Blog: Middlers

Good morning! It’s another Wednesday at home. It looks like the weather will be lovely today. Here are three invitations from Sarah and Caitlyn for middlers.

Art Invitation: Painting Ice Cubes. Fill a storage tub with ice cubes. Have your child paint on the ice cubes!

Watercolors or liquid watercolors are perfect for this invitation. We made our own using dried out washable markers.

Intent: This activity gives the middlers an opportunity to explore painting on different mediums instead of just paper. This promotes fine motor development, holding the paint brushes with the pincer grip.

Music and Movement Invitation: Create your own song can! During meeting at school we let the middlers pick a random song out of the ‘song can’ to sing each day. Create your own at home! Using popsicle sticks, or just scrap pieces of paper, write down a bunch of your child’s favorite songs. Let your child randomly pick out a song to sing! Let your child hold the can so you can choose a random song!

Intent: The middlers LOVE singing during meeting time and all throughout the day. We want to encourage the middlers to keep singing every day and will give examples of some of their favorite songs! This activity also uses your child’s big body and will encourage gross motor development.

Outdoor/Nature/Gross Motor Invitation: Create a pouring station outside! This can be done in a storage tub, or just on the ground. In your pouring station add a mix of containers. Add water in some and keep others empty. You can add some soap or food coloring to some of the containers for some extra fun! Have your child practice pouring water from the containers into the others.

Intent: While still at school the middlers were practicing pouring their own water from a pitcher at snack time. This activity will help the middlers practice this life skill in a safe, fun, and engaging way.

Good morning! Looks like it is going to be a chilly-feeling Tuesday. Here are three ideas from middler teachers Caitlyn and Sarah for young children on a cold, possibly rainy, day.

Sensory Invitation: Bubble bin.

Mix water and dish soap or baby shampoo in a bin. Use a whisk to mix and make bubbles. Add cups for filling and dumping. You can also add food coloring and glitter for some extra fun! 🙂

Intent: The middlers love having water and bubbles in our sensory bin at school. This activity allows the middlers to enjoy multiple sensory experiences such as touch, smell, and sight.

Fine Motor Invitation: Practicing cutting with scissors. Using smaller pieces of construction paper draw a line (straight, crooked, zig zag, wiggly, etc.) Have your child practice cutting on the lines.

Intent: Cutting helps develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. This activity will help your child work on being able to hold scissors correctly and cut through a piece of paper.

Art Invitation: Try drawing while laying down! Tape a piece of paper on the bottom of a table or chair and have your child draw while lying on the ground!

Intent: This activity promotes both fine motor and gross motor development. As your child practices the pincer grip with their drawing utensil, they are also using their muscles to raise their arm to draw. This activity is fun and silly as it is a different way for your child to draw.

It’s Monday! We hope you had a wonderful weekend and were able to make time for self-care. As teachers, we have been thinking, reading, and discussing mental health for adults and children while we are all under additional stress. One theme that keeps coming up is making sure adults take a moment (or more!) for self-care on a regular basis. Perhaps the messy art invitation will give you a moment to laugh and have an extra drink of water while your child explores.

Art Invitation: Messy Art! Take your art outside and make a mess. What does it look like when your child paints with their hands? What does it look like if you invite them to explore the paint with their toes?

Intent: This activity allows for total creative control from the middlers. Big body motor skills will be used and the middlers will have fun being able to use their fingers and toes to explore the paint.

Music and Movement Invitation: Toe-ga

For this invitation you will need something small like pompoms or cotton balls and a break-resistant cup. Scatter the pompoms on the floor and set the cup in the middle of them. Challenge your toddler to use their toes to pick up the pompoms and put them into the cup using their toes. This can be a whole family exercise!

This invitation builds balance and coordination as well as strengthening children’s feet. It requires concentration and focus to get the pompoms into the cup using toes.

Outdoor/Nature/Gross Motor Invitation: Have a picnic outside today! You can picnic in the yard, on a porch or balcony, or in the middle of the floor. Your child can help find a location and carry a blanket, dishes and food to it.

Intent: Get outside and enjoy the nice weather and beautiful spring scenery. We want to encourage the middlers to use all of their big body and fine motor muscles to enhance gross motor development.

Happy Friday! It’s the beginning of a new month with so many new possibilities! Here are some invitations from Sarah and Caitlyn to begin the month of May.

Sensory Invitation: Using halved paper towel tubes and toilet paper tubes, write the letter of the alphabet on them. If you have enough tubes you can write the whole alphabet, if not you can just choose your child’s favorite letters. Mix up any magnetic, puzzle, or other letter toys and have your child sort the letters into the matching tubes. If you do not have any letter toys you can write the letters on a piece of paper and cut them out for your child to sort.

Intent: The middlers are working on recognizing letters. This activity helps them with more letter recognition as well as sorting practice which uses the pincer grip, strengthening fine motor development.

Fine Motor Invitation: Sticker Lines. Draw a couple of different lines (zig-zag, loopy, squiggley, etc.) and have your child put stickers on top. This could be done on the wall, floor, or even outside!

Variation: If you do not have stickers they could trace with paint or different color markers.

Intent: The middlers enjoy having stickers in the middler room! This activity enhances fine motor development by using the hand muscles and pincer grip to place each sticker.

Art Invitation: Use any size cardboard box to build a house for your child or their lovies. They can use markers or crayons to decorate the house however they want. The Day the Crayons Came Home by Drew Daywalt or Box by Min Flyte are nice companions to this invitation.

Intent: This activity gives the middlers an opportunity to explore different creative options while making something they can have for personal use.