the scissor skills, start with cutting straws, it’s easy and encouraging for the kiddo. Do remember to follow the safety precautions when using scissors, like using child safe scissors or ones which have a blunt tip. Needless to say, always closely monitor the child during these activities.

http://handsonaswegrow.com/simple-straw-threaded-shoestring-necklace/

Cutting the straws is a good fine motor activity that develops scissor skills, eye hand coordination and bilateral coordination. Upon cutting the straw into pieces, its time for threading the straws using a lace (even shoe lace will do). If your straws are colourful, use this opportunity to lace the straws to based on colours, patterns, etc.

Other activity suggestions with straws are :

http://lalymom.com/2014/01/kids-crafts-activities-using-straws.html

http://thismummaslife.com/2012/06/

http://theprincessandthetot.blogspot.in/2012/04/whats-on-tray.html

http://www.sugaraunts.com/2014/03/fine-motor-color-sorting-activity-for.html?m=1

Once we cut all the straws and sorted them according to colours and sizes, we tried this activity and my son was very interesting in making this artwork of his name using straws he had cut. Do try it with your child!
http://www.childcarelandblog.com/2013/07/straw-name-collage.html

Hope you enjoyed this collection of great activities to do with straws. Do share your views!

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Hands-On Learning : Free Printable Mix And Match Puzzle

                            http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/67325/mix-and-match-puzzles-free-kids-printable

Found this free printable mix and match puzzle and wanted to share this with you all ASAP. Just download it, print it out, cut it and have loads of fun with your child as he/she tries to mix and match the pieces. There are no set looks for the characters, so your kiddo can combine them any way they want.

There are six different heads – three boys and three girls, six different tops as well as six different bottoms – four pants and two skirts.

This activity helps develop visual skills, eye hand coordination, fine motor skills, matching skills and problem solving skills. To download, follow this link :

http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/mix-and-match-puzzles.pdf

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Hands-on Learning : Spelling with Clothes clips/clothespins

                       http://teacherparent.com/clothespin-spelling/

Learning to spell with clothes clips/clothespins is our second hands-on learning activity. You can use flash cards you have at home or make word strip by sticking a picture and spelling it out on a strip of paper as seen above. Clothes clips/pins are easily available and if you are looking for wooden ones, here’s the link :
http://www.ebay.in/itm/like/111573030843?aff_source=Sok-Goog

Once your clothes clips are ready, get a permanent marker and write one alphabet on each of them , you will need more clothes clips for frequently used alphabets like A, C, E, S, etc.

That’s it, now you are ready to improve your kids spelling skills while also working on eye hand coordination, visual skills (as he/she has to scan for the correct alphabet clothes clip) and fine motor skills. Simple and pocket friendly. Do try it with your kiddo.

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Hands-On Learning - Feed The Ball

       Hands-On learning is a new series of posts for parents/therapists/caregivers who want to try new activities on a regular basis with our kids without burning a hole in the pocket. But finding budget friendly activity suggestions is not easy. Let’s tackle the problem together, one activity at a time! I promise to share activities which can be done with items easily available to us, no worries, just pure therapeutic fun!

              Today, let’s try the activity – Feed the Ball, which helps develop hand strength, fine motor skills, motor skills and pretend play.

http://therapymommy.blogspot.in/2011/08/feed-tennis-ball.html

               Take a tennis ball and cut a mouth on it. You can add eyes too. Now the child has to squeeze the ball with one hand (non dominant ) and feed the ball with his/her dominant hand. You can feed the ball beans, rajma, chana, small objects like balls, erasers, etc, anything and everything. If tennis ball is too hard for your kiddo, try smiley ball to start the activity.

           For pretend play, give the ball a name ( My son suggested Mr.Ball, very imaginative, isn’t it?) and feed Mr/Ms Ball whenever he is hungry.

          To make the activity more challenging, you can ask the child to feed the ball using tongs, clothespins, etc.

   
            Have fun doing this activity with your kiddo and don’t forget to share the feedback!