Blog: Middlers

Can you believe it’s the last day of April? Whether you are just joining us or have been using these invitations all month, we are so glad you are here. Below you will find three ideas for twos and young threes to explore on what looks like it will be a wet and possibly stormy day.

Sensory Invitation: Water Play with Sponges
Gather any sponges you have available. Use a small plastic bin, bucket, or even the bathtub filled with enough water to cover the bottom surface. Show your child how to squeeze the sponge to release the water.
Have your child practice filling a small bucket or bowl from squeezing the water from the sponge.
Observe how the sponge floats.
Place small toys on the sponge to see if they sink or float.

Intent: This sensory activity is full of motor development. These repetitive motions of squeezing will help build fine motor strength. Playing with water can also be calming for your child to play with as well as a fun sensory experience.

Fine Motor Invitation: Tracing numbers and letters. Write out numbers 1-10 (or higher if you want) and have your child trace over them. They can use their favorite color marker or even finger paint to trace.

You could also write out your child’s name or letters that they are familiar with for them to trace, as well.

Intent: The middlers have become increasingly interested in letters recently, especially the letters in their names. This activity enhances fine motor development by using the hand muscles to move over the numbers and letters.

Art Invitation: Draw a picture for one of your friends, teachers, extended family, etc. and send it to them. This can be through email or snail mail.

Intent: We’re hoping to help provide connection and a sense of contribution to young children.

Outdoor/Nature/Gross Motor Invitation: Make your own bird feeder!
Use an empty toilet paper roll. Spread a small layer of peanut (or other nut) butter on the outside of the toilet paper roll. Then roll the whole covered roll in bird seed. When you’re done, add string through the roll and hang your bird feeder on a branch outside!

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.

 

Good morning! It’s Wednesday and looks like it’s going to be another warm day. Here are some invitations that you can offer your child inside or outside.

Sensory Invitation: Wash muddy cars, balls, etc. in a container with soapy water. You can even make a shower for your toys by cutting holes in the bottom of a cup and pouring water into it.

Intent: We use sensory activities for the middlers to explore their five senses. This activity will allow for the middlers to enjoy multiple sensory experiences such as touch, hearing, and sight.

Art/Science Invitation: Chromatography Butterfly
Use a white coffee filter and draw a thick circle in the middle with a non-permanent marker (think about the ring around the bullseye on a target). Fold the coffee filter in half and then in half again so it’s in a cone shape. Get a short glass of water. Pull apart the coffee filter so it balances right on the glass with only the tip of the coffee filter cone touching the water. Make sure the colored marker part does NOT go in the water. Let the filter sit and watch what happens as the water begins to flow up the paper.

Note: If you do not have basket-type coffee filters, you can cut a circle from a paper towel. We had a little trouble keeping just the tip in the water, but the experiment was a success.

When completed and dry add a string or pipe cleaner to the middle to create a butterfly!

Intent: This is an art experiment for the middlers to complete start to finish. This activity helps promote fine motor development using the pincer grip. This also allows the middlers to observe how the water flows up and mixes with the color of the marker they used.

Outdoor/Nature/Gross Motor Invitation: Color Run
On your driveway or sidewalk, color four (or more) areas (draw circles or squares) with different colors of chalk. Call out a color and have your child run to that color. Call out different colors in random orders. You can ask your child to jump, run, skip, etc. to the colored area.

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 muscles to enhance gross motor development. This activity also promotes color recognition.

Good morning! We are excited for more beautiful weather today. Any of these invitations can be taken outside, or done in your home.

Sensory Invitation: Sensory Scavenger Hunt
Find something that makes a crunch sound
Find something that smells good
Find something smooth
Find something rough
Find something loud
Find something soft
Find something white
Find something with three or more colors on it

Intent: We use sensory activities for the middlers to explore their five senses. This activity will use all of their senses and allow for them to search for the different sensory experiences.

Fine Motor Invitation: Connect the dots. Using five different colors draw two dots of each color randomly on a piece of paper. Have your child connect the dots.

Intent: The middlers love using markers while drawing at the art table! This activity enhances fine motor development by using the hand muscles to correctly hold the marker and move it around to connect the dots.

Art Invitation: Crayon Resist Art
Have your child draw on a piece of paper with a white crayon (make sure your child presses firmly down so there is enough wax on the paper). When they are done, have them paint over their drawing with water colors. Whatever was drawn with the white crayon will magically appear when painted over with watercolors!

Variation: Have a parent/adult draw with the white crayon, and have the child magically expose the drawing using the water colors.

Intent: This is an art experiment for the middlers to complete start to finish. This activity helps promote fine motor development using the pincer grip.

Welcome back! It looks like it will be a beautiful day in Durham. We hope these invitations for 2’s and young 3’s will engage your young child today, or any day you want to offer them.

Sensory Invitation: Making Fizzy Cloud Dough
Mix 1 cup flour, 1 cup baking soda, ¼ cup veg oil
Let your child play around with the mixture to see how it feels. They can shape and mold the cloud dough. When ready, start by adding just a few drops of vinegar to the mixture and watch it fizz! Experiment with how much vinegar you add to see how much the mixture will fizz!

** This may turn out to be a fairly messy experiment depending on how much vinegar you add. Please make sure to cover the surfaces you use or do this experiment outside for an easier clean up.**

Intent: This allows the middlers to watch the physical properties of the cloud dough change immediately after adding the vinegar. In one invitation they get to experience different feelings of the mixture both before and after the addition of vinegar.

Fine Motor Invitation: Sorting by colors. Use a marker to divide a big piece of paper into six sections. At the top label each section with red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Sort cars, animals, blocks, etc. by color. Count how many objects you have for each color.

Intent: This activity incorporates fine motor development by using their hand muscles to pick up and place each item on the paper.This activity promotes the use of the pincer grip by grabbing some of the smaller items with their thumb and index finger. This activity also enhances cognitive development by incorporating matching and color recognition.

Art Invitation: Using your toy cars, dip the wheels in paint and create tracks with the cars. If possible use cars with different sized or shaped wheels.

Intent: We encourage the middlers to continue using art materials to express their creativity. This will allow for your child to work on a simple project (painting) with unconventional materials (the car wheels).

Outdoor/Nature/Gross Motor Invitation: Play Simon Says and include big body movements.

“Mommy/Daddy says jump up and down.”
“Mommy/Daddy says run and touch the tree.”
“Mommy/Daddy says go find a stick.”
“Mommy/Daddy says crawl on the ground.”

Variation: Have your child ask you to do the movements.

Intent: Get outside and enjoy the nice weather and beautiful spring scenery. This invitation also encourages careful listening, and following/giving directions.