Lessons Learnt Journal » pinch http://lessonslearntjournal.com Life with Kids Fri, 30 Dec 2016 05:32:02 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 [s] is for stars http://lessonslearntjournal.com/s-is-for-stars/ http://lessonslearntjournal.com/s-is-for-stars/#comments Sun, 20 May 2012 14:00:06 +0000 http://lessonslearntjournal.com/?p=3473 My children go through phases. There may be weeks where they will be consumed with a tub of rice. Then overnight, the interest in that tub of rice wanes and they can’t get enough of using scissors. They’ll happily sit, cutting up paper, yarn, anything they can get their hands on – (I have caught [...]

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]]> My children go through phases. There may be weeks where they will be consumed with a tub of rice. Then overnight, the interest in that tub of rice wanes and they can’t get enough of using scissors. They’ll happily sit, cutting up paper, yarn, anything they can get their hands on – (I have caught them with various villain action figures between those blades). Then overnight their interests will move over to play dough and the scissors will sit in their tin tubs collecting dust until their moment of glory appears again.

When play dough is all the rage in your household, here is a good fine motor activity for introducing the letter [s]. The more fine motor skill activities we provide for our children, the better we equip them to overcome handwriting difficulties, which may stumble them as writers.

 

 

We made some playdough stars by rolling up a ball of playdough, flattening it slightly with our palm, then pinching the edges to make a star shape. Describe the pinching like a bird pecking food to reinforce the pincer grasp.

 

 

To complement our stars, we also did some rainbow writing of the letter [s].

 

We consolidated the introduction to the letter [s] by placing all of our stars on our piece of paper and used our finger to trace of the letter [s].

 

Here are some ideas to further build upon the alphabetic principle of [s]

  • Show children a written lower case [s]
  • Model the mouth movement and sound [s]
  • Visually connect the picture/word “stars” with the letter sound [s]
  • Kinaestehtically open and shut your hands, simulating twinkling stars.

 N & M: 3 years, 11 months
May 2012

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A version of this post was originally published as a guest post on Playdough to Plato.
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]]> http://lessonslearntjournal.com/s-is-for-stars/feed/ 0 No Egg Left Behind http://lessonslearntjournal.com/no-egg-left-behind/ http://lessonslearntjournal.com/no-egg-left-behind/#comments Tue, 03 Apr 2012 10:15:47 +0000 http://lessonslearntjournal.com/?p=3347 Easter egg hunts. There’s hiding. There’s seeking. There’s chocolate. What fun! But… do you have the (unpleasant) stray chocolate egg(s) that appear months later in the oddest of places because they weren’t found during the egg hunt at Easter? If you’ve never had an egg left behind, I want to hear from you. The part [...]

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]]> Easter egg hunts. There’s hiding. There’s seeking. There’s chocolate. What fun! But… do you have the (unpleasant) stray chocolate egg(s) that appear months later in the oddest of places because they weren’t found during the egg hunt at Easter? If you’ve never had an egg left behind, I want to hear from you. The part of me that squirms at the thought of chocolate eggs left behind for months begs you to please share your no egg left behind strategies.

We had an Easter egg hunt of our own and made play dough pinch pots as nests for our Easter Eggs.


To make your Easter Egg Nest:

Make a ball of play dough.

Poke a hole into the centre of the ball.

Pinch around the ball to make a pinch pot.

Pinching play dough is a great way to build up fine motor skills.

It works on finger strength, using both hands together and the pincer grasp.

Encourage children to pinch with their forefinger and thumb like a bird pecking food.

Place your eggs (chocolate or play dough) in your nest. How cosy.

Happy hunting!

N&M: 3 years, 10 months
E: 1 year, 9 months
Photobucket
Check out our [e] is for egg post for visual, aural and kinaesthetic activities to teach children [e].

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