More fun with clothespins! I love how it helps with fine motor skill practice and dexterity while giving the kids time with math work. They are LOVING clothespins!
For this activity, I just used a piece of card stock and drew 10 rectangles, and then drew numbers 1-10 on clothespins. The original post had the dots (or snowflakes) in a circle divided in ten pie pieces, but I decided to make it a little easier but just using the rectangular shape.
The only negative was that some of the clothespins were upside down when you pinned them on, so I ended up cutting this down the center lengthwise. Now I have two strips and all of the clothespin numbers are right-side-up.
This is a great activity because it gives the kids a little fine motor skills practice while playing with spelling. I made a little pile of sight words on cardstock and printed letters on clothespins. (One of each consonant and a few of each vowel, though you really only need one of each to start.)
At first I just had the clothespins spread out on the floor, but then I printed the alphabet on cardstock and we clipped the clothespins to that first to make them easier to find. I think that helped a lot.
Great practice at sounding out words, identifying letters, putting them in order...and lots of fun!
Original Post
Pin
The original version of this game focuses on fine motor skills. The children use tweezers to pick up beads and put them in the carton. I plan to add that to this activity in the future, but for now I just used it as a counting game.
The kids put one bead in #1, two in #2, and so on. I didn't have enough for them to keep all of the bead in there as the numbers got higher; I plan to add some beads so that they can do it that way.
Pipe Cleaners and Collanders
Pin
Tired of glue and paint? This is a good little activity that involves no mess and gives the kids some fine motor skill practice.
The original post has lots of other ideas for quiet activities for little ones. I like this one because it uses some materials I have on hand in a way that allows me to reuse them when they're done! Both kids spent several minutes poking their supply of pipe cleaners through the holes, weaving them in and out. They were proud of the result!
