Discovery Bags

Discovery bags are easy to make and are an excellent activity for fine motor skills development. You will need zip lock bags ... hair gel ... and items to put into the discovery bag. You can use items such as glitter ... sequins ... beads etc. You would begin by putting the items in an empty zip lock bag and then add small amount of hair gel and mixing the items in with the hair gel. Add more hair gel and continue mixing the items in with the hair gel. Do not put too much hair gel in ... you want enough so that the children can easily move the items around inside the bag but not too much that the gel would ooze out of the top of the bag when pushed on. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Alphabet Learning Links

This is a great activity for letter recognition ... fine motor skills development ... and eye-hand coordination. You will need to have learning links which can be purchased at most school supply stores (they are made by learning resources). You will also need to have the letter cards which can be downloaded here. The letter cards are printed on cardstock paper ... cut out ... and laminted. Children use the learning links to link the cards together. Children can use the cards to put letters in order .... spell their names ... and make sight words. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Jelly Bean Sorting and Graphing

This is a fun activity for match skills. You will need to have jelly beans and something to sort the jelly beans into ... we used a clear relish trays that were purchased at walmart ... but you can also use clear plastic cups or even the sorting mat that I have included with this activity. Children sort the jelly beans by color and fill out a graph and of how many jelly beans there were of a certain color. There is also an extended sheet you can do with this activity. You can download the patterns here and you can also watch a video of this activity here.

Marble Counting

This is a great activity for building math skills ... fine motor skills ... and eye-hand coordination. You will need to have marbles ... an empty plastic bottle and number cards which can be downloaded here. You would print the cards on cardstock paper ... cut them out and laminate them. Children put the same number of marbles in the plastic bottle as the numbers on the cards. Children empty the marbles from the bottle after each card. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Fine Motor Skills Activity

This is a wonderful activity to help develop fine motor skills as well as eye-hand coordination. You will need to have golf tees (we used the 2 1/8 size) ... styrofoam (we purchased a product called desert foam from our local craft store) and a chid's play hammer. If you do not have styrofoam you can also use playdough. Children take the golf tees and pound them into the styrofoam or playdough. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Paper Plate Letters

Print letter circles on regular paper ... cut out and glue in the center of paper plates. You can do a letter sequence by having the children put the paper plates in alphabetical order ... you can then do a sequence match by putting a second set of paper plate letters on top of the matching letters. You can make a list of sight words or spelling words and then children would then use the paper plate letters to make those sight words. You can also have children spell their names. Use your imagination and have fun. We used the smallest paper plates available. You can download the patterns here and you can also watch a video of this activity here.

Pipe Cleaner Letter Bead Lacing

This is an excellent activity for developing fine motor skills ... eye-hand coordination ... and letter recognition skills. You will need pipe cleaners and letter beads which you can find at the craft store. You would put the beads in a large flat container so that the children can see the letters on the beads. Children can put the beads in alphabetical order ... male sight words ... spell names ... and spell words or their own choice. You can also watch a video of this activity here.

Color Changing Flowers

This is a great science activity and very easy to do. You will need white carnations ... clear plastic cups .... water ... and food coloring. Pour 1 cup of water into each plastic cup and add around 30 drops of food coloring in each cup of water. I purchased white carnations from my local florist but some grocery stores also carry them. I let the carnations dry out for a few ours (didn't put them in water) and then made a fresh cut on the bottom of each carnation. I cut the carnations stems very short so they were just a couple of inches taller than the cup.

Depending how dry your carnations are it may take several hours before the color begins to appear on the petals. You can talk about how the flowers draw water up through the roots and stems and even after they are cut they continue to draw water up through the stems. You can also mention that the food color does not hurt the flowers but sometimes there are things in the ground water (pollution) that do hurt the flowers and other things that grow in the ground. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Plastic Cup Prints

This is a lot of fun for children and very simple and inexpensive to set up. You will need plastic cups (we used the small bathroom cup size) ... paper ... and paint.

To set up the activity lay a piece of paper out for each child and set bowls of paint out with one plastic cup for each color. Children dip the cup into the paint and then press it on to the piece of paper. Children can make any kind of a design that they wish. An extension to this activity would be to have the children count how many circles they made or how many of each color they made. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Pom Pom Sensory Tub

You do not need to have a large sand and water table to have sensory activities available in you classroom or center. Dish pans or buckets work great. For this activity you will need pom poms ... scoops such as sand toys or measuring cups ... and containers such as sand pails or empty paint cans.

Children love the fuzzy feel of pom poms and they love to scoop them into containers and empty them out. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Teddy Graham Graphing

Graphing is a fun way to introduce math concepts to young children. You will need chocolate ... chocolate chip ... and cinnamon teddy grahams. You will also need to have 11x14 poster board which you can find at Wal-Mart and other store. Glue the graph title at the top of the poster board and draw two lines so that there are three columns. Glue one teddy graham at the top of each column and glue the teddy graham title under each teddy graham. Each child gets a cup with two of each kind of teddy grahams in them.

Children taste the teddy grahams and pick their favorite. They can use stickers ... make an x ... or write their names to mark their favorite on the graph. Count the marks in each column and decide which one got the most votes. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Letter Stamping

Letter stamping is a great activity for letter recognition and fine motor skills development. You will need to have letter stamps and an ink stamp pad. I like to use the jumbo pads that contain washable in a rainbow of colors. The ones I use can be purchased from center enterprises. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Non-Spill Paint Cups

These non-spill paint cups are inexpensive and a great addition to an art center. They can be purchased at discountschoolsupply.com and classroomdirect.com. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Golf Ball Painting

This is a fun activity for children and very easy to set up. You will need a storage bucket or dish pan ... paint ... gulf balls ... and containers to put the paint in ... you can also use a muffin tin to put the paint in. Either the child or adult puts the golf balls in the paint (one per color) and makes sure the golf balls are covered in paint. The gulf balls are then placed into the bucket which has paper on the bottom (cardstock works best) and the bucket is tipped back and forth to move the golf balls around which then makes a design. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Marshmallow Painting

I believe children should have a variety of tools to use when painting besides paint brushes and using marshmallows is easy and a lot of fun. You will need to have the large marshmallows and a paper plate with different colors of paint (we used the crayola paint). You want to make sure your marshmallows are fresh and the children's hands are clean and dry. Children dip the marshmallows in the paint and press it on to the paper. You will need to use supervision with children under three and remind all children that the marshmallows are not for eating because of the paint on them. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Wrapping Paper Matching Cards

This is a great visual discrimination skills activity. You will need different kinds of wrapping paper ... the dollar store is a good source as well as your students' parents You will want to chose wrapping paper that are different styles and colors. To make the cards cut sheets of cardstock paper into four even pieces and glue two cards on to the back of the same wrapping paper (repeat this with the other cards and different wrapping paper). You will then cut them out and laminate them .Children match the same kind of wrapping paper cards. You can watch a video of this activity here.

Sea Shell Painting

This is a fun acitivy that works on fine motor skills development ... and eye-hand coordination. You will need clean and dry sea shells. I purchased ours at Michael's Craft Store but they are also available at Walmart in the home decorating section as well as in online stores you can find by doing a google search. You can watch a video of this activity here.

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