As I enter the center today, all of the children were helping the teacher setting the table for art activity. As they enter they greet each other with hugs and smile. They went walk through the back to wash their hands. The room was full of colors materials. B1 ask the teacher if he could help set up the some material in the art area. The teacher replies “yes, and thank you for helping out”. He asks Ms. Jo. Where can I place these materials at? She replies you can place the construction papers, paint dots color on the children each chairs. He says okay. G1 was at the art area. She places the construction paper in front of her. She have purple paint dot in her right hand and she start stamping a dots on her paper. She looks around and continues with her activity. She stop and look around to make sure that nobody is watching her. With this activity she use coordinates eyes-hand movement and control her small muscles in the hands. The children were able to express feelings and ideas when stamping the dots on the construction paper. To help children with fine motor skill, I would use finger painting activity.
This is a good way to help the children to use not only their fingers, but grasping with their palms. Take plastic jars in all different sizes. Place a variety of different sizes of jars and lids on the table or on a tray. Then have the children tried to match lid to jar and use their fine motor skills to screw the lids onto the jars. Also, purchase large nuts and bolts from your hardware store and allow the children to put them together. Take a large piece of Styrofoam packing. (Or give each child a separate piece) Then supply plastic hammers and colorful golf tees. The children LOVE to hammer the tees into the Styrofoam and then have to use their pincher grip to pull them out.
When B1 was placing the materials on each chair he was using the math concept one-to- one correspondence since he place materials for the amount of chairs there was only.
ReplyDeleteGood observations, i'm glad the teacher allowed the child help set up all the materials.I like the idea of finger painting because they get to express themselves with their hands. Your activity sounds like something the children would enjoy doing because it is something different.
ReplyDeleteEricka,
ReplyDeleteThank you for replying to my blog. I remember when i was taking ECDE50, i used this activity with the class and they all love it. They got to do whatever they want and able to express themselves.
I love your idea about the nuts, bolts, and screws! That would be so much fun! For a supervised activity, someone could bring in a broken electronic item like a toaster. The children can help you take it all apart. They would be able to make hypothesis on what each piece does to help the toaster work. They could count how many screws were needed to hold it together. I've never had a chance to do this but it seems so fun!
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